What is the burning desire of every business? Increase market share through customer loyalty! What is the major cause of losing customers in an e-commerce environment? Unaddressed customer “pain points”. Pain points are the chronic issues (or even new ones) that have been unresolved for extended periods of time.
Business analytics and data mining reports show too many customers signing out of memberships or walking out of websites, leaving behind full shopping carts.
Customers surfing the online business shops have one common fear: the fear of the unknown or the lack of trust. Think about the mortar and brick shops where a customer enters to purchase a professional specification camera.
The customer would have a dozen questions which would be answered by a couple of experts on duty. The expert salesmen would understand completely what the customer wants. The customer is a still life photographer and takes pictures on an impulse. The salesman knows just the right camera for this customer.
He/she is able to add a couple of goodies with the purchase (a free camera bag and an extra lens). The customer tries out the product and is stuck at a point. But is soon relieved of the issues and informed on how to take care of upcoming issues.
The satisfied customer now believes that they are getting a great bargain – more value for their money. The salesman offers an extended warranty to support any technical issues and replacements. Did the customer buy the camera?
The satisfied customer now believes that they are getting a great bargain – more value for their money. The salesman offers an extended warranty to support any technical issues and replacements. Did the customer buy the camera?
You bet. They did.
Now let’s look at a scenario where the customer is browsing through a professional camera manufacturer website.
The site is as expected – a showcase of scintillating images and enthralling captures. The customer is awed at the clarity and wants to purchase a camera that gives an impressive quality akin to the site. The site provides remarkable product detail with easy price and capability comparison.
The customer has already zeroed in on what they want and has been hovering on the selected product for about thirty minutes. The customer is a bit confused by now.
They have a product comparison question and need to ask the site a few questions before making the purchase. The customer finds the Contact Us page and fills out their query and hits the “submit” button. The customer decided to wait. Within twenty-four hours, a response is provided, but unfortunately, the site had already lost the customer.
Why do you think?
Thanks to the online marketing and advertising efforts made on the browsers and websites, the customer was coaxed to enter the competitor’s website. This site was equally amazing, flashing with real-life quality images.
The customer finds the same product and has the same questions. Upon hovering for less than five minutes over the target product, the customer sees a chat session invitation interface floating on top of the screen.
The question on the screen says: “Good day ? We noticed you have been looking for the XYX Camera. You seem to have a question. Is there anything we can help you with right now?”
The customer immediately dives into the chat box and relieves their “pain point” questions. The satisfied customer is now very confident and finally, hits the “buy” button.
Yes, they finally made the purchase. Perhaps in lesser time than the mortar and brick shopping scenario. What do you think was the main reason behind this swift purchase? The trust factor support. When an online shopping experience is warmly and rapidly supported with live support, it diminishes any foreboding feelings of uncertainty.
Putting the customer at ease with the aid of live chat has shown to boost sales, boost turnovers and repeat buyers. E-commerce sites can now enjoy the numerous facilities provided by various live chat software. These include, but are not limited to visitor monitoring, proactive chat, chat routing, announcements and even capturing qualified leads with pre-chat form.
Watch: Live Chat Best Practices ?
Live chat software is built along the same lines as social media applications. Customers are familiar with chat controls in a way that the software never obstructs communication. The challenge here is not training the employees on excellent customer service skills, but training them on how to utilize the best live chat tools according to a given situation. Business analysis helps companies understand their customers better and improve service by giving them insights into customer preferences and behaviour. That’s why companies are putting emphasis on business analytics benefits and implementing them.
Another challenge is keeping up with the “live” chat support image. Many companies provide chat support during their “office hours”. A good idea here is to observe the timings and activity levels on your site. Also, determine the geographical areas that make requests during the peak hours. If providing live chat support services during those hours is not feasible for your business, considering live chat outsourcing services. The bottom line here is that live chat support services, when provided 24/7, increase the chances of customer attraction and retention.
Still feeling skeptical? Here are six additional reasons why you need to use live chat tools within your site.
1. Increase Customer Satisfaction
Customers nowadays desire immediate answers to their questions. The 1-800 number is increasingly dreaded and so is the “your call is important to us…” operator dialogues! Not to mention the wait times and the tossing around associated with these toll-free calls. Live chats services offer quick and precise responses to customers. These are offered during the decision making stages of the site browsing and cart filling. When customers know what they need to know, they are confident of their purchases. Moreover, live chats immediately put any trust issues to rest. The customer knows that help is just a few keystrokes away.
Also Read: Top 10 Live Chat Etiquettes to Boost Customer Satisfaction
2. Improve Customer Loyalty
A customer never forgets a kind word or a kind offer. Also, the written word has a deeper impact than the spoken word. It stays firm in the memory. Another great reason for boosting loyalty is the language barrier. Most international customers cannot speak the English language well but can type impressively (or even convey their thoughts accurately). Live chat tools offer support services to such customer categories. Also, when multiple language live chat support is offered, the company is able to serve an even wider multi-lingual and diverse customer body.
Related Read: Building Customer Loyalty with Live Chat Software
3. Close Customer Service cases Faster
Live chat cases are resolved faster than opening a support ticket for resolution. This provided the company has well trained live support staff who are well-versed with the product and who work together in teams to solve issues for each other. A responsive and reliable case resolution earns customer trust and loyalty faster than any other kind of support. Another great factor of the text-based support is that the ease of documenting and maintaining heuristics. The company is able to solve repeat problems even faster by recalling similar use cases.
4. Upsell and Make More Money
Perhaps the best part about integrating the live chat software within your website is the reduction in customer service costs. Think about the hardware and set up costs related to providing “call center” style support. The money saved is as good as revenue generated. And of course, providing immediate feedback to the customer has always proven to bring in greater value for the customer leading to increased sales.
5. Increase Conversion Rates
Marketing products that are supported by live chat services are more likely to experience quicker conversion rates. When customers receive support in the very initial stages of product exploration, they are able to try out the product with a “purchase this” mindset.
Related Read- Increase conversion with the best Conversion optimization tools available in the market
6. Reach your Customer Anywhere
Live chat tools offer customer support services regardless of their geographical location and time zone. Employees out-sourced for this task may not need to travel to a physical location, similar to a call center. Rather, they can work remotely at any hours to meet the demands of the customers. The most important questions that customers based globally have are the issues related to shipping and handling. The information related to shipping plays a major role in the online purchase process. A live chat service that offers immediate and honest answers to shipping and handling questions related to a particular region will receive more customer base. Another point worth mentioning here is the use of customized welcome responses to the chat queries instead of standard and generic responses. Customers all over the world respond better to a more personal message in a chat box as compared to the similar dialogues heard at the 1-800 dial ups.
The most important questions that customers based globally have are the issues related to shipping and handling. The information related to shipping plays a major role in the online purchase process. A live chat service that offers immediate and honest answers to shipping and handling questions related to a particular region will receive more customer base. Another point worth mentioning here is the use of customized welcome responses to the chat queries instead of standard and generic responses. Customers all over the world respond better to a more personal message in a chat box as compared to the similar dialogues heard at the 1-800 dial ups.
Another point worth mentioning here is the use of customized welcome responses to the chat queries instead of standard and generic responses. Customers all over the world respond better to a more personal message in a chat box as compared to the similar dialogues heard at the 1-800 dial ups.
Live chat software are increasingly replacing the call center support systems. For the majority of the customers worldwide, a faster and agile method of customer support is needed. This is mainly because of the large volume of information bombarded constantly at the customer (when browsing). Making sense out of this information or even trusting a resource is a major drawback that prevents customer conversion. Live chat support tools offer multiple methods of live communication to satisfy all queries of the customer. Very soon, these tools will become mainstream methods of customer support.
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