Seal the Deal with Live Web Chat

These days it seems as if every transaction you could imagine, from booking a holiday, to meeting your future spouse, to picking out a week’s groceries, is being carried out on the internet. That means that your business’s website is becoming every bit as important as your traditional bricks and mortar office or storefront. It seems safe to say that this is a trend that is only going to continue and accelerate over the coming months and years. It’s a trend that brings with it tremendous opportunity. But as is so often the case, along with all of this opportunity comes a challenge.

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The challenge you face as a business owner is to find a way to maximize the benefit offered by your online presence while ensuring that all of those virtual window shoppers who visit you online become real world customers who support your business. In an increasingly global market place your customer or potential client has more choice than he or she has ever had before.  In order to make your business stand out from the crowd you need to make sure you’re offering the best customer experience you possibly can.  That’s why your website needs live web chat.

SO WHAT IS LIVE CHAT?

Simply put, it’s the exchange of messages in real time through the internet.  If that makes live chat sound extraordinarily straightforward that’s because that’s exactly what it is. It’s really not complicated.  The customer types a question, comment or concern into a text box which pops up while they are on your website and you or your representative are able to respond almost immediately. If you imagine that your company’s website is like a store or a showroom featuring the products or services that your business offers, then the addition of a live web chat feature is like offering your clients the services of a commercial concierge. With live web chat your customer will have the help of someone who is able to show them around and help them find what they are looking for with an absolute minimum of fuss or inconvenience.

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The great thing about live chat is that it’s easy to use, remarkably flexible and surprisingly inexpensive to set up.  In an overcrowded market place, live chat integration in your website allows you to offer around the clock sales and live online support to your clientele wherever they are.  If someone in the United Kingdom, in India or in Malaysia needs your help or advice at 2 a.m. on a Thursday, thanks to live web chat your company can be there for him.

WHY IS THAT IMPORTANT?

Well, first and foremost it’s convenient for your customers and for your potential customers, and in today’s economy more than ever, convenience is king. People are busy. A potential client who is looking for a product or service online and decides they need help is going to want and expect that help to be available quickly.  He or she is not going to be prepared to wait until tomorrow.  They don’t want to wait an hour or two. They don’t even want to wait 20 minutes. And with live web chat they don’t have to.

Live chat lets your customer reach out to you and receive a far faster response than you would normally expect through other means.  They don’t need to wait until Monday morning for someone to check their email. They don’t need to go look for their phone. There’s no fear of a dropped call, a busy signal or even a wrong number. There is no need for them to navigate a maze of number pushing in order to get to speak to a real person. There is no opportunity for any distractions of any kind.

With live web chat your customer can seek out the information she is looking for seamlessly, with your website still open in front of her. And that’s key. If you allow them to leave your site without finding what they need, there’s every chance that they’ll look elsewhere and won’t be back.

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Here’s another point about live web chat that’s often overlooked. Live chat allows for a personal touch that’s otherwise unavailable online. That personal touch allows the live chat agent to build rapport with your potential customer. Even with the web-based economy we know today, customers are understandably wary of buying a product or service over the internet from someone who they do not know and who they will probably never meet. That human touch that’s offered by live chat can go a very long way toward building the trust and the confidence needed to close the deal.

And bear in mind that it’s very likely that a customer who is looking at your website is already interested in the products or services you have on offer. Why else would they be there?  Live chat gives the customer the opportunity to get all of the information he needs to make a purchase without having to look elsewhere online. That’s important. This is worth repeating. If he moves on to another website there’s every chance he won’t be back.  Live chat lets you close the sale.

What else can live chat do? Well, with live chat support for your website you are able to take your customer and walk them step by step through the sales process.  You may even be able to recommend some additional purchases as they go through the process and as you get a better understanding of your client’s needs. It’s a process which encourages your customer to engage with you by making it very easy for them to get in touch. And here’s one more important point. Using live chat comes with absolutely no cost to your client, and that holds true regardless of whether he lives across the street or around the globe.

WANT TO KNOW MORE? HERE ARE A COUPLE OF QUICK POINTS.

1. Live chat is efficient. One agent can handle as many as ten times more web chats as they could phone calls.

2. Live chat is popular. In fact, it has the highest customer satisfaction level of any of the major customer service channels that are currently available, at a very solid seventy three per cent. For comparison email scores sixty one percent satisfaction, social media such as Facebook or Twitter scores forty eight per cent and telephone scores forty four per cent satisfaction.

3. Live chat puts you in charge. At Intercon Messaging we can provide you with periodic updates from our full reporting suite on the various analytics that make up your customers’ online experience. Chat transcripts and clear, uncomplicated reports allow you to be sure you are kept in the loop at all times. It’s easy for you to monitor what’s going on. We can provide reports that include useful data such as the number of chats taken, the average number of chats per day, the number of missed chats and the average response time. This is valuable information and it allows you to be confident that your customers are getting the service and the information that they need. Request a quote today.

ARE THERE ANY PITFALLS TO LIVE WEB CHAT?

Not really. But it’s important to remember as with any form of verbal communication, that hitting the right tone is vital to get the most out of live chat. Your online customers are looking for a friendly natural sounding human response to their query. Responses that are overly formal or sound computer generated will simply put people off, and that’s the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. The simple solution is to make sure you have the right people managing web chat on your site.

And that’s all there is to it. Live web chat makes it easy for your customers to do business with you.  It improves customer satisfaction and enhances your online presence.  That means increased spending and more repeat business.

Contact Us Today

Getting started with web chat is easy. There’s no software to install and Intercon Messaging will assist you from start to finish. We can design the button and chat window to fully compliment your branding. We’ll work with you to ensure our agents are a perfect extension of your business and are able to provide a seamless service which will wow your customers. For more information click on the link or give us a call at 1-866-605-2558.