By Lauren Williams

In today’s digital era, speed plays a huge role. Whether it’s overnight shipping or having access to your service/products instantly, your customers want everything to be done quickly, and more often than not, they generally get it. 

If you run a small business, the thought of keeping up with such instant demand of your customers can be quite daunting. According to a study by Forrester,  in the U.S, 53% of buyers are more likely to leave a site without purchasing if they don’t get quick responses to their queries.

While it isn’t possible to completely avoid low conversion rates and abandoned carts, providing impeccable customer service can help reduce the revenue havoc triggered by these challenges.  This is where live chat software comes to play. 

So, What Is A Live Chat?

According to experts, when businesses incorporate live chat on their websites, consumers are “more likely to buy and less likely to abandon their sessions.”

Live chat is a type of software that enables your customers to have access to real-time information when they visit your site. It’s convenient, quick, and consumers prefer it because it is quicker than other digital service channels.

Today, most major companies use a live chat app to offer better service to their customers and boost response times. Chatbots are transforming the overall customer service experience. It’s no wonder why 33 percent of buyers now expect websites to offer live chat.

That said, live chat software provides more than just quick customer support. Below are 3 ways live chat apps positively benefit small businesses:

Increase sales & conversions:

One of the first major advantages of incorporating live chat to your site is the possibility to maximize sales. As per a research conducted by the American Market Association, b2b organizations who incorporated live chat in their websites saw an average increase of 20% in conversions. 

When your customers or prospects visit your site, they’ll have questions regarding your products/services. By using live chat, you’ll be able to offer an instant response while the consumer is still browsing your site. This, in turn, will help increase sales.

Reduce support cost

Customer support is quite expensive. Also, a customer service associate can only handle one customer chat at a time. With live chat, everything changes.  It allows you to manage a number of customer chats at a time, which means you won’t need a big support team to handle the requests of your customers. This also helps in reducing support costs. 

Satisfy your prospective buyers

Live chat offers a great opportunity for you to refine your customer support and offer excellent customer service. That’s why buyers prefer using live chat. According to a  survey,  41 percent of customers preferred live chat support.

Another study indicates that live chat provides a customer satisfaction rating of 73 percent as compared to other customer service channels, with 44 percent for phone and 61 percent for email.

Ways to Use Live Chat Effectively for Your Organization

Here are some ways to make live chat app work for your organization:

Proactively Customize Your Live Chat Software

Customizing what the buyers see the first time they interact with the live chat solution can help avoid unnecessary chat conversations. Make sure the welcome message is clear and transparent as it’ll help set the expectations concerning when the chat is active and the time it’ll take to connect with an associate. Additionally, your site can feature FAQ articles and recent tweets to offer information to customers about common queries or widespread problems.

 Average Handle Time

When customers connect with the support agents, their expectations grow. Consumers want comprehensive, personalized, and quick support. According to a survey, 38 % of consumers are frustrated about receiving scripted responses. By leveraging the right live chat solution, you can offer better support to your customers in a much personalized and quicker manner.

Also, setting up notifications is important as it’ll enable the support team to meet expectations concerning first response times. You can create a custom view that allows your team to see real-time messages as they come.

Proactively Provide Buyers The Answers They Need

If your team is bombarded with questions such as “where’s my order?”, a lot of valuable time would be wasted which otherwise would have been used to focus on actual customer issues. Here’s what you can do instead to proactively provide your buyers the answers they need:

• Compile a solid FAQ page, where you can answer all the common questions without the need to sacrifice valuable chat time.
• Make use of the custom welcome screen for notifying customers regarding queries that don’t require your assistance. Provide links to relevant resources like information regarding their recent purchase.

Automate To Ensure Organized Support Conversations

As your business expands and operation scales, it can be quite hard for your agents to cater to customer priorities and queries efficiently. That’s when automation can be of great help. Use it to:

• Connect buyers with associates in the right path automatically.
• Prioritize chats with specific keywords like “urgent.”
• Route big, influential prospects to the right associate.

Make Live Chat Solution Work For You

Live chat software, though it comes with its barriers, the benefits it offers surely outweigh them. As reports suggest 33 percent of consumers expect organizations to offer live chat support, using it on your site can increase revenue. Moreover, the best live chat solution will streamline support team operations, thereby providing better support experience for your customers and team.

Author Bio:

My name is Lauren Williams, currently working as a SMM at MedicoReach. I have been working in the B2B healthcare industry for a decade now. Through my blogs, I keep the industry updated on latest trends, development, and advances across the various segments.