In an era where customers expect 24/7 service, live chat has become the go-to solution for businesses large and small.
In this article, you’ll learn what is live chat and why you need live chat to grow your business, as well as advice on how to use it effectively.
Let’s get started.
What is live chat?
Live chat is an online communication tool that enables instant messaging between a website’s visitors and its customer service agents.
Customers can get fast responses to their questions, help with transactions, or help navigating a website using live chat, which improves the overall user experience.
Modern live chat systems combine features like automated responses, CRM integration, and AI technology, making it an requirement for effective customer service strategies.
The importance of Live Chat in Customer Service
Live chat has become an essential component in customer service today, and businesses that have implemented live chat see an increase in customer loyalty, sales, and revenue.
In comparison to more conventional approaches like email or phone support, having a live chat enables businesses to provide immediate support and responses, significantly cutting response times..
The immediacy of live chat fulfills current customers’ expectations for prompt and efficient service, influencing their purchasing decisions and overall brand experience.
In fact, a website that offers live chat has a 60% higher chance of attracting repeat visitors.
How does live chat benefit your business?
Chat support offers numerous benefits to businesses. There can be a lot of benefits to implementing a live chat on your website.
Here are some of the benefits:
Instant customer support
Customers no longer want to wait for lengthy email responses or endure long hold times on phone calls.
With live chat, they can have their questions addressed faster, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. This immediate responsiveness can dramatically reduce bounce rates, thereby boosting conversions and revenue.
Personalized customer experience
Live chat enables businesses to deliver a personalized experience by allowing agents to tailor responses to individual customer needs.
By accessing customer information and browsing history in real-time, agents can gain valuable insights to better understand the customer’s preferences and pain points.
Personalized interactions foster stronger customer relationships, enhancing the likelihood of repeat business and positive word-of-mouth referrals.
Multi-tasking efficiency
Unlike traditional customer support methods, live chat empowers agents to handle multiple conversations simultaneously. It will ensure quicker problem resolution, reduce customer wait times, and increase agent productivity.
As a result, businesses can handle a higher volume of inquiries without compromising the quality of service provided.
Real-time data
Live chat provides valuable real-time data that can be used to assess and improve customer service performance.
Analytics tools can track response times, customer satisfaction levels, and common pain points, enabling businesses to fine-tune their support strategies.
The ability to collect instant feedback helps in identifying areas for improvement and making data-driven decisions to enhance the overall customer experience.
24/7 Availability
With live chat, businesses can extend their customer support beyond regular business hours and time zones.
Customers can reach out for assistance, fostering a global presence and making your business accessible 24/7.
This availability creates a competitive advantage, especially for ecommerce companies and businesses operating in diverse markets.
Real-time customer support
Real-time customer support involves providing immediate assistance to customer inquiries and issues over live chat.
It ensures quick responses to problems or concerns and creates a positive customer experience.
For instance, if a customer has pricing or product questions, a real-time agent can provide assistance and treasure them to close the sale.
How to grow your business with live chat
Live chat is becoming the standard across all industries. Businesses are even utilizing live chat to grow. Here’s how:
1. Increase customer awareness
Chat is all about providing exceptional customer service. By using live chat to answer your customers’ questions and to provide helpful, personalized responses, you essentially tell customers that you are available – almost 24/7.
This increases customer awareness and showcases your commitment to customer satisfaction and retention.
Broadening your customer awareness also helps you connect with new customers who might be interested in your business and products, but aren’t aware of your presence.
You can accomplish this by including your chat details on your home page, product pages, and anywhere else on your website where it makes sense.
2. Boost sales with easy lead generation
Chat can also help you generate leads quickly, easily, and painlessly. You can set up your live chat to automatically greet visitors with a product or offer that is relevant to their specific needs.
When a customer clicks on the product or service they’re interested in, customer support agents can prompt them to enter their information and then be offered a coupon, freebie, or valuable insight.
You can use chat to build rapport and trust with your customers, spark their interest in your products, and ultimately generate leads.
Managing leads can be difficult, check out our article “How to improve your lead management systems”.
3. Demonstrate brand awareness
A significant number of visitors are expectant that they’ll be able to connect with someone via live chat – at any time of day or night.
By failing to offer this essential customer service, you risk alienating your audience, losing business, and hurting your brand.
Your customers want to feel comfortable, welcome and appreciated. If you don’t have chat, it’s almost as if you’re actively preventing your customers from contacting you – even if it’s just to ask a quick question.
You’re also missing out on the chances to impress your customers with quick responses and personalized support.
4. Offer a better customer experience
When it comes to chat conversations, it’s important to make sure that your customers are happy. If you have a website, you can set up a widget on your site that enables site visitors to start a chat session.
This makes it easy for customers to reach out for help and start chat conversations.
You want to make sure that customers are able to get in touch with you quickly and easily. Make sure that your live chat is set up in a way that makes it easy for customers to get the help they need.
Using live chat within your business
There’s no denying that the landscape for business has changed.
Customers are no longer willing to wait days for a response to their questions; they want answers right away, and brands that can’t provide that are going to lose business.
The future of ecommerce is exciting; live chat is just one new piece of technology that can change the customer service experience forever.
Live chat is one of the most effective ways to provide instant communication with customers while proving that your brand is ready and willing to help at all times.
Even if you’re a smaller brand, you can still make use of chat to engage with your customers and show them that you are active and ready to help. Investing in chat can be one of the best decisions you make for your business.
Breadstack can get you set up with a live chat so you can continue to improve efficiency and allow yourself to scale. Contact us today to get started!
Ready to use a live chat?
