In this post I would like to focus on the issue which is near and dear to every business owner. Obviously, there are numerous tactics to boost sales and increase revenue. However, I am going to take a closer look at one single tool, that has been receiving quite a buzz in the business world for some time now. Read on to learn how to use live chat to boost sales.
Let me start off by saying that there are many study results circulating around the web, showing that the majority of people find chat to be helpful and plan to return to a website which has one.
Numbers do not lie. This in itself should raise your awareness as to how important live chat might be to your clients. There are a number of immediate and long term advantages stemming from having a real-time communication platform installed on your website. Take a look below to find out how to boost sales using live chat.
Boost sales by focusing on the human factor
Live chat deals with a very important issue in e-commerce from the customer’s standpoint. It provides the opportunity to talk to a live person in real time, in order to obtain information which can, in fact, make or brake a sale.
Having a real person answer customers’ questions in detail during shopping is one of the most important factors in online business because it makes people feel taken care of. Live chat platform is also a more efficient tool, due to usually a lot shorter waiting time, than call center or email. Both parties can multitask while they are holding a conversation and the entire experience is a little more relaxed in general.
Remember, however, to make sure that the chat staff are there when your target clients are browsing your website. Use analytics to establish (peak) shopping hours and have people ready to provide advice and boost sales whenever the opportunity to do so arises.
Address customers’ pain points
Alright, we know that live chat is important to customers from the psychological point of view. It makes the online shopping experience a lot more familiar by placing a live person on the other end, who acts as a professional retail clerk by providing advice and information.
Let me now try and be more precise. The task of a chat operator is actually subtler than that. The chat software itself is only means to solve some of customers’ potentially many problems, such as the need to receive more information or become assured of certain things before making a purchase.
The reason why live chat is better than, for example FAQ section, is not only because it reduces the backlog of emails containing questions that might have been answered immediately, and thus positively influenced the sales decision. It also allows your staff to provide solutions to customers’ pain points – doubts or worries concerning your products and services – in real time and in a much more flexible manner than a bunch of rigid sentences, which may not be the kind of answer a clients is looking for.
Live chat helps you to boost sales by being able to guide customers through processes, address their doubts, and turn them from passive browsers to active shoppers in real time!
Increase sales by providing personalized offer
There is a growing trend in e-commerce towards delivering personalized offers to customers. This practice is utilized to present a potential buyer with a tailor-made offer and boost sales as a result. The process is mostly automated these days, however, live chat software operated by a live person can prove to be as much, if not more, useful.
A chat operator could, for example, access the shopper’s account to view the history of his/her purchases, and based on this information make suggestions regarding some new products. The Single Sign-On option offered by Chatwee, where a person logs in once and can browse the store (or any other site that requires an account) and talk via chat using the same profile (no need for the operator to ask for a name), would come in handy.
You could also consider giving discount codes via chat to people who are not sure, but are thinking about making large purchases, or as a form of gratification to more loyal customers.
Live chat is friendlier than telephone, for example, because a client will not have to make a decision in an instant and will not feel the same kind of pressure as over the phone.
Collect useful information
Another application of live chat, which should also help you boost sales in the long run, is the opportunity it creates to collect information and feedback first-hand.
There are actually two ways you can use live chat to improve your offer. One, you can be proactive and have chat operators ask people visiting your website quick two, maybe three questions regarding the changes they would like to see and if the products have met their expectations. Or, and you can be pretty sure this will happen, you can wait for people to report website errors, make complaints and ask some general questions.
This is all valuable information for any business and you should not avoid providing your clients with means to voice their opinions. Instead, you should hear them out and introduce changes, which seem to be of importance to many of them.
Live chat may also prove to be a great means for early recognition of problems people experience while using your website. If such a situation should occur, many of them may not want to bother with email but will gladly report a problem to a real person via chat.
Deliver excellent customer experience
Research indicates that excellent customer experience becomes an increasingly important factor for customers, and is expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator in the near future.
Great CX is comprised of many ingredients. In times of ever-growing rush, and attention span getting shorter, being able to respond to customers’ queries in a timely fashion is definitely at the top of priority list. Try to always be a step ahead and anticipate your clients’ moves.
A good way to start – using live chat – would be to set up automatically triggered greeting messages, indicating that you are ready to help. Make sure you are there for a client who is not sure about certain items from your offer and needs clarification – timing is of utmost importance.
Remember, that if a client will not get the information s/he requires on time, which in practice means quite instantly, s/he will not only most likely leave your website, but may also post negative comments or rate it poorly.
Keeping the above in mind, instruct your live chat operators to remind clients to follow you on social media if they are happy with the service they have received. This will help you build long-term brand loyalty and spread the word about your business in clients’ social networks. Word of mouth marketing they can do for you is the most efficient kind of marketing you can hope to receive.
Make your company stand out
Being able to stand out among your competition might be one of the most difficult tasks to complete in most industries out there.
Particular product features, the quality of services and prices are some of the obvious fields that you will be maneuvering in. However, to build a distinct and successful brand you need more. The concept of corporate identity – a logo, colors and shapes – plays a huge role in the process.
Why not, then, one-up your competition by delivering service that they do not have in the form of live chat, that can be customized in accordance with your CI? As it stems from the points made above, being able to talk to a real person during online shopping is valued greatly by the majority of people.
Provide them with the tool they need and make it an integral part of your website to increase brand awareness and raise trust. Upload real photos as avatars for your chat operators, adjust colors and fonts, and make sure that your customers can receive transcripts of their conversations for greater security.
Conclusions
Above, I have discussed a number of ways to boost sales using live chat. As it turns out, of the greatest importance in the process seems to be the human factor. Customers seek contact with a real person in situations, where they come across technical problems or have doubts about the offer.
It is up to you, dear business owner, to address your customers’ pain points by dispersing doubts and providing personalized offer to meet their needs. At the same time, you can collect a lot of useful information about the way you are perceived by your clientele and introduce necessary changes.
All this will result in great customer experience and satisfaction, which influence brand loyalty and help to increase sales. All in all, with no-fuss installation and a number of customization options available, live chat seems to be a great tool to make people push their shopping carts to check out instead of abandoning them midway.
