‘But does my business actually need any changes? It’s been functioning pretty well as it is’. Fair enough, why fix something that’s not broken, right? Well, in this post I wont be trying to push for any fundamental changes to the ways you operate in. I do have a couple of suggestions, though, for alternatives you can provide TO YOUR CUSTOMERS in different, mostly digital, areas that serve as contact points with your company. Stay with me to learn how chat widget can deliver alternatives that any business could use.
Basically, if you’re a business owner, it’s good to test the waters and experiment from time to time, to see if there are any solutions that may make your operations smoother and your clients’ lives easier.
In this digital age, your website seems like the perfect playground to test new toys in. It also often is the first point of contact for potential customers, so you should make the first impression count. Luckily, implementing minor tweaks is rather fast and easy, and the results can be seen instantly.
Recently, I discussed live widget as a business booster. The post that you’re reading right now is on a similar note. It’s goal is to show how you can create alternatives to certain facets of running a business online, that are aimed at improving the overall customer experience.
Let’s now take a closer look at certain areas, where live chat widget can be an alternative to more traditional solutions and actually have an upper hand over them. My point is to make you aware of the usefulness of this tool and convince you to give it a try, as plenty of research shows it to be the clients’ favorite.
Ok, so where can chat widget constitute a useful alternative?
Phone support
Let me start with what is perhaps the most obvious area. It’s no longer a surprise that clients prefer live chat for customer service, with 73% satisfaction level, compared to only 44% for telephone. There’s a number of reasons for such state of affairs.
Using chat widget as the contact point with a business, customers don’t have to pay anything or wait for an extended time only to be greeted by an automated answering system, which often only adds fuel to the fire.
Getting real-time answers from a human operator is a lot more efficient in terms of client satisfaction. Besides, a single chat widget operator can handle a number of conversations simultaneously which is an extra boon for your business, bringing in savings.
Implementing live chat widget as an alternative to telephone customer service is a win for both parties involved.
Email support
This is another traditional channel for providing customer service that perhaps could use an extension in the form of live chat widget. While I agree that some business correspondence is better off staying in email in order to keep certain formal conventions, having chat widget installed on your site would decrease the number of nonessential messages in your inbox, that could’ve been answered with lesser effort, using more informal and less time consuming language, via live chat.
Email is obviously free, but it’s the real time aspect of chat widget, that makes it an efficient alternative to exchanging, often netiquette-heavy, messages back and forth, especially when they concern some not extremely important matters.
On the other hand, getting an instant response to a product-related question can positively influence a purchase decision, whereas waiting for an email reply for days may just do the opposite.
Comment section
If you’re running a website that regularly publishes original content, you want people to discuss and share it. One of the ways to facilitate the former is by adding a comment section to let people ramble about what they’ve read.
Now, this of course is a nice way to bring in more traffic, as people return to read and reply to each other’s comments, but what about having live chat widget, where they could do all this in real time, holding private and public conversations?
You might naturally be worried about spam and general chaos that could ensue, but chat widget like Chatwee offers a bunch of powerful moderation and log in options to curb the intentions of any potential trouble makers.
Take a moment to read more on the ways in which chat widget can support a comment section on a website.
FAQ section
Did you ever get frustrated by not being able to find the information you need on a website? Yeah, we’ve all been there, and your website visitors are no exception.
FAQ are a neat way to compile answers to a lot of the most likely questions that customers may have regarding your business. By no means are they an exhaustive, know it all source. No matter how well you structure them and how many topics you cover, there will always be some frequent questions you may not be even aware of, that customers are looking to get answers for.
Chat widget provides a boost to FAQ by allowing people who visit your site to get immediate answers to questions they may find important in the process of making their purchase decision.
Contact section
So, how is chat widget supposed to be an alternative to a contact section? Well, that’s assuming you have a separate page for that, instead of just a mere email address typed in miniature font somewhere in the site’s footer, and that’s still not that much of an outrageous assumption to make.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to convince you to abolish a contact form or postal address for some of the formal correspondence. All I’m saying is that chat widget could provide an alternative channel for your customers to contact you in regards to some minor inquiries.
Email has the reputation of not being answered swiftly enough (at least in the eyes of customers) so why not provide them with a tool to get immediate answers? Even if you feel like you don’t really need to use live chat in other areas discussed here, you could embed it only in the contact tab, maybe even with an additional information what is it supposed to be used for, if you fear an avalanche of silly questions or requests.
Chat widget as an alternative to social media presence
It’s certainly true that most businesses are now also on social media sites, because that’s where their customers also are, and there’s nothing wrong with it. However, you might want to consider growing a community of loyal customers or brand fans directly on your website by adding group chat widget to it.
Your goal would be to redirect at least some of the traffic your fanpage is getting back to your site, where you can actually take steps to make sales and do business, instead of letting potential and present customers roam a third-party platform full of distractions.
What’s more, a solution like Chatwee allows its users to share media like photos and YouTube videos, which is a huge part of social media activity, as well as comment or like them, in a way very similar to Facebook.
It would also help if you had a dynamic content section on your website, to give people something to discuss in real time, like a blog, for example, to build relations and foster online community growth.
Conclusions
To sum things up, live chat widget constitutes an easy to implement, very affordable and non invasive alternative or booster to many of the contact points with your business.
Such a tool helps you create savings in manpower and time. It also shows that you’re open to discussion and approachable, willing to listen to what your customers have to say.
Essentially, chat widget creates a free, instant communication channel, an opportunity for clients to get immediate answers, which is so valued these days. It’s really hard to see how can your company and customers not benefit from a solution like that.
What stops you from giving it a try, then? It won’t cost you anything and comes with no strings attached, guaranteed. Sign up anytime in the top right corner of the page.
