Biz Extra
Published: May 25, 2021 | Updated: 26th May 2021
Gone are the days of waiting in a phone queue, writes Natalka Antoniuk, Marketing Manager, Digital Storm.
We’re all pretty tired of awful hold music. Email was a preferable option, but it never offered the instant response that most of us want or need.
Bring on live chat. The quickest, easiest and most desirable way for customers to get in touch with a business.
Live chat has been the contact option of choice for many years now, with 41% of people expecting this channel on your website. This percentage gets even higher for mobile users, with over half of people expecting to find live chat.
Believe it or not, live chat was launched in the ‘70s but only now are we seeing huge growth in popularity. Businesses from numerous industries, all over the world, are embracing the leading digital contact method for online customers.
Why?
Because live chat is instant. It allows customers to get answers to their questions immediately. It also means that they can multitask and obtain better information than they would do via email.
So it’s the digital contact method that your customers want and expect. It’s what they’ll look for if they have a question. Not having a live chat option is the equivalent of ignoring half of your online customers. So why do only 9% of businesses currently have a live chat function on their website?
There are several reasons why you might be against installing a live chat feature on your website. But what if I told you that most of them are myths…
Many business owners think that enabling a live chat on their website means that someone has to be online all the time to answer queries as soon as they come through. That isn’t the case.
You can be online all the time. You can also use a chatbot or automated response to deal with enquiries while you’re not at your desk. We like to monitor the chat manually during business hours, if any messages come through when we’re not at our desks they’ll get redirected to our inbox.
This one is true in a sense. The instantaneous communication offered by live chat doesn’t work if the responses are coming from a programmed robot. However, you don’t have to use that feature.
While an automated message is a great way to start the conversation and gather information about your visitors’ enquiry, your customers may prefer to speak to a human straight away.
The live chat software that Digital Storm uses allows you to see new or returning visitors landing on our website and reach out to them immediately. You’ll never have to use a robot if that’s not something your customers would be happy with.
In our experience, small businesses owners are against the idea of having a live chat installed on their website because they think it is out of their budget. This couldn’t be further from the truth and, depending on the features your business needs, you might find there is no monthly fee associated with your live chat at all.
As I’ve already shown in the introduction, people do use live chat (when it’s available). Almost half of your visitors expect you to have it as an option. Yet, while 90% of businesses agree that they need social media to offer better customer service, only 9% of businesses are using live chat.
79% of visitors prefer interacting with a business via live chat because of the immediacy it offers compared to other channels. Think about how many enquiries you might have missed because people simply couldn’t be bothered to wait for your response.
Now that we’ve covered the myths, hopefully, you’re warming to the idea of installing live chat on your website. Just in case you aren’t convinced, here are a few more statistics that are impossible to argue with.
Do you want to improve customer satisfaction? Live chat is the best communication tool to make that happen. A study by SuperOffice in 2020 found that live chat had an 82% satisfaction rating, compared with only 61% for email and 44% for phone.
Do you want to increase sales and generate more leads? You know what I’m going to say… A 2021 study by Reve found that customers who engaged with a business via live chat were 82% more likely to make a purchase!
It’s hard to argue with stats like that.
So if you want to increase customer satisfaction whilst reaching your businesses sales goals, you need to seriously consider getting a live chat installed on your website. That’s something Digital Storm would be happy to help with.
Why not head over to our website, and speak to one of our team via the live chat service. We’ve made sure it couldn’t be easier.
