For many online businesses, communication is the glue that cements their relationship with potential and current customers. Investing in the right tools for communication is as much an important aspect of their online business as restocking inventory, producing quality products, or creating a physical location for their business.
Traditional methods like email and phone calls can be slow and inconvenient for customers, leading to frustration and abandoned purchases. Also, E-commerce websites can feel impersonal without human interaction. That’s why many have turned to live chat support, as an option for communicating with their customers and website visitors.
What is Live Chat?
Live chat is a real-time communication tool embedded directly into websites. It allows visitors to chat with human agents or chatbots via a popup window, similar to instant messaging.
In recent times, it has exploded in popularity because it boosts a business’s customer experience by providing immediate assistance and resolving issues in real-time. It also increases website engagement by allowing your team to initiate conversations, offer personalized recommendations, and guide visitors toward purchases – thereby improving the chances of landing a sale.
These days, live chat is widely used, predominantly by online stores to improve conversion rates and there are many ways this can be done which include reducing cart abandonment and closing deals with customers directly on a website.
Live chat tools offer so many benefits for e-commerce businesses, online stores, and even customers.
Nearly two-thirds of consumers (63%) choose live chat as their preferred way to communicate with businesses for support. It is no wonder that it is so popular.
If you’re unsure about the impact that live chat can have on your business, we’re here to clear up any doubts by discussing the benefits of live chat.
9 Benefits of Adding Live Chat To Your Website
Immediate & Personalized Support
Customers hate waiting. Whether it’s on-hold music, endless menus, or robotic email responses, traditional customer service channels like phone and email are often frustrating and time-consuming. This frustration can lead to abandoned purchases, negative reviews, and lost customers.
Live chat cuts straight through the wait times and delivers immediate, personalized support.
For instance, a customer browsing your product page has a quick question about sizing. With live chat, they simply type their question and receive a real-time answer from a friendly agent, all within seconds. No more holding music, no more navigating complex phone menus.
Proactive Engagement
Instead of passively waiting for website visitors to reach out, some live chat tools allow you to proactively engage with visitors. How? Some live chat tools have capabilities that let you see what pages of your website your visitors are on, making it possible for you to offer assistance to your visitors, even when they don’t know they need it.
As part of enhancing proactive engagement, you can greet visitors with a friendly message like, “Hi there! How can I help you today?” This opens the door for interaction and shows visitors you’re available.
You can also set up automated messages to pop up based on specific user behaviors. For example, welcome visitors who land on a pricing page with a question like, “Do you have any questions about our pricing plans?”
Reduce Customer Churn
When customers churn, meaning they stop using your product or service, it hurts your business financially and can damage your reputation.
Live chat can be a powerful tool to combat churn by building trust and loyalty, leading to repeat customers. How?
When customers have questions or problems, your live chat agents can provide answers quickly. This eliminates wait times and provides immediate assistance, showing you care about their needs. This responsiveness builds trust and shows you’re invested in their success.
It also adds a human touch to your business, which customers appreciate. Interacting with real people who can understand their concerns and offer empathetic solutions helps build trust and loyalty, making them more likely to stick around.
Reduce Cart Abandonment
Sometimes, shoppers fill their virtual carts and then vanish before checkout, leaving a trail of lost revenue for businesses. This may be due to buyer’s remorse or any other factor but as a business owner, your goal is to reignite your customer’s interest in the abandoned items in their cart.
With live chat, your agents can suggest alternative products or complementary items based on the user’s cart. They can also provide additional value like ‘free shipping’ and “discounts” to incentivize users to finalize their purchase.
Your agents can also help clarify complex product features, usage instructions, or coupon codes, eliminating friction in the checkout process.
Easy Access to Support
During product selection or checkout, when users might have questions or need reassurance, they often look for the fastest way to contact your business. The support options available can either impress or deter them.
Due to a common preference for quick and expedited solutions – driven by advancements in technology – people often choose real-time support over asynchronous communication. As such, their first instinct on your website is to look for the “Help” or “Contact Support” button before thinking about sending an email or calling your phone lines.
With a live chat widget, that is readily visible and accessible to users, you can provide easy access to your customer support team.
Ideally, your live chat widget should be placed prominently on the webpage, such as the bottom right corner, top navigation bar, or within key sections relevant to user needs.
Gather Valuable User Feedback
A great part of adding a live chat plugin to your website is that it allows you to eavesdrop on user thoughts and frustrations as they occur, providing immediate insights into their pain points and needs.
Unlike surveys, users don’t need to be prompted to give feedback during live chat conversations. Their concerns and questions naturally surface, offering genuine and unfiltered input. You can understand the context behind user feedback through the chat thread.
Knowing what the user was doing and feeling when they provided feedback adds valuable nuance to their words.
Apart from customer feedback, you can gauge user interest in proposed features or changes to your products to understand if it’ll be a hit or miss.
Reduce Website Bounce Rates
Users are leaving your website quickly (high bounce rate) indicates they’re not finding what they need or encountering frustrating obstacles.
Live chat can directly impact your website bounce rate by offering immediate problem-solving. With this approach, users who often bounce due to confusion or technical issues can get immediate assistance, resolving roadblocks before they lead to abandonment.
Your live chat agents can guide users through complex tasks, clarify confusing information, and smooth out the overall website experience.
Improve Agent Productivity
Live chat platforms allow agents to manage multiple chat sessions concurrently, unlike phone calls where only one interaction is possible at a time. Skilled agents can efficiently juggle several chats, resolving simple inquiries quickly and dedicating more time to complex issues. This reduces overall queue wait times and improves customer satisfaction.
Live chat features like chat summaries, canned responses, and internal notes that help agents switch between conversations help minimize the cognitive load of context switching and ensure consistent service quality across interactions.
Also, live chat tools often offer supervisor dashboards that track agent performance metrics like average handle time and number of chats handled. This data-driven approach allows for identifying top performers, pinpointing areas for improvement, and tailoring training programs to maximize agent efficiency.
Improved Communication Workflow
Live chat isn’t an island. Its true power lies in its ability to connect with the tools you already use, primarily CRM, CMS, and marketing platforms.
Customer information from chat conversations automatically populates your CRM, eliminating manual data entry and ensuring accuracy. Chat agents can access customer history and preferences within the chat window, allowing for personalized greetings, recommendations, and support.
Also, you can track chat metrics alongside other customer data in your CRM for comprehensive insights into customer behavior and sales performance.
All of this means that your workflow becomes more streamlined, so you can focus on what really matters to you.
Wrapping Up
We’ve just laid out a compelling case for why live chat is a game-changer for customer service, sales, and user experience. Now, it’s your turn to use these benefits to your advantage.
And if you’re looking for a live chat tool to get started with, we recommend Chatway. One of the amazing benefits of this tool is that you can integrate it easily into your Chaty app, bringing the power of real-time communication to your website.
