The usage of live chatting customers became prominent as we take our step to demand economy which the usage of e-commerce is more prominent compared before. Customer service is the backbone of any business, playing a crucial role in building a sustainable customer base and allowing companies to flourish. Implementing live chat customer support comes with a variety of benefits to both your business and customers.
In this digital age, live chat is an integral part of that because providing a platform to communicate with customers in real-time is an excellent way to connect with and support them.
In fact, live chat generates satisfaction levels of 73 percent, compared to just 61 percent for email and 44 percent for the phone.
But it’s not only your customer satisfaction levels that stand to benefit – customer retention improves as well. In fact, over 63 percent of consumers reported that they are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.
So why exactly do customers love live chat?
Here are six reasons live chat is winning in the battle for the hearts and minds of your customers, and why you need to add it to your customer service channel now:
1. Live chat is convenient for many reasons:
Live chat connects customers instantly with an agent. No need to dial a number and press the button after button before you even get to talk to an agent.
Live chat allows customers to multi-task. This is perhaps the greatest benefit. Over 51 percent of customers like live chat precisely for this reason. So even if customers have a short wait, they can get on with doing something else.
The wait time is negligible. No more getting stuck on hold for hours on end – customer queries are promptly addressed.
The conversation can be kept for the future. It’s easier to guide users through issues when their previous interactions can be referred back to for context.
Customer queries are resolved quickly. Emails often require a lengthy back and forth, live chat can resolve issues in one session.
Customers can have their purchase-related queries answered on the spot. This is a massive advantage considering 44 percent of consumers think the ability to talk to an agent while purchasing online is one of the best features a website can offer. Customers really do appreciate your help when it comes to buying decisions.
2. Live chat has a higher ROI
Businesses are always striving to find cost-effective customer service solutions. Live chat is certainly one of them. Phone and email are mainstays of customer support and have been for many years. However, it takes time and resources to keep up with these setups and they come with several frustrations, like wait times and back-and-forths.
Live chat tools, on the other hand, are comparatively cheap to implement, and what’s more, live chat provides a host of extra benefits making it a superior communication channel. Offering real-time customer service and the chance to address multiple queries at once saves time, labor, and ultimately money for your company.
3. Live chat provides a competitive advantage
How often do you see a live chat option available on a website?
It's true that there are many companies that have implemented live chat in recent years, but not so many (or with success) that it has become commonplace. Live chat is still new enough.
Herein lies a great opportunity.
Why not step into the breach and gain an edge over your competition by offering live chat on your website?
The many benefits live chat brings means that, eventually, businesses won’t be able to afford to miss out. Brands without live chat will become a thing of the past. Until then, you can get ahead of the pack. Put your offering in place before your competitors. Make live chat and quality customer service the core of your brand’s identity. Once you’ve mastered your live chat and customer support offering, then you have the tools to create leads and convert them into loyal customers.
Use live chat, train your agents, and take your business to another level.
4. Live chat saves people, customers expect the same quick response they are used to getting from electronic equipment and technology.” – Shep Hyken
One of the best ways to grow a successful business is by maximizing productivity in the same amount of time. Live chat can help.
The first thing to do is to analyze response times and time spent to resolve issues. Then, you'll see that live chat can help you cut back on these times significantly. To put into perspective just how rapid live chat can be, Zopim analyzed more than 85K chats and found that, on average, an agent replies to a customer query in less than 23 seconds. The average resolution time is no more than 42 seconds.
And it’s not just about the time you save yourself, but the time you save for your customers too.
Crunch the numbers and you quickly realize that live chat has faster response times than pretty much every other customer support channel, and by big margins too. This means you can close more than 60 customer tickets an hour with just one live chat agent. Conversely, not a single customer query has been answered in an hour on Twitter, Facebook, email, or phone.
Convert the time you save into money and you can see why live chat is the best approach to customer services.
5. Live chat increases sales
Speaking from my personal experience, live chat boosts online sales. As high as 83 percent of consumers need some type of support when they are making an online transaction. That is why people prefer buying from websites with live chat. They can get queries answered quickly. Live chat support during checkout increases conversion rates.
As an example, Post Affiliate Pro reported a 23 percent increase in conversion rate when they implemented live chat on their website.
It’s best practice to have at least one agent available at any time because, as Forrester reported, 45 percent of US consumers would leave a website in the middle of an online transaction if there is no one to answer their questions and concerns.
Another report says that 77 percent of consumers said they need to talk to a real person before making a purchase online. Without live chat, you’re losing out on sales. And can you really afford to do that?
Looking at the statistics, it’s clear how important live chat is for delivering the best possible customer experience and increasing sales for your business.
6. Live chat builds long-term relationships
For the sustainability of your business, building long-term relationships with customers is an absolute necessity, because it increases satisfaction and improves customer experience.
Satisfied customers are less likely to switch to the competition. Stats show that 89 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand after a poor customer support experience. Not only that, but 86 percent of customers will pay 25 percent more for a better customer experience.
Live chat is a fantastic way to build long-term relationships with your customers. When customers feel you are there to listen, bonds are easier to form, and loyalty comes from that.
In fact, 73 percent of consumers think that friendly customer support makes them fall in love with a company, whereas 52 percent have made multiple purchases from a company after a positive initial customer service experience.
It all comes down to creating a great experience upfront. Provide superior customer support with live chat on their first visit, and you are much more likely to get a customer for life. These loyal customers are worth up to 10x the value of the first purchase.
Live chat is definitely winning the customer support race
If you want to be great every time and keep your customers coming back, then there is no better way to do it than with live chat. Get a head start on your competition, set up your live chat offering, and watch your sales and revenue growth.
Start providing your customers the instant communication they need and watch customer satisfaction scores skyrocket.
Thus, why is live chat important for your business?
With live chat, you can turn every interaction with visitors to your website into a better experience and build long relationships. Live chat is the best way to go beyond your customer’s expectations and improve customer experience when communicating with them. Companies that deliver good live chat support see an increase in customer satisfaction and higher sales.
There are hundreds of live chat software you can install on your website. Visitors to your website can engage with your company by asking questions with an agent who could be sitting anywhere in the world.
Live chat is well suited to providing customer support. You can solve customer’s problems faster and improve customer satisfaction. Your customers receive a response much faster than they would through email or support tickets that can take hours or even days. The quick response and the interactive nature of live chat make it an ideal channel for customer support.
Increases Customer Satisfaction:
Customers prefer using live chat over other ways of getting support. They get answers to their questions immediately, without leaving their computer. They don’t need to remember the phone number to call or wait for hours to get a response to their questions.
Support agents can share links to FAQs, instructional videos, documents, and other resources through live chat. Customers can also share their screens with agents to help them better understand the issues. These features make live chat the best support tool and improve customer satisfaction.
Helps Discover Customer Issues:
Live chat is a digital channel where everything is recorded. Since the information is in text format, it’s easy to analyze to identify issues causing problems for customers. It’s much harder to analyze call recordings in the case of telephone support. Even email support data is much more difficult to organize and analyze compared to chat transcripts.
With live chat, administrators have access to all chat histories, which can be filtered and searched to quickly recognize customer problems. In this way, the management can discover the problems of their customers and can look for ways to solve them. This is one of the most significant benefits of live chat support.
Increases Sales:
Live chat support is a very good sales channel. When customers contact an agent with a problem, the agent can build rapport with the customer while solving the problem. If the agent sees an opportunity, he can suggest additional features or products to the customer. Since chat is an interactive channel, the agent can easily demonstrate the new products / share links for the customers to learn more.
A well-trained live chat support agent can deliver over 100% return on investment.
Reduces Expenses:
Live chat support costs much less than phone support while providing the same benefit of immediacy and building relationship with the customer. The phone support channel needs expensive hardware and software. Phone agents are also more expensive compared to live chat support agents. There is also the cost of telephone calls every time a customer contacts support team.
According to research, live chat customer support service is 17% cheaper than a phone call. Live chat support allows your agents to multitask and offer help to multiple visitors simultaneously. Normally, with adequate training, live chat agents can handle two or more chats at the same time. That saves a lot of cost on hiring and training additional agents as it allows few live chat agents to serve the same amount of customers as a larger team of phone support employees.
So, gear up for building a sustainable relationship with prospects, get a healthy sales pipeline, and close more deals. Contact us today! Get in touch with us at randy.mebs@gmail.com
For more details, feel free to visit www.mebsph.com/ or contact our company at +1 (917) 725 2180. Check out Mancao E-connect Business Solutions (MEBS) and learn about their top-rated Customer Service Representatives, Lead Generators, Appointment Setters, Virtual Assistants, Cold Callers and Telemarketers perfect for your business in cities like Tampa, Beverly Hills, Orlando, Los Angeles and many more.