When you finally re-open for business - could ‘live-chat’ re-assure customers to; visit… meet… book… buy… refer…pay?
Naomi Campbell • June 24, 2020
3 reasons why we think the answer is a solid, resounding “YES”!
If you offer a face-to-face service, customers exploring your website over the next few weeks and months will likely have these questions to ask:
• Can you help me with 'x'?
• Where are you?
• Will a visit be 'safe'?
As businesses re-open, the biggest advantage of having live website chat is the instant
response
that it offers.
- Customer confidence needs careful handling
- Unanswered questions lead to frustration & delayed action
In this article, read why companies with website chat stand a greater chance of immediate success as they re-open after lockdown to conduct face-to-face business in a Covid19 world.
1) Stay open with on-line chat, inside & outside standard business hours
Every visitor to your website has a question in mind.
Not only does website chat offer you a more timely and open communication vehicle to engage customers. It also
helps you understand and analyse quicker what customers are asking, why they are buying (or not), and more importantly how confident they feel with your risk mitigation/support plans. What better way than to capture it directly from the horse’s mouth?
Live chat checks all the boxes:
• No queues for assistance – less irritation time
• A proactive response service - increasing customer satisfaction
• Direct feedback and ongoing dialogue – because whenever customers need to chat again, they re-connect without the need to re-cap.
When done well, live chat mimics modern instant messaging applications so that a customer is able to quickly connect, explain what they need briefly, and get a real-time answer.
Most well managed live chat services allow chat operators to handle multiple customers at the same time, effectively
getting rid of wait times and raising satisfaction levels by up to 98%. And
as we embrace the Covid19 unlock phase when enquiry volumes will peak as everyone wants to know everything now – customer responsiveness is key.
2) Push the positives & kill the negatives in real-time on-line
In the new digital arena that our customers now engage in, the trick is to offer instant assistance before a trivial concern becomes a big obstacle and headache. That’s why web chat is often referred to as “proactive chat” – but in essence we are probably better off calling it a “proactive support” or even better, “preventative support”.
To get a better understanding of how much customers appreciate access to web chat, consider the fact that
almost a third of site visitors (31%) expect to see it on web sites today. They feel more confident engaging with business that are easy to reach out to and make the support process hassle free and in real time.
3) Prompt next steps & increase the take-up of your services
Web chat can be a multi-task activity. Your customers don’t have to stop what they’re doing when they have a question. Instead, without leaving your pages, they can have their questions answered while placing an order or booking an appointment.
And if that doesn’t convince you, consider this report from
Forrester Research: 44% of online customers rate having their questions answered by a live person, while trying to make a purchase decision, as one of the most important features that a website can offer!
Improving your overall website experience has dual benefits – not only does it help customers, but it also helps profit margins since customers who use live website assistance are 3x
more likely to complete a purchase and/or move along your customer journey.
As the fight for new customers now intensifies, now is the time to learn more about website chat services.
Put a managed service of; live chat, email, text & call-me on your website
If your chat widget pops on screen, you need to be ready to answer because chat means ‘chat’
– it’s not a message taker.
Call Us
Email Us
Instant messaging is all chat agencies do… Their role is to assist in the set-up, running and optimisation of live chat/engagement services. To them, they’re bound by SLA to be ready as soon as someone has a question or problem on-line.
Emails can take a few hours to answer, but B2B online engagement (when done well) is an ongoing, trackable, live conversation with file-sharing and linking capabilities that drive the engagement & endorsement process forward in a measurable way.
Take the ‘ouch’ out of an ‘on-demand’ service. Get more advice
on optimised chat for corporate brands.
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