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Many aspects of a business help in marketing and customer services. One of the main reasons why live chat has an untapped potential for any business is because it provides a voice and identity behind a faceless organization or company. While online shopping has made the world a global village and anything can be accessed from anywhere all over the globe, it has also disconnected customers from the personal touch of a salesperson behind the counter who can answer all their queries.
Not everyone finds what they’re looking for, and many potential customers move away from the website because they don’t have the answers to their questions and don’t know where to ask them. If you had to email the company and wait for a response, their interest in your product would’ve been long dead and gone by the time they received a reply. As a business, you want to avoid that and keep them browsing your site for as long as they can because the longer they stay, the more products they see, and the more tempted they are to make a purchase.
Instead of watching potential customers slowly drift away and seeing the dollars slowly fade away, most e-commerce sites have added the feature of Live Chat. Live Chat enables the customer’s queries to be answered promptly, satisfying the customer and also adding a few benefits to the staff. Since we handle the dropshipping of your hair extension orders, you will have more time to focus on sales and customer service!
How can Live Chat improve your business?
Yes, you’ve heard that it is a vital feature for any company to grow, but how does this help you? There are many reasons why Live Chat has become an indispensable feature for many e-commerce websites. Here are the following reasons:
It provides customers easy access to help
When customers are at a brick and mortar store, they turn to sales assistants for help. Online, they have no avenue for assistance. In addition, many websites have 1-800 numbers that keep you on hold for eternity and subject you to a melody that could put you to sleep. Also, these helpline numbers put you through a maze of options that could make your head spin. Ultimately, you may just hang up without answering your question. An online chat system provides customers an avenue to get prompt assistance, and the best thing is the wait times are very short. While waiting for a live chat assistant to come online, you can shop around or browse through the internet. Statistics and a marketer study revealed that customers were 63% more likely to return to a website that offered Live chat than those that didn’t.
It is a huge cost-saver
Live Chat has repeatedly proven that it saves on expenses that would otherwise be spent on phone bills and employee task time. How does it help reduce expenses?
It reduces call center costs by reducing the average interaction time and costs.
It allows representatives to handle many chats simultaneously, increasing work and time efficiency and reducing the need to expand the workforce.
Overall, employees are able to multitask and handle multiple customers’ chats at the same time, cutting down on the waiting time to a fraction of the time compared to a call center. This improves the entire customer service process and helps in producing more sales. However, fingerprinting can be done via services like Sterling Check to learn their background when hiring employees.
It increases Sales
Recent studies have shown that Live Chat increases the chances of sales, and some companies that have introduced this feature have seen a double-digit increase in converted shoppers. This shows that shoppers value this new feature, and it also provides great customer satisfaction. When customers have someone to help through the checkout process, a definite sale is more or less probable, eliminating the chance of the customer straying to a different site.
It also ensures that the shopping carts are full throughout the process. As many purchases are made through recommendations, the Live Chat employee has the perfect opportunity to suggest other items to add to the shopping cart that would suit the buyer, thus increasing sales for the company.
Live Chat puts you ahead of the Competition
Not every company online offers Live Chat, so this could be the perfect opportunity to make a move that would put you ahead of your competitors. It provides you with a way to connect with your customers.
Addressing a customer’s frustrations
While nobody wants to be an agony aunt, Live Chat provides the perfect platform where customers can reveal their dissatisfaction with the service or the products. This enables the company to address the problem and take immediate action, either by offering a discount on a promotion or reassuring the customer that the product works as advertised. This is a great way to get to know customers’ feelings about your website and products without doing an extensive personal, time-intensive survey.
How can you make Live chat increase your Business Potential?
There are a few tips that you can follow to ensure that you get the most out of your live chat system.
Know your customers’ shopping hours: You could be halfway across the world from your customers, and you should be able to provide Live Chat at a time that is convenient for them. If you cannot source the help you need for your Live Chat locally during off-hours, you can outsource this by using various online services.
Be friendly: People prefer Live Chat to emails and 1-800 helplines because they receive human help to solve their problems efficiently. So don’t shoot off robotic answers. Employ a personal touch in your communications with others. Encourage social behavior on social media: When your Live Chat representative receives positive customer feedback, instruct your staff to encourage the customers to leave feedback on your Facebook page and to Like or comment on it. This way, you get positive publicity for your company.
Use trained staff: It is better to hire trained sales staff to work on the Live Chat system instead of only customer care representatives because they will know what advice to give. Salespeople will help direct the customer to further products to make more sales and add more items to their shopping cart.
Make your Live Chat user-friendly: Many people will not be comfortable with the font size and may want to increase it for better readability. Offer this option to them and also allow them to request transcripts of the chat for their records.
Be prepared for volumes in chat: There are times when things may seem slow, and there are hardly any customers online with queries, but you also have to be prepared for that sudden surge of customers who need attention for their issues. Inform the customers by sending a message that they are in the queue due to heavy traffic for the Live Chat and that your representative will be with them shortly.
Long-winded sentences don’t work well in Live Chat. This is why staff members who will be the Live Chat representatives will require special training. You can afford to have longer ‘conversational’ sentences and niceties in phone conversations, but those have no place in a Live Chat conversation. It must be noted that Live Chat is considerably different from a phone conversation as chat sessions are shorter, and the replies have to be straight to the point. People get straight to the end, and knowing when to ask what and when to offer solutions or additional products is a skill.
Advantages/ Disadvantages of Live Chat
Even with all the features, a few pros and cons must be pointed out. There are reasons why Live Chat works so well for everyone.
Advantages
Competent Service: You can provide efficient service because customer care representatives can ask their colleagues questions if they encounter a tricky one. This wouldn’t be possible in a phone conversation, and it gives the illusion of having a highly knowledgeable staff.
Immediate Feedback: Chat enables customer feedback to be received immediately without them having to press various buttons to navigate through a maze of options on the phone menu. As for sending feedback via email, that’s a long-gone feature that probably nobody bothers to use.
Clarity in Assistance: You can say goodbye to poor communication due to poor English skills or ill-placed sentences.
No extra charges for the customer: Whether they’re from a different country or not, the Live chat feature will be available to them at no extra charge.
The convenience of information exchange: Now, the representative can help the customer by sending useful links via the chat box or even typing out complicated names, which would not have been so easy on a call.
Switch off chat but enable mail: If you are running your own business behind the scenes in your Live Chat service, you can switch the Live Chat feature off and automatically allow a mail form to take its place.
Get Reviewed: Check log files to find out how your support service quality is rated. This way, you can see the support team’s performance and also get an idea of what can be improved.
Disadvantages
It’s just fair that both sides of the coin are revealed to help you make a better, well-informed decision.
You get your share of pranksters: This type of humor will never fade away, regardless of whether technology is updated in your support services. There will always be that odd person who will waste your time with foolishness. Enable an email mandatory form in your pre-chat form to eliminate non-serious customers.
Not everyone will know about your Live Chat: Many older generations may not feel comfortable using the Live Chat service. However, the millennial generation is growing rapidly, and with everyone being exposed to Facebook and social media, it is becoming easier for many people to turn to Live Chat.
Unsupported Mobile platforms: Not every mobile device can access the Live chat feature, and if you can’t type fast or are typing on your phone, it may be a little cumbersome.
It’s not for everyone: Some still prefer using the email option or the helpline. You should still offer that option on your service.
Eliminate interruptions: In Live Chat, all queries are answered in a timely manner. This eliminates the time lag in replies that many people face with email.
How to choose the Best Live Chat Package for your business
Will Live Chat Help You Sell More Hair Extensions?
ABSOLUTELY! We think it is a great way to answer your customers questions quickly. With our Facebook Live Chat App you are able to communicate with you customers through your Facebook messaging system. This works well for almost everyone because we all use Facebook. The advantage is you don’t have to install extra live chat apps or anything complicated.