Those chat icons on the side of websites have become pretty common. They pop up on some of the websites you visit asking if you need additional help. But do they really help improve your customer service or do people find them annoying?
The truth is that live chat is a great way to improve your customer experience and meet customers right where they are. According to Comm100, “live chat can drive 3x – 5x more conversions and deliver up to 6000% ROI.” The research also shows that customers also prefer to interact in the chat format. According to Twilio, 66 percent of consumers now prefer to interact with brands through messaging apps. And millennials actually prefer live chat over emails or phone calls.
Your customer experience can benefit from adding a chat feature to your website. You can use live chat with an employee or enable bots so that you can interact with customers at any time. Interacting quickly with customers sets you apart from other companies. In a Drift survey of 433 companies, only 7% responded in five minutes, 14% of companies had chat features as part of their customer experience, and 55% took more than five days to respond if at all.
Research shows that the longer a customer waits for a response from you, their likelihood to purchase your product also goes down. Additionally, your odds of making contact with a lead after 5 minutes decrease 10 times. Your ability to respond quickly also improves customer satisfaction. According to Comm100, eDigital Customer Service Benchmark survey of 2000 consumers found that live chat had the highest customer satisfaction levels at 73% – compared to 61% for email support and only 44% for traditional phone support.
At Riley & You, we can help you add chat features to your customer experience. Here are some of our favorite tips:
- A designated person needs to be the point person. You can have multiple people, but when someone is “on,” they need to be paying attention and ready to respond. If you can’t have a live person, the bot features have also greatly improved in helping you sort the leads and helping your customers find the answers they need.
- When you’re not there or unavailable, turn it off. Take advantage of the offline settings in the software so that your customers don’t think you are ignoring them.
- Keep it professional. Chat is a very casual form of communication, and you want to keep things brief and to the point. You represent your business in this communication, so be polite and professional. Don’t get carried away with abbreviations or emojis, and remember that chats can be viewed later to provide valuable insight for your company.
Contact us today if you want to add chat to your customer experience. It’s one of the best investments you can make to set your company apart from the competition and make your brand stand out in product and service.
