By Jason Grills
Numerous emerging technologies are aimed at improving the work flow in companies. Knowledge base has caused a great impact in how companies deal with their data management and employee satisfaction. On the other hand, project managers have become empowered to achieve much better results with task management tools.
Another area which has received a significant improvement is customer support. Thanks to the software tools such as live chat, businesses are now in a position to improve their customer satisfaction and various other things. With that in mind, let’s explore all the different ways in which live chat can improve customer support.
1. Lowers Costs
Lowering costs is something that all businesses strive to achieve, and the implementation of live chat software is the perfect way of turning this goal into a reality. There are two main ways in which a live chat software saves money for a company:
- Lower number of customer support members – Using the traditional customer support methods such as telephone and email requires higher number of employees to meet the customer demands. This is completely different with live chat software, as the efficiency of a single employee is much higher, which leads to a lower number of employees required, resulting in lower salary costs.
- Higher employee efficiency via multitasking – As live chat software offers instantaneous communication with customers, customer support agents are in a position to serve much higher number of customers through multitasking and working with several of them simultaneously. This saves a lot of time for the company and increases the efficiency of customer support employees, resulting in serving more customers per hour.
This a very important reason why any company should implement a live chat software solution. The customer support simply becomes a much more effective company tool, which can easily connect with customers in a much better way, but there is more.
2. Better Conversion Rates
A large number of businesses are able to acquire high traffic to their websites but, unfortunately, face lower conversion rates, and live chat implementation is an excellent way to improve conversion rates. According to the American Marketing Association, live chat software can increase conversion rates by up to 20%. This is a very serious figure, especially if you take into account that the company website can often be visited by thousands of people each day.
Higher conversion rates are achieved through direct communication with prospects who are wandering around the website to find out more about a product. This communication allows them to instantaneously find out all the important things about a product, so that they are ready to purchase it moments after consulting with customer support staff through live chat. Additionally, upselling can also be performed with live chat, which also positively affects your conversion rates.
3. Better Customer Experience
Customer experience is one of the crucial factors that determines whether a business is going to survive or go under. The better the customer experience, the higher the chances of having a high number of returning customers.
Live chat makes this possible because any customer can contact you at any time of day, receiving immediate response and a solution to their problem. Everyone enjoys working under these conditions; it is simply a much easier choice for customers, which makes them come back to their favorite brand.
4. Direct Communication with Customers
Live chat is a great solution for businesses that want to truly listen to what their customers are saying. It is a perfect channel that provides direct communication with customers and opens the possibility of truly understanding them and their needs, which allows you to improve the product or service that is being offered.
This is possible because every chat session is recorded and collected as valuable business data which shows the common problems that a higher number of customers are experiencing. By analyzing this data, companies are in a position to tweak their business approach and strategy, achieving much better results.
5. Quick Problem Solving
By relying on an email or phone customer support, customers eventually solve the problem they were experiencing. However, this process takes a lot of time in the majority of scenarios. Resolving an issue over the phone is much easier to perform, however, a live chat customer support agent is in a position to more easily guide the customer by providing links and instructions in textual form.
The live chat solution is there to meet the customers’ demands in a much shorter time frame. This is very important, as it also positively affects customer satisfaction. Customers want to rely on brands that are constantly available to them, capable of offering help at all times of the day.
6. Competitiveness
New businesses are showing up in an already crowded market every single day. Each of them strives to offer as much as possible to acquire and retain customers. This competitive setting points to the fact that you should be doing the same, otherwise the loss of customers is imminent. To stay ahead of or on par with your competition, implementing a live chat software solution is a must.
Implementing this software on your website is a great way to distinguish your business from all the others on the market. Users will flock around the best thing that the free market has to offer, so make sure that you are always at the top by relying on the latest emerging technologies.
7. Continuous Outreach
If you are looking for ways to expand your reach outside of your state or country, the implementation of live chat is the perfect way to achieve this goal. Remote communication via phone and email is either expensive or too slow, however, a live chat opens the possibility of quick communication, no matter where your customer is located.
Sometimes, taking a more aggressive approach is a more effective way of improving business goals. This is precisely what live chat software offers. By monitoring the behavior of your website visitors, you can easily contact those who are spending more time on it, to offer any help they might need when picking a service pack or a product. This is very similar to retail stores, as there are customers who prefer to be approached, and this is easily achieved with this type of tool.
These benefits clearly show how much a live chat software can improve your business in terms of higher profits, higher conversion rates and a higher number of returning customers. Based on these benefits, it’s safe to conclude that it’s time to implement this type of software on your website; it simply has no drawbacks.
