7 Powerful Reasons To Implement Live Chat On Your Sales Pages

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Live chat may be the most effective way to offer customer support – both pre-sale and post-sale, in today’s day and age. It’s far quicker to communicate than email, and allows you to accomplish so much more than just using the phone.

That’s not to say the others should be ignored, but it’s a fact – live chat has insane potential.

In this article, I want to cover some of these benefits in detail – sharing with you why live chat is important for every business, and giving my recommendations on how to set it up today.

1. Live Chat Is More Convenient For Customers

More so than any other customer support option, live chat is convenient for your customers.

Customers can click on a button, and instantly be queued to chat with a customer support representative. There is no need to navigate to a contact form and write out a lengthy email, or sit through a phone menu only to be placed on hold.

All the while, customers can multi-task while they’re waiting – both to connect, and during the conversation.

In fact, 51% of customers appreciate live chat because they find it to be more convenient than other options. In addition,

• Customers feel they get better information from live chat, as they can immediately clarify anything they may not understand.
• Customers feel in control of the conversation – they aren’t talking over you, and they don’t have to wait until you decide to respond (which they may worry will be days or weeks.)
• There is a chat log that they can save, to be referenced later.

Speed and availability of customer support options are two of the key pillars of customer service. These two things should never be ignored when shaping your customer service strategy.

Which brings me to my next point.

2. Live Chat Is The Quickest Way To Handle Issues

Even more so than the other convenience factors, customers appreciate that live chat will provide them answers quickly.

In fact, 91% of customers cited this as the main reason that they prefer live chat.

More so than ever, people are impatient, and want solutions more quickly than ever before.

If you’re able to provide that when other companies aren’t, you instantly have a competitive advantage.

When it comes to lead generation, studies have shown that up to 90% of leads will lose interest if they have to wait more than 5 minutes to be contacted.

Given how fast and competitive the internet is today, people can probably find a solution on their own quicker than that.

And chances are, it will be with one of your competitors.

3. Live Chat Has No Language Barrier

Have you ever had to talk with someone on the phone that you can barely understand, due to their accent?

This is frustrating for both the customer support agent as well as the caller, and can make the customer uncomfortable with the idea of calling you again.

For global brands, this leads to an enormous loss in potential sales.

You will never have this problem with live chat. In fact, customers are able to write to you in their own native language, and it’s possible to have everything completely translated both directions.

This isn’t as good as having native speakers of every language on your team, but it’s certainly the next best thing!

4. Customers Trust Websites Utilizing Live Chat, Leading To Increased Conversions

Live chat is particularly useful for brands that are relatively unknown in their space.

When you’re an unrecognized brand, customers look for trust signals on your own website to know whether or not they should feel comfortable placing an order.

Having live chat available will boost conversions, even for those that never end up using them.

It’s availability shows that they will be able to reach you in the event of any issues – that someone will be there ready to help them.

For more tips you can use to boost visitor trust pre-sale, check out this article I wrote on this topic:

The Definitive Guide To Establishing Trust, Before The Sale

5. It’s Cheaper Than Phone Support – And More Easily Outsourced

Did you know that one customer support representative can assist up to 6 people at one time without any issues, as long as the support requests aren’t particularly complicated?

This is partly due to the fact that chats may be completed more quickly, despite the fact that support agents have to wait for responses to be typed back. Many people don’t know this, but most live chat software allows you to see what the person is typing before they actually send it – allowing you to have a proper response waiting and ready for them. The most popular responses can be stored as templates, which can be filled in with commands in only a few keystrokes or clicks.

It’s no wonder that companies that employ live chat don’t turn back – the savings are astronomical.

In fact, live chat tends to run between 2 and 2 and a half times cheaper per conversation, all else being equal.

However, the savings grow even larger if you consider how cheap it is to outsource live chat support.

As mentioned earlier, there is no language barrier when communicating through live chat. This means you can hire customer support representatives from the Philippines for as little as $2 an hour, and offer 24/7 customer service for a fraction of the cost.

6. Live Chat Leads To Higher Average Order Values

Live chat increases average order values in a number of ways:

First of all, as already mentioned, conversion rate is improved due to the fact that live chat is a trust factor. Its availability also helps people feel more comfortable in placing larger orders.

Secondly, live chat leads to increased engagement with your brand. If people have concerns or questions about a product, you want them to reach out, as they’re far more likely to turn into buyers. Live chat encourages this, and gives you an opportunity to quickly handle any objections that may be stopping a sale.

Finally, the fact that you get to talk with the customers and better understand their needs, allows you to recommend upsells and cross-sells that may compliment the products they’re already interested in.

If you want to make more per sale, implementing live chat on your website is a quick and easy option!

7. Data Collection Allows You To Improve Your Sales Pages

You can provide the best customer experience by eliminating the need to ever contact you in the first place.

While you’re never going to be able to answer every question a customer may have, live chat allows you to pinpoint your sales page’s weak points, or areas that lack clarity.

Take your most common customer questions or complaints, and use these to improve your sales pages. Answer the questions within your sales copy, and handle all of the concerns that buyers would normally contact you to address.

Simply by listening to your customers and using the information to improve your sales pages, it’s possible to double conversions incredibly quickly.

Remember, not everyone will reach out to you – even if you make it easy! They will simply bounce, and visit the next website instead.

Don’t let that happen. Utilize live chat to help you improve your sales pages!

Where To Get Started

There is a lot of live chat software available on the market today, as the popularity of live chat continues to grow.

Different live chat software will offer different sets of advanced features, but even free solutions offer the core functionality you need to succeed with live chat.

Personally, I used free live chat software called Tawk.to for a very long time – on both my eCommerce stores, and my sales pages on JamesMcAllisterOnline.com. Today, I use software called Chatra.

It integrates onto any web page, and clients for desktop, mobile, and web. Again, it will handle most if not all features you’d need in live chat software, especially if you plan to work with 10 or fewer agents.

You can learn more about Tawk.to by clicking here.

Conclusion

Needless to say, there aren’t any good reasons to avoid live chat any longer.

The benefits are plentiful, both for you and for your customers. They will thank you for implementing it, and reward you with larger and more frequent orders as a result.

I’d love to hear more about the type of business you run, and which benefit listed here makes you the most excited to add live chat to your website going forward.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you.

To your success,

– James McAllister