Because consumers have come to expect personalized service in virtually every area of the retail experience, live chats have become an increasingly popular way to connect directly with existing customers and prospects alike. Naturally, eCommerce sites are particularly well-suited to this approach, and live chat is an invaluable tool to develop brand loyalty and long-term customer relationships.
Sites like Shopify are currently offering services to help merchants expand their businesses to include live chat. Yet, the tricky part is how to convert those conversations into actual sales. Fear not, for eCommerce live chats can help you boost your bottom line, having a significant impact on your revenue stream.
Consider Your Strategy
Although live chat is becoming a powerful tool for eCommerce businesses to add to their sites, it’s still only as effective as the strategy you use to connect with customers. Simply the ability to communicate directly with users of your site isn’t enough. So here are a few important tips to maximize the effectiveness of your live chat service.
- Start a conversation: Similar to text messaging and other similar services, live chat is best deployed as a conversational form of communication. If users are already on your site, it’s fair to take a more casual, less hard-edged approach. After all, they’re already on your site and thus interested in your product. So reach out to customers like a human being and not an automated service. We promise you’ll deliver a far higher standard of service, and your customers will thank you for it.
- Solicit feedback: One of the best parts of direct access to customers is the opportunity to ask for feedback on your sales process, their user experience and other aspects that you can improvement in the long haul. If you’re hearing a consistent complaint from customers, there’s a good chance that there is an actual problem afoot worth exploring. Look for subtle cues in addition to flat-out grievances. If customers seem confused about an area of your business, it might be time to streamline your approach.
- Upsell with caution: Since you’re set to connect directly with customers, you may be tempted to consistently offer them additional products or more premium alternatives to whatever they’re already familiar with. However, we caution you against abusing live chat in this regard. Poorly timed upsells can have an adverse effect on sales, driving customers away with what they may perceive as a hard sell rather than an attempt to actually assist them in their shopping experience.
So Many Benefits
eCommerce sites such as yours are not only capable of boosting sales with a live chat service among your arsenal. In fact, there are countless benefits to adding this element to your site. Here are just a few of the most significant ways in which your business will find live chat a tremendous asset.
- Customer convenience: Thanks to the advent of the internet and smartphone technology, today’s consumers are accustomed to instant contact across the board. Phone and email have become viewed as more time-consuming, less desired forms of communication, and the allure of an immediate response has made messaging the way to go for businesses. The fact that you also get a direct line to customers isn’t too shabby either.
- Low expense: We’ve already discussed that live chats can boost sales and foster customer relationships, but conversely, the service can keep expenses low. Live chat is incredibly inexpensive to implement and actually cuts the cost of contact centers. Customer service representatives can now multi-task between several different users simultaneously, streamlining the process exponentially and (again) making higher sales figures far more likely.
- Competitive edge: With more and more businesses steering towards live chat, the time is now to get involved. The eCommerce space is a progressively competitive one, and you need to hop onboard the live chat train while the engine is still running full steam ahead. Few tools will give you the chance to demonstrate just how essential the customer experience is to your mission statement.
Get Your Chat On
Even if the concept may seem like an unnecessary indulgence, we encourage you to at least give live chat a trial run. We’re sure that you’ll quickly discover the advantages of having this tool on your site, as it makes it far easier for you to facilitate customer relationships than simply email or phone.
Moreover, the burgeoning popularity of live chat means that there are a wide variety of applications your business can use to get up to speed on this service. Select one that best fits your needs and start chatting as soon as possible.
Your customers will love it, and ultimately, remember that the customer experience is always paramount for any eCommerce site. There’s little reason that live chatting can’t be used to service your existing business model.
