How to get the most out of live chat on your website

By Kalin Kassabov, Founder and CEO of ProTexting.com, a fast-growing suite of enterprise-level text messaging services.

Live chat is a feature that makes your website more informative and engaging for visitors. It helps you differentiate yourself from the competition, giving prospects and customers a more interactive experience. Chat is particularly effective on e-commerce sites where visitors have a large selection of products and often need advice. Let's see how live chat can help you increase your income, along with some tips for getting the most out of this great feature.

The benefits of live chat

E-commerce is growing rapidly as more and more people shop online every year. The 2020 pandemic helped accelerate online shopping, but even before that, people appreciated the convenience of shopping from home. At the same time, an e-commerce site has more competition than ever. You need features and services that set you apart. Live chat achieves this in several ways.

Speed ​​and Convenience

People want to find what they're looking for quickly. Forrester reports that 53% of customers will abandon an online purchase if they don't find quick answers to their questions. With live chat, they can talk to someone immediately without having to email or pick up the phone. Visitors save time as chat service representatives guide them to the right products and answer questions about product features, shipping, and other policies.

Learn more about your customers

The questions people ask in live chat give you valuable insight into their needs and preferences. For example, if many people ask if you offer gift wrap, that's a feature you should consider offering. If you get a lot of questions about a product X that you don't sell yet, that's a clue that you should start offering it.

Meeting customer expectations

As technology advances and online shopping becomes more mainstream, customer expectations are rising rapidly. Today, many buyers expect an e-commerce site to offer live chat. They also prefer this interaction over other options such as email, phone and social media. Live chat has the highest customer satisfaction rate of 73% compared to other channels. Millennials, in particular, prefer live chat for customer service because of its speed and convenience.

Help you increase your income

Research indicates that live chat helps businesses increase sales.

• Kayako reports that 79% of customers have increased sales, retention rates and revenue through live chat.

• Use information from...