Case Study: Palo Alto Software Uses Live Chat 
to Increase Sales

Universal Language
With a strong international customer base — Parsons estimates that 15 percent of PAS's sales come from outside the U.S., particularly Australia, South Africa and Southeast Asia — live chat has proven an effective tool for PAS to communicate with all of its site visitors.

International consumers have grown accustomed to using live chat as a tool to communicate rather than sending an email and having to wait for a retailer to respond, Parsons notes.

Those live chat communications are twofold in nature for the software retailer: sales- and service-related queries.

To prepare its CSRs to handle the complex questions brought on by the software products it sells, PAS requires each CSR to undergo extensive business training in addition to standard customer service training.

To help customers having trouble completing transactions, Bold Software's live chat solution enables PAS to send out secure links to consumers. The order forms are pre-filled by PAS's CSRs, requiring consumers to only put in their credit card information and a secure email address to 
complete purchases.

The ease with which consumers can now complete transactions has helped to increase overall sales by 7 percent. These orders are then integrated into PAS's back-end CRM and order system, allowing it to track live chat sales and follow-up with customers.

In addition to sales gains, PAS has realized an uptick in customer loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing since launching BoldChat.

Now that's a plan worth following.