The Value of Integrating Live Chat Into Your E-Commerce Site
High shopping cart abandonment rates are a plague for online retailers. By initiating automated chat invitations with prospects based on specific predefined rules or by reaching out and offering proactive assistance, agents are able to retain a visitor on the website and help close a sale.
With proactive chat, organizations can launch a conversation with a customer when they're highly active on the site (e.g., purchasing multiple items) or, conversely, when they're idle. Along these lines, live chat applications can automatically be triggered to engage the unengaged shopper, who may have other tabs open in their browser. CSRs can also have pre-written scripts on hand when launching these proactive chats that address shipping, pricing and other issues that hinder sales conversions.
While many retailers make the investment in live chat software, they often lack the tools and training to leverage it fully. Simply put, they purchase the software and it ends up sitting on a shelf.
With the right application and guidance from a knowledgeable source on how to use it, live chat can go a long way to increasing a company's customer satisfaction and, ultimately, revenue. In fact, according to Forrester Research, 44 percent of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a website can offer.
Investing in the right search engine optimization and online marketing strategies to drive traffic to your website is the right first step. It takes a tremendous amount of resources to reach consumers who are qualified leads. Likewise, without proper conversion optimization, once they arrive on your site it's all too easy to lose them to a competitor or to other social sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Live chat software, when used effectively, is a simple solution that can go a long way in growing brand loyalty and enhancing sales conversions.
