“It takes months to find a customer and seconds to lose one.”
-Vince Lombardi
We have all had the pleasure of being at the end of a customer support call with an automated voice repeatedly telling us how important our call is to them and how a customer care executive will be able to assist us soon.
This is a patience testing exercise especially when there is an urgent need of assistance. Hearing the automated voice can be a nightmare!
In today’s world of instant gratification, customers are less likely to stick it out with businesses that do not cater to their needs. The attention span and patience of people is dwindling every day and with a variety of options available to customers they readily switch from one service provider to another.
To retain customers, it is important to meet not just their sales needs but also resolve the issues they might face at the time of making purchase related decisions.
The integration of live chat as a way to engage customers and resolve their issues promptly is a step in the right direction.
But what is live chat?
Live Chat
Live Chat is a customer service software which enables website visitors to connect with company’s human customer support representatives directly and instantaneously helping in quick resolution of customer queries.
Persons use customer service and support live chat with chatbot and automatic messages, Artificial intelligence, and CRM software technology. AI Chatbot smart digital customer service application.
Live chat, like chatbot, involves real-time customer support. Despite being similar in their utility, chat bot and live chat are vastly different as a chatbot connects the website users to bots while live chat connects them to an actual person representing the company.
So why is live chat gaining popularity?
Why adding live chat to your Website is a good idea
Here are 7 reasons why live chat is leading the race in customer creation and retention:
1. Convenience for Customers:
Live chat is convenient for the prospects visiting your website as it is much easier to get their queries resolved as they are directly connected to the customer support executives instead of being in a long waiting line.
More than 56 million live chats reviewed by Comm 100 in their 2020 Live Chat Benchmark Report, showed that the average wait time between a customer submitting a live chat request and the first agent response was an amazing 46 seconds.
This short response time of businesses goes a long way in converting casual visitors into paying customers as customers are more likely to engage with companies that make support easily accessible and hassle free. Having support in the form of live chat at the exact time it is needed helps in customer building.
2. One-stop solution:
Having a live chat option available on your website helps you to retain your website visitors. If the visitors are provided hands-on support on your website itself, they are not pushed to leave your website to seek solutions elsewhere. Preventing website visitors from leaving your site helps to keep them engaged and interested in the products and services being offered by you and this in turn increases the chance of converting them into paying customers.
3. Record of queries:
Live chat tools maintain a record of all the queries raised by the visitors. This helps to create guidelines for commonly raised user queries. It also acts as reference data for similar issues arising in the future. Having a data bank of customer queries helps to resolve repeatedly raised issues and common problems thus increasing the quality of products and services being offered which in turn helps build a larger customer base.
4. Higher Customer Satisfaction:
Customer satisfaction is of utmost importance for any business.
The importance of live chat can easily be identified by the data collected by Invesp in their study of Statistics and trends on the importance of live chat customer support which came up with the following results:
| Method | Customer satisfaction level |
| Live chat | 73% |
| Email support | 51% |
| Phone support | 44% |
This data clearly shows the importance of live chat on customer creation and retention. Live chat helps customers feel heard and gives a sense of instant gratification in that their queries and issues are resolved instantly rather than being stuck in a pile of unresolved problems.
5. Creating a loyal customer base:
Customer satisfaction is the key to creating a loyal customer base and prompt solution of customer issues plays an important role in achieving the same. Live chat creates a direct connection between the website visitor and the customer support representatives eliminating the long waiting period involved in problem resolution. When the website visitors have a positive experience with a company’s customer support system, they are more likely to purchase from the company and become permanent customers in the future and recommend it to others as well.
6. Greater geographical reach:
More often than not language becomes a barrier in the path of customer acquisition for non-native businesses in the global market space. Not being able to understand the issues being faced by the customers hinders a businesses’ ability to convert visitors into customers and close deals.
Live chat helps overcome this language barrier by using the translation tools to understand customer grievances and providing relevant solutions.
7. Reduced cost:
Live chat not only has functional benefits but financial benefits too. Unlike traditional phone support which is expensive in man-hours and toll charges, live chat is very cost effective. Most websites using live chat save on personnel cost as a single customer representative can assist multiple customers at the same time.
Summing up
Live chat is the future of customer service. With the highest rate of customer satisfaction, live chat can be an asset for any business. Businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition curve can achieve success by incorporating live chat and creating an instant communication channel for their customers.
Have you incorporated live chat in your business website yet?
Let us know your experience in the comment section below.
