Web Tools

Operating a website is a lot different from operating a “brick and mortar” business. When operating a store front, you’re generally given the opportunity to speak to prospective clients first hand in order to push a sale. On the web, you have to adapt your sales tactics in order to meet your market. Rather than being able to give a sales pitch, you have to let your website be your salesperson. It’s easy to see why contact forms became so popular on modern websites: it’s much easier to make a sale when you can communicate your product’s value first hand.

Many tech-savvy web developers have realized this need for direct client communication, and have created their own website chat system to try and assist with this need. These online chat systems are commonly known as “live chat” solutions, and boy are they effective. Live chat systems allow you to track your visitors as they travel around your site, spark up conversations, offer assistance, and much more. These systems add great value for your visitors, and there’s a number of reasons why any site that markets a good or service should have one.

1) Sales associates

One of the largest draws of a brick and mortar shop is the presence of sales associates. Sales associates help customers find the products that they need. Sales associates are store trained individuals that know about the product that they’re selling. Without live chat software, your website is your sales associate. Couple that with the short online attention span of website users, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

By adding a live chat system to you site, you can add sales associates back into the mix. Most live chat solutions even allow for multiple operators to be signed in simultaneously, meaning you can have multiple employees answering chats if you require. By allowing individuals that are familiar with your product to help the not so informed user, you can convert more interested clients into sales.

2) Ensuring client satisfaction

If a user comes to your site, looks at a product, and misses a vital piece of information, they may very well click the back button and decide to browse elsewhere. Most live chat systems feature an “auto prompt” that asks the user if they have any questions. This simple feature is actually a conversion saver. You’d be amazed at the amount of people that aren’t buying your product because they can’t find one piece of information on your site. By prompting your visitors, you can make sure that your clients found the information they needed.

3) Providing support

When a client has an issue with your product, they’re destined to call and ask for help. Nowadays, texting is much more convenient than talking on the phone, and by placing a live chat system on your site, you can provide a simple solution for your clients to get support on your product. Rather than tying up your phone lines, you can sign up multiple live chat operators and hire a small team to deal with your product support. This is especially beneficial if you sell a virtual product or service.

4) Targeted content

Everybody that visits your site is there for a different reason. Some people some to read your blog while others come to purchase your latest products. There’s no way for you to tell why people are visiting your site. By adding a live chat solution, you have the ability to prompt your clients to chat with you. Once you get them in chat, you can figure out exactly what they were looking for, and help them find the information they need. This ultimately leads to happier clients, which leads me to my fifth, and final point.

5) Increasing conversions

One of the top reasons that visitors leave websites is because they can’t find the content or product they were looking for. This can be due to a number of reasons: poor navigation structure, bad UI design, or simply a lack of content in that area. By prompting the client to find out exactly what they’re looking for, you can help guide them to the correct places of your site so that they spend less time hunting around, and more time reading and purchasing. By streamlining the process for your visitors, you save headaches all around.

What are you waiting for?

It’s obvious that live chat software provides numerous benefits. With so many reasons why live chat software can help your business increase online revenue, it would be ludicrous not to put a live chat solution on your site. There are plenty of free and open source options available out there, and a number of paid solutions as well. We personally use LiveChat Inc. on our site. LiveChat Inc. costs $36.00 a month for one operator, but also features a web app, desktop apps, and even mobile apps. This means you can even chat with your visitors on the go.

We’re actually a certified LiveChat Inc. installation partner! We can help you get this software set up and themed to match the rest of your site. If you’re interested in having us assist you with your LiveChat setup, feel free to get in touch via any of the methods on our contact page.