Live chat is great for communication, but it can do much more than just answering customer questions all day long. With the right strategy, it can become a finely tuned revenue-generating machine.
Here are 5 live chat strategies to increase your conversion rates.
1. Be available when your customers need it
This is where live chat shines. Customers can type their problem into the chat box and get answers from you in seconds. One way to differentiate yourself from your competitors is by showing your availability, and be transparent when your team is online and offline.
Keep in mind though that some of the peak hours for eCommerce are between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. If you don’t have someone monitoring your customer channels 24/7 or during peak hours, you can utilize an integrated helpdesk with self-serve chat options so your customer isn’t left hanging. This is especially important if your customers are based in different places all over the world.
2. Collect customer insights with live chat
How happy or unhappy are customers about your service? Did you help them solve their problem? Is there anything you can do better? A chat can reveal a lot of things about your customer satisfaction and service quality.
A live chat is a great opportunity to discover customer pain points. For instance, if people keep asking about shipping methods, it might be because your product description is unclear. Or if they ask how a product works or where materials come from, it might be beneficial to review your product description and add more details. You may even want to include a demonstration video to explain how your product helps ease their lives.
Then, use all the insights you’ve gained for your retargeting campaigns, updating your site to increase conversion rates, and improving your customer service strategy.
3. Display greetings based on customer behaviors
Today’s customers expect an exceptional personalized shopping experience. They want to be heard and recognized.
When it comes to personalization, timing and relevance is everything. By displaying the right message at the right time, you can do wonders for your conversion rate.
You can use a chat campaign in a helpdesk to customize your live chat boxes to appear on different pages. You can even customize the message depending on the page a live chat appears on.
Let’s look at an example.
A visitor is browsing your product page with a cardigan sweater. You can assume this person is interested in cardigan sweaters and trigger your live chat box with an automated greeting asking if you can assist them with anything.
Meet your prospects where they are in the customer journey. If they’re browsing specific pages, they’re probably looking for information relevant to those pages.
If they’re not, it’s good to ask so you can guide them to the right page or answer their questions in real-time. You don’t know when your customers will need you, so it’s better to be proactive.
4. Remove objections on checkout pages
You’ve probably taken a lot of time to optimize your checkout process. Yet on average, over 70% of customers abandon their cart.
That means no matter how many customers have already completed checkout on your site, a larger percentage won’t. So you need to continuously review and optimize your checkout page.
One of the things you can do to help is incorporate a live chat on your checkout pages. This gives your customers a way to ask any question that could prevent them from completing their purchase. “Why is the total shipping fee so high?” “I can’t type my credit card number,” “Why is the discount rate lower than what you offered me?”—all of these questions can occur in the checkout process.
If you’re concerned about distracting your customers in the checkout process with live chat, then you can insert a live chat button in a visible spot on these pages and never let it pop up by default.
That way, shoppers who just want to check out quickly without interruptions can do so. Meanwhile, those who might need a little help can click the live chat button and get their questions answered.
5. Continue chat conversations after live chat ends
You already know live chat is an excellent lead generation and qualification tool. So, don’t waste your opportunity to do some follow-ups after an ended live chat session. The relationship between you and your customer just started.
When doing a follow-up, keep these in mind:
- Let potential customers know who you are and what you are contacting them about.
- Refer to your previous conversation. This will help your customers easily recognize you and also build trust with them.
- Let them know you’ll keep them updated with special offers, and if they have any further questions, they can reach out to you via email, phone, or any other way.
Try the above five tactics, and you’ve already made great headway towards increasing your online sales in 2021.
