Web Chat for Customer Service and Online Sales

Live Web Chat provides real-time convenience to customers and increases the sales and conversion rates.


Web (or Live) Chat is commonly associated with customer service, but what many people don’t realize is that it is also a great sales and marketing tool. Web chat can help existing customers, new customers, and potential customers, and when utilized properly, can drive more sales through leads. 

InfoServ Web Chat, an integrated functionality of InfoServ CRM, enables you to communicate with your website visitors and is an essential tool for your website, CRM and Contact Center software.

The answer to the question “Why is Web Chat so important?” is simple and obvious: 
Because it improves your business by offering immediate assistance to your customers through a cost-effective communication channel that reduces customer response time, increases customer satisfaction and ultimately increases your sales and conversion rate.

A Web Chat platform has the power to provide a wide range of benefits for your business. Below are the most significant benefits of Web Chat and their implications on any business’s support, sales and marketing activities.

Provides Real-Time Convenience to Customers

The main reason above all, is that web chat offers convenience for customers right from the company’s website without having to leave it looking for assistance on the phone, email or social media. 

By communicating with customers right from the product page on your website, your business is more likely to address their concerns and therefore, impact their confidence shopping on your website since they know someone is always there to help. Live chat is crucial for answering customers’ issues, but is also effective for businesses looking to provide advice to customers as they shop to better inform them of their options and which options match their needs and interests. 

In today’s fast paced world, customers need information NOW.

The web chat platform and your customer service representatives provide your website visitors with immediate responses to their questions and concerns while they are browsing your website and multi-tasking, making the experience much more satisfying. This allows you to stand out and by offering exceptional customer service experience to increase your customer’s loyalty, value and brand advocacy.

Increases Awareness of Additional Products and Services

During a Web Chat conversation, a client may make side comments (both positive and negative) about other products, services, or issues. The customer service web chat agent may be unable to address those comments at that time if they are not pertinent to the issue at hand. But since Web Chat conversations are documented (and that’s the benefit of Web Chat, especially when the Web Chat platform is integrated into the company’s CRM & Contact Center), agents are able to read back over the conversation and pick up on things they may have missed or weren’t able to address at the time.

If there was a negative comment or concern, they can follow up with the client and ensure that it gets resolved. Or perhaps the customer mentioned another need, not knowing that it could be met by an additional service or simple upgrade offered by your company. This is the perfect opportunity to inform them about this service without having to sound “salesy”.

If there was a positive side comment about a product or service, the agent may also have additional suggestions for them based on a preference they revealed during the conversation. One of the many benefits of Web Chat is that it enables you to move customers further down the sales funnel and show them what else your business has to offer.

Increases Sales, Conversion Rates and Average Order

ValuesHaving a real person walk you through a purchase adds confidence and customers tend to spend more compared to the ones who don’t use web chat. A positive experience leads to a higher average order value, thus your sales are directly affected by web chat.

Since the experience with your business is made more enjoyable by the use of web chat, this often results in more conversions and a higher average order value from customers that are engaging with you on the platform. According to Econsultancy, of those who prefer live chat, 79% said they did so because they get their questions answered quickly and 46% agreed it was the most efficient communication method. The speed and effectiveness of this form of customer support is what it takes to succeed and impact your business’s bottom line. As a result since questions are answered more quickly and the answers provide customers with more confidence, they tend to spend more and on average their order values are higher. 

Reduces Expenses

Web Chat customer support offers significant savings to your company. It is less expensive than a traditional phone support service, with reduced operational costs and lower average interaction cost with customers. It increases efficiency by allowing web chat agents to handle multiple chats simultaneously, thus you don’t need to hire more agents. Because a web chat agent can conduct multiple chat sessions at once (and InfoServ Web Chat allows for multiple options for chat distribution and utilization) and answers are efficiently delivered to customers, the time that each chat takes is significantly lower by comparison to phone support.

Web Chat keeps the cost per contact low and is the most efficient and cost-effective LIVE COMMUNICATION channel to offer customer support.

Integrated Web Chat has consistently demonstrated that it can save on employee task time and reduce overall contact center costs. With employees spending less time on the phone, they can multi-task during chat conversations and cut the waiting queue to a fraction of its former size when compared to a call center.

Differentiates the company from its competitors

It has never been more important to stand out among your competitors as nowadays. The amount of business rivals is tremendous and is increasing every day. Small and medium-sized businesses are recognizing the importance of providing real-time customer service

If you want to gain an edge on the competition, web chat is a key feature that websites must have in order to be competitive and to hopefully rise to the top. In fact, web chat provides a simple way to connect with customers who spend a good deal of their money online. 

Helps Boost SEO (Search Engine Optimization)


The data from web chat conversations provides a lot of insight into what your customers’ current and future needs are. It is fair to assume that frequently asked questions on web chat are likely to be frequently searched topics on search engines such as Google. If you use the data from web chat conversations to create a FAQ page on your website, you can improve your search engine optimization (SEO). When individuals type these queries into search boxes online, your website is more likely to show up in the results page. The more relevant your information is to the search, the higher you will rank. By optimizing your site for SEO, you put your business in a position to be found not just by more people, but by more people who have the ability to become future customers.

CONCLUSION


The benefits of Web Chat extend to your audience, your employees, your website, and your overall sales. It helps you to better know and serve your customers, and for your customers to better know and utilize your business—the foundation for mutual satisfaction and successful growth.

Web Chat can significantly improve customer satisfaction, raise expectations of customer service and offer a competitive advantage in the customer's experience, resulting in greater brand awareness, higher levels of loyalty and revenue.

Tags: live chat communication web chat customer crm

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