If you're an online business operating through websites or instant messaging/social media platforms, regardless of your industry, you need a way to connect with your visitors. This is where live chat comes in.
Similar to how you'd expect to have someone in a brick-and-mortar store navigate, guide, or assist you with finding and using a product, live chat allows businesses to humanize that experience by connecting and engaging digitally. Visitors can inquire, get clarification, buy, and even request support assistance via live chat.
But do you think that having a form on your website or letting visitors email your business anytime is enough?
The business landscape has been changing for a long time now, and customers prefer instant replies, clarifications, and resolutions. When there's a delay in these communications, customers will see it as a denial, and your business will lose the opportunity to prep and convert those visitors.
A report by Servicebell states that 41% of consumers1 prefer live chat over call (32%) or email (23%) to communicate with businesses. It's not just a conversational preference; live chat adds intrinsic value. A report by Kayoka says that 38% of consumers2 are more likely to buy from a company if it has live chat capabilities, and another analysis by Invesp reports that adding live chat software boosts conversions by 20%3.
In this article, we'll explore the technicalities behind live chat, how it works, and our take on the ideal live chat software for your business.
Why do websites need live chat?
It humanizes your business
As businesses continue to move away from traditional buying-selling setups to online platforms, one key distinction that makes them stand out is their ability to humanize online relationships that connect with visitors.
Adding live chat to your website gives potential customers the impression that a real human is on the other end who can help. This gives visitors confidence in doing business with you.
It's instantly accessible
Building trust is key for businesses to stand out among their competitors and retain hard-earned customers. A simple option like providing live chat can help your business earn that trust, as new visitors might be wary of your reliability.
The ability to talk to someone helps gain trust instantly. Remember, around 38% of customers are more likely to buy from a company if they offer chat because they can access it instantly and get answers.
It's scalable while reducing operating costs
Unlike traditional assistants, online agents can use live chat to converse with more than one visitor at a time. This multitasking advantage of live chat allows agents to help businesses scale their engagement to provide personalized experiences without increasing operating costs.
It allows for a personalized engagement experience
Humanizing interaction and the scope of providing one-on-one conversations and live chat help businesses provide uniform, personalized, and empathetic experiences to their visitors across all their touchpoints.
It will increase your conversion rate and revenue
A report by Outgrow says that adding chat to the engagement strategy results in a 67% increase in overall sales4. Because visitors can clarify their queries and get personalized assistance instantly, it helps them understand the offerings better, speeds up the sales cycle, and improves the overall conversion rate, all of which directly impact revenue.
With a plethora of benefits under its sleeve, how does it work, though? If you're wondering about the technicalities behind it, let's take a look at them.
How does live chat work?
People have been using chat for personal communication for decades now. But while the technical aspects of how live chat works and why it's used are similar, the interface for business use undergoes a major changeover.
How does it differ, and why?
Live chat interface at the visitor's end
Customers don't have to install anything on any platform businesses use to communicate, such as websites, social media platforms, or even mobile apps. The live chat widget will be embedded on all platforms, making it easy for customers to initiate conversations.
Based on the complexities of the business and where it's embedded, the live chat widget can be configured to add more features. For example, the SalesIQ widget is straightforward. If customers want to talk to a customer service representative, they can type their question, send it, and get a reply immediately. Also, we've embedded this on our website, where the queries are primarily from the prospects.
You can configure the SalesIQ widget to add more features, such as:
- Calling the business straight from the live chat widget.
- Sharing attachments.
- Sharing screen recordings.
- Creating tickets.
The example above is from Bookings, Zoho's scheduling application. They embedded SalesIQ in their product, and they added options such as creating a ticket, screen recording, and a mechanism to submit an issue they're facing, which would help their customers communicate their queries faster and in an easily understandable way.
Live chat interface at the business end
To handle live chat queries on the business end, the interface will look like this:
- The live chat interface can handle chats from multiple visitors at a time. You can categorize chats into active, missed, and closed for easy tracking.
- It won't always be the same agent taking care of the same customers. Agents can access past customer conversations through the operator interface to provide personalized support.
- Agents can loop in their colleagues or supervisors for assistance when needed. Supervisors can also monitor their agents' conversations to check how they interact with customers.
- Agents can use audio/video calls, screen sharing, or remote access for better issue resolution.
Live chat features available at the business interface
The business interface has additional features to help agents address and resolve queries faster.
- Canned replies help agents instantly share pre-saved answers. They don't have to type the same thing every time.
- Business-related articles and FAQs can be added to the interface, which will be helpful for the agents to share with the customers.
- Tags help agents and supervisors categorize chats to identify patterns, insights, and areas of concern.
- Routing helps agents direct customers to other agents based on predefined criteria, ensuring efficient support across departments and regions.
- Integration with IM channels enables customers to reach businesses from their preferred platforms.
- Agents can respond to messages from multiple channels within the live chat interface for better efficiency.
- The agent interface has analytics and reports to track the team's performance and identify areas for improvement.
How to set up a live chat on your website
Now that you're convinced about the business benefits of live chat, let's look at how to add one and simplify the engagement process for your customers.
1. Sign up and create an account in your preferred live chat provider (We have taken SalesIQ as the reference live chat here)
2. During the onboarding process, you'll be asked to configure the chat widget to suit your business needs. This includes the look and feel of the widget and any additional features you want.
3. Now it's time to add the live chat widget to your website. (If your business is social-first and you don't have a website, you can skip this step.) During your onboarding process, you'll get an installation code. You'll need to add this code to the content management system you're using. If you don't know how to do that, there will be an option to share the code with your webmaster, and they can do it for you.
4. Adding the code deploys a live chat on your website and makes it active. Some basic customizations can be done during the onboarding process. If you need to customize additional options—like online and offline messages, business hours, and other brand identities—you can do that now.
5. Integrate your active social media platforms with SalesIQ so you'll receive all customer communication in one place.
With that, you're all set with setting up a live chat for your business.
Why Zoho SalesIQ is the ideal live chat software for your business
Zoho SalesIQ is a live chat software designed for businesses of all sizes and types. Its powerful capabilities benefit marketing, sales, support, and other customer-facing teams in your organization.
Along with the features we discussed earlier, SalesIQ has many other features that will help businesses engage with their customers more effectively for the best experience.
- Proactive triggers allow marketers to send automated messages based on visitor activity for a personalized experience.
- Interested prospects can be moved to Zoho CRM as leads for further follow-up.
- You can build an email list and move engaging prospects through the sales funnel with the Zoho Campaigns integration.
- Built-in translation allows seamless communication between customers and your agents in their preferred language.
- SalesIQ supports integration with all of the major IM platforms: WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, and Line.
- Unable to resolve queries instantly? No worries. With the SalesIQ-Desk integration, support teams can create a ticket in Zoho Desk and follow up with them via email.
If your business has an extensive use case, you can customize the application to meet your needs with SalesIQ's webhooks and plugs. Interested in seeing how it works? Sign up for a free 15-day trial and test it out yourself.
References:
1. https://www.servicebell.com/post/live-chat-statistics
2. https://kayako.com/blog/live-chat-pros-and-cons/
3. https://www.invespcro.com/blog/live-chat-customer-support/
4. https://outgrow.co/blog/vital-chatbot-statistics
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