Built-in Live Chat for Your Website
The humble telephone and email still top the most common tools companies use to reach their customers. With social media dominating, the wise and modern open up yet another communication stream with Internal mailboxes, Messengers and live chat support.
Chat boxes began popping up in websites as early as 2007, being promoted as a supplementary method for customer assistance. For the next decade, businesses continued to fiercely steer away from its implementation as research revealed customers were wary of the boxes, thinking they were chatbots with automated and ultimately unhelpful responses. Here at Dioma.pl, we had maneuvered cautiously when recommending this software, knowing users back then immediately blocked or simply ignored the boxes.
Fast forward to 2018 and the power of built-in chat boxes have overtaken Calls to Action, Blogs and Videos. They are no longer just a post-purchase support tool but have proven their worth as a Sales and Marketing conversion tool.
Consumers are always searching for channels to assist them NOW. These chat boxes provide an instant connection between buyers and businesses, eliminating the need to dig through more pages for further information and consequently delay that purchase. Site-visitors can get answers to their questions in a low-pressure set up without them having to pick up the phone or leave the webpage. They also relish the option and freedom to not have to write emails or wait days for a reply. Providing an immediate line of communication within those crucial 10 seconds delivers an excellent user experience and elevates your company’s customer service above all others .
Is Live Chat for You?
You are online for at least 4 hours a day.
You don’t have enough customer service staff to handle large flows of enquiries.
It would be pointless to provide a live support channel if you are hardly ever online to attend to your customers. The best option is to have the application on at all times to receive both calls and chat enquiries. A receptionist or secretary in the office is sufficient during typical working hours from 9am to 5pm.
Alternatively, start-ups and small businesses with limited staff opt to download the app versions of the administration panel directly onto their mobile devices for easy access.
The Offline status deters customers — sometimes even permanently. They may decide to leave your website and never return. Those who are told to wait or made to repeat themselves after being transferred now hold ammunition to spread negative reviews on your level of customer service.
In short, the live chat software is all about customer convenience, making it a Game-Changer provided that You can respond with speed.
What convinced us?
Amongst our customers locally and abroad, live chat is still not the most popular form of communication despite its proven potential in improving sales, marketing and customer service. For now, it is more visible in web applications, e-commerce pages and services where the customer logs in, pays and uses specific services.
In July 2018, our client who has integrated his website with a livesupport software was able to attend to over 200 users within a span of three hours, cementing the power of this communication channel.
What Should I Be Prepared For
After Installing A Chat On My Website?
Get Ready To Be Busy!
On average, do you have several hundred visitors a day? If you’re just starting and have not fully tested the service or product you are offering, be prepared for a rather intensive juggling session with chat tabs. At any moment, you may have to deal with hundreds of users flooding your website during a promotional campaign, asking questions from the trivial to the overly complex.
For 200 or more users, we suggest simultaneously running multiple agent accounts to handle incoming questions smoothly. In the case of chat apps, a single person is able to efficiently handle several users at one time. This is, of course, not at all possible with phone calls.
Lessons To Be Learned.
On the first day, week and month, compile and analyze all dialogue data to determine the common issues your users face to update and improve your business strategy. These golden details are otherwise absent in feedback via email or telephone. We recommend adding that information to your FAQ section.
A Dashboard Panel allows you to check detailed statistics of a given user and track their "journey" through the website by displaying the page they are currently viewing. Some applications even allow you to record users’ behavior on your site. This is one of the most valuable features of this type of service.
Make changes.
Questions from users should lead to quick and regular changes on your website as well as the removal of bottlenecks in the sale process, registration and service provision.
Recently, via live chat, we were able to detect that customers of our client were having problems logging onto their website. The issue was quickly traced to an erroneous ordering instruction written online. After a quick amendment, there was complete silence in the chat. If nobody is complaining, there is no problem.
Which Website Chat Should I Choose?
To date, there are over 150 companies offering live chat services, making it easier for businesses to find the right solution at the right price. Increased competition results in a price battle with different services offering a range of functionality and tool features.
We have had the pleasure of working with two great providers, one of which is our homeland company that created LiveChat, named a High Performer of the Industry in the 2015 Grid℠ report for live chat software with clients like Ikea, McDonalds and Paypal. The other is Smartsupp, from our Czech neighbour, used by more than 220,000 companies including top brands like Microsoft and Skoda and garner 5-star ratings online.
Both platforms are highly recommended, providing top quality support for their users. LiveChat is suitable for larger companies with more complex agent structures to handle large flows of incoming chats. Smartsupp boasts a clean and effective application and, best of all, a free account for small websites with one online agent.