Are you paying for visitors to your local business website? Do you spend on Press Advertising, Google Adwords (Pay Per Click) or other ways to get customers? If so, consider having interactive ‘Live Chat’ support on your website. But why is this useful for your advertising campaigns?

‘Live Chat’ provides a convenient, quick and easy way to engage as well as build relationships (in real-time) with your website visitors. It allows one on one interaction on a personal level that turns hot prospects into buyers.

Key goals of any business with a website is simple – effectively capture leads, offer solutions to customer needs, increase sales and maximise revenue without raising their marketing budget. Forward thinking businesses are now providing interactive ‘Live Chat’ service on their websites to meet all of these needs all together. This is certainly a very useful tool to implement, especially if you are spending money on advertising.

‘Live Chat’ Interaction is Proven for Boosting Website Conversions!

A survey carried out by Forrester Research entitled ‘Making Proactive Chat Work’ gives important insights into how people react to getting ‘Live Chat’ support on a website. The survey report states that 44% of online consumers say that having their questions answered by a live person whilst considering a purchase online is one of the most vital features a website can provide.

Forester Research also states that 62% reported as highly likely to buy again via the same website. A further 38% of respondents claimed they made a buying decision as a result of a ‘Live Chat’ session. And if a chat system and complementary website are mobile optimised for mobile users, the better the conversion rates.

In fact ‘Live Chat’ has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone (Source: eDigital Research).

‘Live Chat’ is Convenient – Customers Love it (e-Digital Research)…

7 Key Benefits of ‘Live Chat’ Support on Your Website

1. Converts Web Traffic into Leads & Customers

You may already be getting traffic to your website or a landing page via your advertising. But not every visitor likes to phone or email you to make an enquiry. Not everyone wants to pay for a phone call or wait for an email reply. That does not mean those site visitors should be ignored and you lose them to your competitors as a result. The good news is ‘Live Chat’ is proven to instantly capture hot leads you would otherwise lose and convert them into customers.

2. ‘Live Chat’ Support Increases Sales

Sometimes a website visitor is confused or has a burning question that stops them from making a buying decision. And they need immediate real-time response from a live person. But instead of paying for a phone call or sending an email support ticket, they will simply leave the site and go to a competitor. ‘Live Chat’ provides an immediate interactive way of answering any questions, overcoming objections and guiding site visitors along a sales process in real-time. So, you get more out of your advertising spend.

3. Builds Credibility with Customers

When visitors land on your website and realise that you have a ‘Live Chat’ support system in place, it gives them a good impression about your overall customer service. This makes a credibility building statement that your business is actively well run along with going the extra mile to support your customers. As a result, more of your site visitors will sign up or buy from you with confidence.

4. ‘Live Chat’ Support Boosts Website ROI

If you are already paying for traffic (visitors) to your website, then maximising your ROI (Return on Investment) should be a top priority. You need a great way to engage the traffic coming to your website, which then converts into more sales. Otherwise you will be wasting a lot of your marketing spend. Live Chat effectively provides engagement with your site visitors in real-time. Therefore it helps to boost your ROI.

5. Makes You Stand Out From Competitors

Using ‘Live Chat’ on your website will give you an edge over your competitors. You will simply stand out by offering something valuable to your customers that your competitors are not. Doing something different or going the extra mile in business will go a long way towards making a big impression in front of your customers.

6. Valuable Real-Time Customers Feedback

With regards to customer interaction, very few communication methods give the level of insight you can acquire from a ‘Live Chat’ support service. The main valuable thing about ‘Live Chat’ is the open conversational aspect of it, rather than just purely corresponding (like email). ‘Live Chat’ provides a 2-way interaction that enables chat Agents to better gather customers feedback, identify their pain points, meet their needs, track data and also discover required website improvements all in real-time.

7. Reduces The Cost Of Paid Traffic

On average, 41 – 55% of website visitors leave right away. That’s about half of your website visitors leaving as soon as they arrive. This is what’s known as bounce rate. Around 26 – 40% is considered a good bounce rate, the lower the better. And if you are running Pay Per Click advertising campaign (like Google Adwords), the lower your website (landing page) bounce rate, the less you pay for each click. You even pay less for each click than your competition…

Google have a quality score system for rewarding sites with good conversion rates by reducing their cost per click. Key way to actually reduce bounce rate is to ‘engage’ your traffic (i.e. your site visitors). ‘Live Chat’ support is a proven way to achieve this. Therefore from the traffic you are already paying for, not only would you be able to maximise sales, but also massively reduce your costs.

Conclusion…

You can now see why interactive ‘Live Chat’ support on your website is worth considering if you spend money on advertising to generate customers. As you can highly reduce advertising spend and maximise sales through your website. If you set up a chat system, make sure your site is mobile optimised for the ‘Live Chat’ mobile users, which further helps to increase conversions.