How to Measurably Boost Sales with Live Chat

Transcription

1 44% of online customers say live chat is one of the most important features a website can offer. How to Measurably Boost Sales with Live Chat Live chat turns every website visit into a conversion opportunity for virtual shopkeepers SnapEngage, LLC

2 Contents Why Engage?. 3 Is Live Chat Right for Your Business? 5 Getting to Know the Features 6 Playbook for Success.. 9 Set Expectations Response Time is Key Separate Your Departments Proactive Chat aka The Secret Sauce CRM Integration Analytics About SnapEngage

3 Why Engage? Live Chat is one of the most efficient and effective tools for boosting conversion rates and fostering happy, loyal customers. The key to increasing sales with live chat is engaging your website visitors with impeccable timing, targeted questions, and a human touch that turns passive lookers into valued prospects and customers. Ongoing studies show that live chat continues to grow as a preferred method of communication for visitors when interacting with websites, with a particular affinity for real-time customer support among the millennial generation. Forrester Research Industry Surveys econsultancy 3

4 The Future of Customer Engagement The old days of customer service won t cut it anymore. Today, customers hold the power to a business success or failure. Social media in particular has forever changed the customer service landscape - it allows fans and haters alike to rave or rant about their experiences instantly to an audience of millions! In this cloud of peer reviews, we as businesses must rethink the way we interact with our audience and focus on transitioning from the old days of reactive customer service to the new ways of proactive customer engagement. CUSTOMER SERVICE waiting for your customers to initiate a conversation looking out for the company s best interest defending against customer complaints corporate communication style it s all about the bottom line CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT proactively helping your customers before they have to ask looking out for the customer s best interest acting on customer complaints human communication style it s all about the experience But, customer Engagement is about more than simply changing how we think about our customers, it s about finding and using tools that allow us to truly connect with our customers. Live chat is one such tool that fosters this customer engagement. 4

5 Is Live Chat Right For Your Business? If you can answer yes to any of the following questions, you may want to give live chat a try: 1. Do you use a website to directly or indirectly sell a product or service? 2. Does your product/service require further education or instructions? 3. Do you currently service customers through or phone? 4. Would you like to increase conversion rates on your website? In addition to providing your clients and prospects an immediate line of communication to your team, it has proven time and again to measurably boost sales and increase conversions. Here s a powerful example of how one live chat client experienced a nearly 100x return on their investment. We have been using [live chat] for 16 months at a total cost of $7,000. $640,000 in closed business resulted from the inbound chats. Within 30 days of the service going live, we closed 2 deals for a total of $16K. -Happy Live Chat Client 5

6 Getting to Know the Features When evaluating live chat, it s easy to get caught up in the features run-down, but don t let all the bells and whistles take your focus away from the basic fundamental that live chat is about customer engagement. Your solution is only as good as how well you use the tools. With that disclaimer, we ve provided a glossary of live chat features that will help serve as a guide while we walk through some best practices and tips for leveraging the tools to drive engagement and growth for your business. Proactive Chat Robust Visitor Information Powerful rules-based messaging that automatically displays a customized chat message to your visitors based on pre-defined rules, such as what page a customer is viewing, how long they ve been on the page, which page they arrived from and so forth. The information that is gathered on your visitors and displayed to your agents at the start of a chat. This can include geo-location, chat history, referring url, current page on website, social media profiles, browser, operating system, and many other details. Mobile-Optimized Design Customization Agent Photos Capability to detect when a website visitor is on a mobile device and optimize the chat display and functionality accordingly. Ability to customize the visitor-facing display of the chat window and buttons to match the look and feel of your website, including basic and advanced customizations. Additional white label options are usually available to remove the vendor logo from the display. Use personalized agent photos and names to forge an instant connection and establish trust with your website visitors. 6

7 Co-Browsing Shortcuts Redirect your website visitor s page while in a chat using a simple command. Instead of trying to explain where to find the answer, simply direct your visitor's web browser directly to the page they've been looking for. Canned responses for commonly typed communications. This helps cut down on agent typing time so they can focus on assisting more visitors. Persistent Chat Window The chat window stays with your website visitor as they browse through the pages of your site. Analytics CRM Integration Offline Messages SMS-to-Chat Know how your live chat efforts are performing at any given time. View chat volume, agent performance, visitor information and much more so you can make informed decisions for strategic planning and optimization. Integrate directly with your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to keep all of your lead/customer communications and activities in a single hub. Your live chat support team may not be available 24 hours a day. That's okay. Visitors can leave a message through a simple form for your team to address later. Text-to-Chat allows your visitors to initiate a chat and communicate with your agents via SMS text message while maintaining the same userfriendly chat portal interface for your agents. Agent Routing & Transfers Multi-Widget Setup Team Chat Transfer a chat to another agent, department or support tier with a simple click. Using different chat widgets for different departments, websites, and languages will help you provide more efficient service to your visitors. Set up widget-specific routing and proactive rules for more effective communication. Facilitates internal communication among agents. Start and join one-onone or group chat rooms for questions, feedback and your virtual water cooler. 7

8 Knowledge Base File Exchange Provide your agents with easy access to your knowledge base so they can search support documentation directly within the chat interface. You can also configure a pre-chat form to address FAQs with relevant help articles prior to connecting with a support agent. Share files and images with your website visitors and team members (through team chat channels). This is especially helpful for screenshot sharing when trying to troubleshoot technical issues. Secure Data Transfer Agents can safely collect credit cards, social security numbers and secure notes off the record directly in the chat window. Call-Me Feature For more complex support issues, visitors can click a button to initiate a phone call and be directly connected with their chat agent. Help Desk Integration Integrate directly with your Help Desk system to keep all of your support ticket information in a single hub. Every organization has different processes and timelines when attracting and nurturing leads through the marketing and sales funnels. Regardless of your departmental divisions or your time-to-close averages, the most effective live chat strategies combine, adapt and optimize these powerful features to fit their workflows and ultimately convert more leads. 8

9 Playbook for Success Want more tips on how to leverage live chat for your business? CHAT WITH AN EXPERT We re committed to helping you reach your sales goals. The following guide will help walk you through how to set yourself up for conversion success with live chat. Set Expectations Most businesses don t have the bandwidth to operate sales and support functions 24/7. Don t worry, that s okay! Don t let this be a deal-breaker when deciding if live chat is right for your organization. The important thing is to set expectations for your customers upfront. Post Live Chat Hours Many visitors prefer live chat over phone or and will return at the hours that you specify. Utilize Offline Messages Display a form to allow visitors to send messages to your agents outside of the designated live chat hours so your agents can follow up during business hours. Configure Agent Settings Each agent should adjust their settings to best suit their own personal response times, idle time and maximum number of chats allowed at any one time. 9

10 Response Time is Key Response time is absolutely paramount. This is going to be one of the biggest factors in your daily chat count. People are generally impatient, and people are even more impatient on the internet where everything is delivered immediately. Think of it in terms of internet time how quickly do you tend to give up on a website if it s loading slowly? Well, the same applies for a blank chat window while waiting for someone to respond. A few techniques for increasing responsiveness: Make sure your agents notification settings are properly configured with desktop notifications and sound alerts. Account administrators can monitor real time activity dashboards to make sure that agents are responding to incoming messages. You can even try displaying this dashboard on a highly visible screen within your office environment so that agents can help alert each other to incoming conversations. Create a friendly competition among your agents to see who can achieve the best response time. Consider giving out a prize for the best average response time each week, or each month. Consider taking advantage of Notify all agents routing options for newer chat teams while they get used to keeping an eye and ear out for incoming chats. In the end, of course, the tools can only help improve visitor engagement if you have the appropriate teams in place to actively respond and interact to incoming conversations. MORE CHATS = MORE CONNECTIONS = MORE SALES 10

11 Separate Your Departments Your customers will feel much more comfortable talking with someone who truly understands their specific needs, and someone they can easily build a rapport with. Using multiple widgets to distinguish separate departments within your organization gives you greater flexibility over the messages that are displayed to visitors (through proactive chat), as well as how those incoming messages are routed to your agents. There are a number of scenarios where you might want to use Multiple Widgets to segment various types of visitors and chat teams. Perhaps some members of your agent team are fluent in multiple languages. Put those talents to use by setting up proactive messages to reach out to your international customers on their behalf. Your customers in other countries will be much more likely to connect with someone who already speaks their native language. Many chat agent teams are comprised of individuals with an array of specialties. You can also use separate chat widgets to cater to your visitors unique needs and connect them directly with agents that possess expertise in that field. Hello, I see you re looking at commercial real estate properties! That s actually my speciality. Would you like some advice? Do you have customers all over the country, or even all over the globe? Maximize your proactive chat by connecting website visitors from specific regions with agents who specialize in those locations. Drill down on a country, state, or even city level for an incredibly personalized proactive experience. Hi there! I noticed you re in Boulder, Colorado. We offer catering services throughout the entire Front Range. Do you have any special events coming up? 11

12 Proactive Chat aka The Secret Sauce Proactive chat is perhaps the most powerful live chat tool for engaging with your visitors. Essentially, proactive chat enables you to help a visitor on your site as soon as they have questions, even before they ask. It automatically sends an invitation to chat on behalf of your online, available agents. This automated message helps customers at critical points within the marketing and sales funnels and can be set based on an extensive variety of metrics. Refer to Your Analytics Look at your analytics and try to identify where there may be pain points in your buying process. For instance, you can look at common exit pages, and then try to formulate specific proactive rules based on a combination of metrics, such as time on page, whether they re new or returning visitors, number of page clicks and then customize your messages according to these particular scenarios. Ask Questions We recommend posing all of your proactive messages in the form of questions - this invites interaction with your visitors by exploring the problem that they are trying to solve with your product or service. Hi there! I see you ve been looking at our pricing page for a bit, can I help answer any questions for your specific needs? You can also get creative with proactive messages to try to capture attention to invite engagement. Hello, thank you for checking out our extensive list of features. This may take a while... Can I get you anything? 12

13 Timing is Everything Take a deep look into your website analytics, along with feedback from your customers and your employees, and try to identify steps in the signup process where customers are routinely bogged down in your sign-up or checkout process. Try Inserting a proactive chat invitation at these key points to immediately give the visitor a chance to connect so you can resolve their hesitation and help them move forward in the process. SnapEngage tested this out on their trial signup page by placing a proactive invite to trigger after someone had been on the trial signup page for 30 seconds, but had not yet taken an action. This slight adjustment increased trial signups by 67%. 67% increase in trial signups Targeted questions like this will allow you to seek out interested prospects without any additional effort and ensure that your sales team is spending their time on quality leads and maximizing their sales potential. 13

14 CRM Integration Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is most effective when you are able to use technology to align your sales, marketing and support functions by creating a single, cohesive contact record that tracks every touch point so that you can more intelligently communicate with your leads and customers. Live chat is one of those key communication points that can be tracked and leveraged within your CRM for more effective lead nurturing. You can easily integrate live chat with your CRM system to look up contact details and history while chatting with your website visitors, and also create deals for new leads in the pipeline. SnapEngage offers powerful integrations (no programming required) with some of the more common CRM providers, along with an open API that can be configured for your specific needs and goals. Beyond achieving internal efficiencies for your marketing and sales teams, integrating live chat with your CRM provides a better experience for your prospects and customers. Some sales cycles are longer than others and many times, leads engage with multiple representatives along the path to purchase. Your Live Chat/CRM integration puts all chat history (alongside other communications) at your agents fingertips so they can focus on new discovery and progressing leads to the next phase of the funnel, rather than wasting time on repetitive catch-up. 14

15 Analytics You ll want to pair your live chat analytics with the other analytics tools that you use for ongoing optimization efforts both in terms of engaging with visitors and converting leads. Some of the various reports that you can use to evaluate and optimize include: Overview Report This is your eagle-eye view of chat activity. It gives you the best overall vision on: how many chats your agents are handling; how many offline contacts you tend to get; how many chats you re missing (not responded chats); and the distribution of incoming proactive vs reactive chats. Hourly Contact Count Report Chat activity can come in waves. This graph can help you discover trends in your chat activity maybe you always see a spike in offline and/or not responded cases in the middle of the day, which might mean you need to space out your agents lunch breaks. 15

16 Agent Availability Report This report shows agents statuses during a given period of time, whether they were set to available or paused. This serves as a really great staffing tool, allowing you to ensure that you always have agents available for chat during your set business hours. Visitor Information Reports These reports are incredibly powerful in helping to identify and proactively engage with your target segments so your sales team can focus on engaging with quality leads. Environment Reports show the different Operating Systems and Browsers your chatters are using. This can be useful data for a SaaS support team, or for your web developers. If you have a lot of visitors using older versions of Internet Explorer, for instance, you may want to invest some time into making sure your website has excellent backwards-compatibility. Pages Reports: Full URL - A list of the top URLs where chats were started, and this can help you identify: high-performing Proactive Rules or a well-placed Chat with us button; and on the flip side, it can bring attention to pages where your customers may be struggling and need assistance. Entry URL - you know, the first page on your website where a visitor landed. This can help you identify pages that rank highly in search results, or help you figure out what your customers are looking for, or where your customers are having trouble. Referrer URL - This is the URL from which a visitor arrived on your site - this will help you identify good lead sources and search engine traffic. If you re getting a lot of referrals from a given site, you may want to reach out to them for some kind of partnership. Or if you re seeing a lot of search traffic from a given search engine, you might want to invest extra web developer time toward improving your ranking on that particular site. 16

17 About SnapEngage The easiest way to connect, communicate and ultimately convert your website visitors into happy customers. With offices in Boulder, CO and Berlin, Germany, SnapEngage was born out of a dream to provide human powered engagement in the digital world. SnapEngage Live Chat is implemented on over 10,000 websites worldwide and provides an effective way for businesses to turn visitors into customers. Ready to chat about chat? So are we! Schedule a call with a Live Chat Specialist