Cart abandonment can be driven by a variety of factors. But while so much time is spent by ecommerce businesses agonising over improving user experience to boost conversion rates, all too often the critical ingredient of human interaction is missed. In a traditional shop, personal service is often what sets an outlet apart. The customer feels good, and as a consequence both sends more money and recommends the shop to people within their network. How many online retailers have still yet to adopt live chat backed by professional live chat operators as a channel to offer onsite human interaction and customer support?
Over at Cloud.IQ, they have put together a great infographic on "Boosting Sales Conversions and Cart Abandonment". And top of the list is 53% of people citing a lack of human interaction as a key reason for cart abandonment. It is amazing just how many ecommerce businesses are missing this obvious issue, which today is relatively easy to resolve. Having great live chat operators staffing your online store 24/7 works wonders for your conversion rates. Why would you leave your customers groping around in the dark when you can use live chat to guide them through to a successful purchase.
The infographic also highlights several other key reasons for cart abandonment, many of which can also be solved by having your live chat operators step in at key moments in the customer journey. It's true that you should not get rid of traditional email and phone customer support, but if you add professionally executed live chat, with well trained live chat operators staffing the service you will swiftly see significant improvements. It is a challenge to get it right, but if live chat is done well you will see a huge upswing in your conversion rates and a corresponding drop in cart abandonment. The key here is having live chat operators available when the customers need them so that you can answer questions around delivery or returns, or you can directly offer incentives to keep the shoppers engaged.
Anyway, here's the infographic from Cloud.IQ. Enjoy and please do share. We'd also welcome your thoughts.