Consumer product/service providers are no longer able to dictate to their customers which avenue of communication they will use to communicate with their brand.
In this omni-connected world we now live in, consumers expect to be able to contact a company whenever and however they wish.
How do your customers communicate with your brand? Why use Live Chat? One answer to these questions lies in the fact that each customer is different. Some will be happy to pick up the phone, some will be happy to fill out an online form and wait for an email and SOME will want to be able to have an immediate text based conversation with you. So why is Live Chat important for your business?
What do you like doing in your spare time? Gaming, watching telly, exercise, reading, painting and being creative? We all have a pastime we prefer doing. And in just the same way, people normally prefer one method of communication over the other.
OpenMarket conducted a survey in 2016 which showed that 75% of people who fell into the millennial demographic would choose to forgo a call function as long as they were still able to text.
Are you a talker or a texter? Personally, I’m a texter. Receiving a text is less intrusive, I can reply when I want, I have a log of what has been said and I can review my messages before I click send to make sure I’ve included everything I wanted to say.
Do you like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok? GlobalStats Statcounter report the split is Facebook (68.29%), Pinterest (13.61%), Twitter (10.25%), YouTube(4.27%), Instragram (2.25%) and reddit (0.44%)
I’m a Facebooker myself. I’m not overly interested in sharing photo’s and parts of my life outside of my friend group. Having said that I have many friends who spend their time on each of the other platforms. Sometimes I’ll dabble with Twitter but hardly ever post anything. Yet despite the fact that Social Media appears to be a dominant force in 21st century life, it is far from the number one channel when it comes to communicating with a business after visiting their website.
From this Kayako study we find that 41% of consumers actually prefer live chat support compared to 32% who prefer telephone, 23% email and 3% social media.
So, if your business isn’t able to provide the avenue of communication a customer prefers to use, but your competitor does, you risk losing out. It can be as simple as that. But there are many other reasons for the importance of live chat to modern businesses too:
- Do you want your customers to view your brand as “up to date”? Well, having LIVE CHAT on a website is quickly becoming the norm and without it, you’re lagging behind the times. 62% or customers actually expect live chat to be available through mobile sites.
- Are you proactively trying to catch those passive website browsers? If not, you could be missing out on loads of valuable leads. Live Chat enables convenient 2 way engagement, where a visitor can be nurtured with questions and great service.
- Are you passionate about excellent customer service? Live chat is another vital string to your customer service bow. ICMI write that 72% of customers have positive customer support experiences when shopping online, but when live chat is used on a mobile device it increases to 92%
- If you’re a 9-5 business, having LIVE CHAT on your website means you can still get valuable leads during the other 16 hours that make up the day! Our statistics, over the last 5 years, evidence that up to 52% of your web visitors will be browsing when your office is shut.
So, in conclusion. Live Chat is important as it’s one of the most recent consumer communication tools out there and is quickly becoming the expected norm on customer facing websites.
If you would like to find out more about our Live Chat services and how they can benefit your business, just get in touch with any of us for a chat.
