Most businesses now have a website which makes it all the more difficult to stand out from the competition.
As a result the difference between keeping a potential client and losing them to the competition could come down to the small details. Small details like personal and quality customer service.
We are a demanding and increasingly impatient bunch always wanting instant answers and good quick customer service, myself included.
Have you ever been on a website and not able to find the answer to your product or service question?
If the answer was yes, did this lack of instant information mean you went elsewhere?
What if you had the option to ask an ask an instant question without making a phone call or sending an email, would you remain on the site?
I know I certainly would as I would probably have put some time and effort into finding the product or service that I was looking at.
As a business owner you already know that quality customer service and making the customer feel that they are special can make you stand out from the crowd. Satisfied customers, will after all, promote your business for you and help you grow your customer base.
You will also be acutely aware that dedicated customer service costs a lot of money which for a small business is not always viable.
In view of this we recently tested a live chat solution on our website from Visitor Chat
How It Works:
This works by adding a small piece of code to your website thereby creating a visible instant chat button which potential customers can use to ask you questions or send you messages.
Through the software that comes with Visitor Chat you are able to monitor visitors to your site and you can pro-actively engage them by starting a conversation which is especially useful if it looks like a potential customer can’t make up their mind or is stuck.
The setup was really quick and easy and only requires a small amount of technical knowledge.
When someone came onto our site the software alerted us to the visitor and allowed us to track their progress on our site in real time.
This was especially useful because it gave us the ability to step in at any time we felt they may need help and pop the chat box open to attempt to engage them and offer proactive assistance.
This also meant that we were able to carry on with our regular tasks thereby saving money in the long run as we do not require a dedicated customer service representative to deal with queries. The ability to set rules to start chats automatically and display offers and news in the chat box is also really useful and potentially engaging for prospective customers as is the ability to set the chat box to offline in which case messages are sent to your inbox for response at a later time.
Knowing where people had come from and their geographical location was also extremely handy. This allowed us to target our desired demographic more accurately and not waste time chasing down leads that ultimately would be no good because of their location.
Being able to store relevant canned responses to common questions is an excellent feature that saves a lot of time and makes replying to queries quick and easy. The ability to transfer a live query to another member of the team, more qualified to answer a question is also a brilliant feature.
The software also stores a record of all chats making it very easy to keep transcripts of all conversations and you are also able to generate a variety of useful reports.
Verdict:
The potential benefits to a business mean that it is very difficult to ignore a solution like this.
The ease of installation, ease of use and set of features combined with very reasonable pricing, make this solution an excellent investment and I highly recommend Visitor Chat.