Unless a company has a large number of customer service representatives, a customer who has a question is put on hold for at least a few minutes. A potential customer will not complete an online purchase, if his questions are not answered immediately. By providing a live chat option , many ecommerce websites can increase their sales conversion rates.
Using live chat software, a customer’s queries are answered in real time. Unlike online messenger services, the customer does not have to download any software. When a customer clicks the live chat icon, a window opens through which the customer can ask a question by typing it. Usually a chat operator is trained to handle a number of chat sessions simultaneously, so the cost of using live chat support is usually lower than that of telephone support.
Live chat can be easily incorporated in an ecommerce website by pasting the html code provided by the live chat software developer. Different live chat packages are available and can be selected according to the traffic and sales of the website. A basic package allows a single operator to chat with customers. Other packages allow multiple live chat operators in different departments to interact with customers. If required, a chat operator from one department can transfer the chat to another department. The live chat icon on a website indicates whether the live chat operator is online or offline.
The administrator of the website can monitor visitors to their website and their activities. They can track the duration of the visit, pages visited, IP address and country of the visitor, which are useful marketing data. Transcripts of the chat sessions can be stored as emails, for analysis at a later date.
If a sale is not getting completed or a customer is spending a lot of time at a particular sales page, the live chat operator can initiate a chat and attempt to help the customer. By analyzing chat transcripts, the sales can find out what the customers want and incorporate the features in the product / service offered by the company.