Live chat is an online networking tool that helps you and your website visitors to talk in real-time. Chatting online is a perfect substitute for calling or sending emails.
Everything you or your guests have to do is type a message into the chatbox and click send. Customers nowadays prefer live chat over some other form of contacts.
Customers can connect with companies remotely in real-time using live chat, which is a texting service.
Simply put, a live chat can be described by two main concepts: “internet” and “real-time.”
However, you probably have a basic understanding. I’m sure you’ve used live chat assistance before — to resolve a distribution problem, request a refund, or report a bug, to name a few examples.
It’s evolved into a fantastic solution to obnoxious call centers and sluggish email. Limiting their applications to customer care, on the other hand, would entail losing out on some tremendous opportunities.
A modern live chat is a versatile and comprehensive platform. It helps you to engage users proactively, recommend related self-service posts, create leads, and much more.
Let’s pass on to the installation and use cases segment now that you have a more excellent idea of what live chat is and how to use it.
How Does Live Chat Work?
Online conversations take place in a chat box included with the live chat software. What’s more significant is that the guests won’t have to download something to their computers.
They don’t have to sign up for something to talk to you, either. So, how can the website users know that you have live chat assistance? In the lower corner of the page, they will see a widget.
A chat box will open when they press it. It’s worth noting that your guests and you will have different perspectives on the live talk.
Visitor’s view:
1. As the guests press the widget, they can see this chatbox.
2. Visitors will type text and append a file within the chatbox.
3. They can submit photographs, emojis, and ties, among other things.
Live chat operator’s view:
1. This is where the live chat operator sees the Conversation part.
2. You write and send replies to speak, Messenger, and email messages in this section.
3. To the left, you can see all of the incoming chats.
Your live chat operators and you have more “powers.” Here are few things you can do that your guests won’t be able to:
- Different analytics dashboards are available.
- Please keep track of the clients and consumers to see what they look at and how long they last.
- To react more quickly, create canned answers.
- Take a look at what the site users are typing.
- For a more effective workflow, integrate the live chat with a variety of applications and websites.
- Assign operators to specific chats and reassign them if required.
- Visitors can be barred, reviews and ratings can be requested, and many more.
- Chat transcripts can be downloaded, and the history of conversations can be viewed.
- Chat with your consumers on the go with a smartphone app.
- The more you converse with your guests, the more chances you’ll have to collect leads. You’ll eventually have a reasonable number of connections in your folder.
Tidio mailing can help you turn leads and nurture loyal customers. It is included in the service, along with chatbots, when you create an account. Live talk, chatbots, and mailing are all free software.
Why Live Chat Is Important
Until the clients tell you, you have no idea what you don’t do. For instance, there may be an issue with your checkout process. As a result, many shoppers leave their shopping carts without informing you.
You offer them a super easy and quick way to share their experience with live chat. The faster it is for them to contact you, the more likely they will inform you of any problems.
There are a variety of live chat options available on the internet. If your website is built on WordPress, take a look at our comparison of the best chat plugins for WordPress.
Live Chat Use Cases
If you can see, the technicalities of the situation are straightforward, leaving just one issue. From a business standpoint, what is a live chat?
Even though conversations had grown in popularity due to their absolute simplicity for customer service, businesses soon realized that the possibilities went way beyond that.
The four most popular situations in which a live chat is used are as follows:
- Live chat for customer support
The most important reason to have a live chat is to give consumers an easy way to contact you. You can add any of today’s advanced technologies to your website or incorporate them into your web framework.
In-app support for mobile devices is also becoming increasingly common. Overall, live chat customer service offers various benefits (more on this later) while keeping the costs down.
- Live chat for lead generation.
You can place your inbound lead generation on autopilot by upgrading your live chat widget with constructive chat messages, pre-chat forms, and a chatbot.
When anyone visits your site, they’ll see a live chat feature. Warm leads will most likely email you right away, and you can gather their contact details using a pre-chat form or a chatbot.
If they’re already on the fence, a few proactive invites should suffice.
- Live chat for customer engagement.
Any company will experience customer retention and a drop in customer interest. A live chat is an excellent way to re-engage people who have lost faith in the company or cannot see its true meaning.
You may use it to deliver manual in-app messages or set up a few automatic nudges that will provide important information at the right time.
- Live chat for sales
By adding the sales team to the live chat, hot leads will contact you straight away rather than waiting for an email response. For both parties, using live chat for sales presentations is a win-win scenario.
People who are in the consideration or choice stages of their journey will be quickly introduced to a sales agent who will answer their questions on the spot.
Why Live Chat?
The overall popularity of live chats among consumers is influenced by the ease of use, accessibility, and the desire to connect in real-time and multitask. Businesses will significantly benefit from this channel as well.
Online chat support enables agents to manage several conversations at once while still enforcing their success with a variety of valuable features.
Each factor is a tiny piece of the puzzle that can directly benefit any company:
- High customer satisfaction.
Just like other contact support, live chat offers a high satisfaction rate. A lot of people prefer to use live chat than email support.
- Better customer experience.
Customers want real-time support and to see their problems addressed in a single conversation, and live chat is an excellent tool for doing so.
- Increased conversions.
Guests are more likely to purchase after engaging in a live chat discussion with an organization. They could even pay more for a product.
- Higher engagement and retention.
A lot of customers normally prefer responsive customer care updates, which has helped with higher engagement and retention.
- Cheaper and easier to scale.
Live chat not only allows investigators to multitask, but it is also less expensive than taking phone calls.
How to Acquire and Utilize Live Chat
A live chat is only a few lines of JavaScript code from a technical standpoint. To add a chat widget to your website, copy this code from a software vendor and paste it into the source code of your website or app.
It’s much easier to add a plugin from your WordPress dashboard if you’re using the platform. On your website, a tiny live chat button will appear, usually in the bottom right corner.
It may seem insignificant, but it is the start button for your contact shuttle. People will be able to open a chat window by pressing this button until they arrive on your website or log into the app. They will be able to leave their message there.
It’s also worth noting that a live chat is not the same for end-users and agents. Customers can see a tiny widget that allows them to communicate with customer service or a chatbot.
On the other hand, agents would have access to a robust helpdesk. That includes canned responses, customer info, knowledge base aggregation, private notes, and automation.
Once you’ve installed the talk, you can customize it as much as you like — adjust the icons, fonts, and wallpapers, for example.
When appealing to various use cases and desires, the widget should look like an integral part of your branding theme.
Live Chat Effectiveness
Is live chat effective? Yes, really. Live thousands of small to medium businesses use chat applications. Their clients enjoy the personalized service and fast answers. They like that live chat is available on the website, which is very useful to them. Tidio users report the following:
- Increased conversions
- Sales have risen.
- Customers’ interactions became more profound as a result of their efforts.
- Customer loyalty is more robust.
Conclusion
In conclusion, live chat technology has transformed nearly every industry area, from customer experience to pricing to retention.
All of this strength is contained in a simple widget that can be easily placed on your website.