Are you looking for ways to improve the customer service provided by your business? Have you considered adding live chat to your website?

Live chat is a great way to communicate with customers. Not only is it readily available to people who are visiting your site, it comes with many benefits to you, too.

But why not stick with traditional phone customer service? Or should you have both?

Both methods of customer service have their own set of benefits, but live chat has some great perks that phone conversation doesn’t. Keep reading to discover ten reasons why you should utilize live chat on your business website.

1. Customers Expect It

Let’s face it, most people live their lives staring at a screen these days. So interacting via the web is expected. Many companies offer chat services, so if you aren’t one of them you may be losing customers.

Implement a live chat service to better reach your customers by being more available.

2. Live Chat Comes with Perks

Your chat system doesn’t only provide a method of communication for you and your customers. It can provide other perks as well.

While early chat systems were pretty basic, current options provide many other helpful functions. These include real time traffic monitoring, insights that tell you who is most likely to make a purchase and chat bots to help schedule meetings between customers and agents.

And, to make things easier on your end, you don’t even have to run the live chat on your own. Companies like alldayPA offer live chat management services.

3. You Can Add Visuals

Have you ever been on a call when the two parties just couldn’t quite figure out what the other was talking about? Screen shots can really help with this.

Live chat allows for visual communication as well as verbal. Screen shots and videos can be sent from either end to aid understanding if needed.

While this could be done with a telephone service, you’d have to send an email or message in a separate communication window. With chat, everything stays in one place–the conversation, and all pictures or videos.

4. Fast Answers for Customers

Sometimes a customer just has a quick question. Or maybe they’re looking for a clarification that can be given in only a few seconds. For things like these, live chat is helpful.

In this day and age, people don’t want to wait. So being on hold for ten minutes for a thirty-second conversation isn’t very cool to most people.

Live chat can help solve this problem since issues can be resolved quickly with Gordian Networks.

5. Customer Satisfaction

Some customers simply don’t want to talk on the phone. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer over-the-phone customer service. But in order to appeal to a wider audience, add a chat feature.

Adding live chat will give your customers more options, and options make people happy. The happier your customers are, the more you’ll have them coming back.

6. Lowered Cost

While phone conversations are the more traditional route to help customers, live chat is much cheaper. In fact, live chat could save you 17% to 30%.

One reason for the lowered cost is that customer service agents can help multiple people at once. While they can have more than one chat window open, they can’t serve two phone conversations simultaneously. Therefore, you’ll be able to help more customers in a shorter amount of time.

7. Get to the Point

Live chat provides a way for customers to get right to why they’re coming to you for help. Instead of going through a bunch of phone menus or questions beforehand, they can simply ask their question.

That means your customer service agents will know right off the bat what the customer needs. This can result in shorter conversations, cutting costs for you, and making the customer happier since less of they’re time is taken up.

8. Real-Time Service

One major benefit of offering live chat is the opportunity to reach out to customers while they’re shopping. This makes for a much more in-store-like experience.

“Walk up” to your customers instead of waiting for them to call. You’ll be able to make suggestions and provide help to your customer may not have realized they needed.

9. Let Your Customers Know You’re There

When a customer visits your site, make sure they’re aware of your live chat services. A simple button or pop-up will do. Whatever route you choose, let your customers know you’re there.

Letting customers know that you’re easy to access will make them more comfortable. They know that if they need help they won’t have to dig for a phone number.

True, you could make a phone number easily accessible too. But chat offers less work on the part of the customer, and people are all about the easier route these days.

10. It’s All Right There

Since live chat is done through the written word, you’ll automatically have a record of the conversation right in front of you. If you need clarification on something that was said earlier, you can quickly scroll up to find where it was said.

And, you’ll have the whole conversation laid out and easy to navigate if you need to reference it later. This is much easier to go through that listening to an entire recorded phone conversation.

Implement Live Chat Today

There are many reasons why live chat is a great addition to any business website. The ten in this list alone should have got your wheels turning.

And while live chat is a great way to help your customers, it also helps you by cutting costs and bringing customer satisfaction.

So, what are you waiting for? Implement live chat on your business website today and see the benefits first hand!

Do you have questions regarding this article? Let us know by contacting us today.