Adding Live Chat Customer Support Agents To Your Website

“Thank you for calling our customer support hotline. Your call is very important to us. All of our customer representatives are busy serving other customers right now, but we will be with you shortly! Please stay on the line.”

Sound familiar?

Thankfully customer service is changing, and we couldn’t be happier. 

People are busy and can’t waste time calling or emailing customer support. (oh the horror!) 

So what is the preferred way of communicating with customer support these days? 

Live chat.

Live chat is an option that is quick and informative and these days, it’s a viable option for most businesses. 

Personally, just about any business I use has a live chat option. I am able to quickly ask the chat agent my questions and they are easily able to direct me to the answer. 

While you might think your customers are okay with your old ways of offering customer support, sooner or later you’ll have to adapt to the new demand of your live chat. Customers want ease. They want convenience. Customers certainly don’t want to talk to an automated system or a representative from the other side of the world. 

Live chat customer support is the new norm, and this is why. 

Millennials Prefer Live Chat 

Millennials, those born from 1980-2000, have money to spend. Before you get on your high horse about millennials, just hear me out. 

For starters, I am a millennial. No, I wasn’t eating Tide Pods, nor did I participate in any of those weird internet challenges of eating or snorting odd stuff. That’s Gen Z. But like most millennials, I prefer using a live chat option. In fact, I prefer it so much more, that if a brand website doesn’t have a live chat customer support option, I will turn to their social media pages and exhaust all other efforts before sending an email or calling. 

There are 83 million millennials in the US alone. 83 million of us are spending over 600 billion dollars each year. In fact, to better depict how vital we millennials are to the economy, here are some quick facts:

• 60% of millennials will buy a cup of coffee that costs more than $4, compared to only 40% of Generation X’ers or 29% of Baby Boomers.

• 79% of millennials polled said they would spend money on dining out, compared to 66% in Generation X and 56% of Boomers.

So while we might not be everyone’s favorite generation, we certainly contribute our fair share to the economy. 

With that being said, it’s safe to say that millennials are the “buying generation”. So shouldn’t our preference for a live chat option be filled? That would be adding eminence value to our customer experience. 

When presented with the choice of phoning or using live chat, over 60% of millennials preferred to use live chat when wanting to ask a question. They found that when surveying millennials, live chat was their preferred channel because of two main reasons: no hold times and convenience. 

You could be driving away millennials from your store simply because you don’t have live chat.

Satisfaction Rates

Live chat has the highest satisfaction levels of any customer service channel, with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone support.

Live chat allows customers to chat with an actual person, in real-time, without having to pick up the phone or wait for a reply. Many of the highest-rated companies using live chat allow consumers to remain anonymous, which makes people feel more comfortable talking openly about their questions or complaints. 

Outsourced Live Chat Support agents also provide an answer or resolution almost immediately with an average of a 10 minute wait time. Having a live chat support option allows for a problem to be dealt with and solved in a timely manner. This leaves customers feeling satisfied with the response and likely to become return customers.

Another Means of Communication

Imagine you’re in a store and you have a question or complaint. But instead of being helped immediately by a sales associate, they suggest you make a call or send an email. 

You then have to hold for a representative on the phone or wait for an approximate 12-24 hrs for an email response. 

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Chances are you’ll get fed up and go to a store that doesn’t do this. In fact, 1 in 5 customers is willing to stop using a product or service for slow response times. Case in point, it just makes sense to have an option that is quicker and convenient.

So why are merchants doing this to their online customers? There are many individuals of all ages starting to appreciate and use live chat just as much as millennials.

Merchants often forget that for the generations that didn’t grow up on computers, the internet can seem like a scary, intimidating place. That’s why being able to easily ask a question without any added effort is so appealing. Not to mention it creates a great user experience.

Increase Conversions with Live Chat Customer Support 

What merchant doesn’t want to see their revenue increase? A study conducted revealed that 79% of businesses said that implementing live chat resulted in increased customer loyalty, sales, and revenue. That’s the ultimate trifecta! 

An example of a company that saw these increased results after implementing live chat customer support is ChartifyMe. Over the last few years, ChartifyMe noticed that their phone orders were decreasing, while their website kept seeing traffic increase. 

While their team worked to optimize their site in terms of structure, usability, and design, they found there was still something missing. To add more personalization and customer resources to their website, they looked to implement live chat customer support. 

Since implementing the option for customers to utilize live chat customer support agents, their team has worked to continually optimize the experience for customers. Not only has live chat and online engagement yielded for the majority online orders, but they’ve also gained some incredibly valuable insights.

1. Over 90% of live chat engagement occurs prior to the user reaching the cart, proving that live chat and online engagement will help move potential customers through the buyer’s journey

2. During testing of the quick reply option on the tablet audience, the team discovered that response times from the customer were over 70% faster, facilitating a better experience.

While their stats and feedback have been great, ChartifyMe says they plan to continue to test and improve their live chat through 2020. The evidence is there. If you’re looking for a way to increase your conversion rates, try testing out live chat agents.