Online shopping has come a long way in recent years, but eCommerce retailers still face a few challenges this holiday season. One brooding issue is overcoming obstacles that stand between a potential customer and their path to purchase.
What if we told you there is a simple way to stop holiday shoppers from abandoning their carts? By offering live chat, you can finally remove barriers that prevent a potential customer from completing a sale.
We’ve pulled together a few powerful benefits to give you a better idea of what live chat can do for your eCommerce business.
Boost Sales With Chatbots
If online shoppers can’t find the answers they need quickly, they will bounce from your site. While you may have a holiday retargeting strategy to bring them back, wouldn’t it be better to prevent them from leaving in the first place?
Live chat makes it easy to quickly identify your customer’s pain point, answer their questions and engage them with your brand. Smart eCommerce companies are starting to use chatbots to answer questions and move customers closer to a purchase. Not only do consumers respond to the fast service, but it’s quite easy and inexpensive tool to set up.
Chatbots use artificial intelligence (AI) to communicate, and they can personalize their response and learn from previous conversations. With this technology, you’re also in a position to recommend additional products, allowing you to customize the shopping experience and encourage more sales.
Chatbots Improve the Customer Experience
The stakes are higher than ever this year, and your customers expect a fast and convenient eCommerce holiday shopping experience. Live chat allows you to nudge consumers farther along the purchasing funnel, all while meeting their needs and high expectations.
With live chat, your customers no longer need to spend hours on the phone trying to get ahold of a sales representative. Not only are chatbots fast and convenient, but they have the power to resolve issues in real time.
Live Chat is Inexpensive
Live chat can increase sales, improve customer service and boost customer loyalty. With so many benefits, chatbots must be insanely expensive, right?
On the contrary, live chat can save your online store money. In fact, one study forecasts that chatbots will save over $8 billion each year by 2022.
Chatbots can help online retailers automate time-consuming tasks, reducing their labor costs. Invest in live chat now, and you can position your brand for greater holiday sales and revenue.
Live Chat is the Future
According to a report by Digital Marketing Depot, chatbots will be a powerful new trend in eCommerce in 2018. It predicts that more than 80 percent of online stores will offer this option by the end of the year. Chatbots are now smarter and faster, and they give online retailers a distinct competitive advantage over companies that don’t offer this option.
By investing in live chat early this season, your online store can gain the upper hand before everyone adopts this vital customer service tool.
How to Use Live Chat for the Holiday Season
Hopefully, we’ve given you a few compelling reasons to invest in live chat now. Now, let’s quickly cover how you can use chatbots to maximize the eCommerce holiday shopping experience for your customers.
- Prepare for an increase in chat volume: When holiday traffic spikes, expect your customer inquiries to increase as well. Plan for this additional chat volume by setting up pre-written responses to commonly asked questions and keeping a close eye on your support metrics.
- Add some holiday cheer to your chat window: Many live chat services offer customizable service windows. Change up your look, and get into the holiday spirit with a winter-themed chat box.
- Reach customers through text: SMS chat features allow your representatives to interact with eCommerce holiday shoppers through text messaging, which can help resolve any questions and move the customer closer to conversion.
- Send customers to the right department: Nothing is more frustrating than talking with multiple sales representatives just to get to the right department. Categorize inquires properly so that the caller is sent to the right person who can resolve the issue at hand. This will help you avoid wasting the time of both the employee and the potential customer.
- Don’t be too robotic: Automatic responses to FAQs are fine, but be careful not to automate too many responses. Customers with more complex problems want to speak with knowledgeable representatives who are empathetic to their needs.
Conclusion
It’s no secret that better customer service results in higher sales. Live chat allows online retailers to provide a seamless eCommerce holiday shopping experience for their customers, resulting in higher conversions and revenue.
This tool is currently underutilized by many eCommerce brands, but it will soon become a necessity for online retailers. Don’t wait to invest in live chat; start improving your customers’ holiday shopping experience today.
