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By Robin Singh

Every day, many online stores lose their customers due to poor customer service. Many people, before deciding to purchase a service or product, need answers to certain questions and this is where many businesses fail, because they do not provide real-time support. This has become a key to increasing engagement, because consumers want easy and effective ways to get the answers they need.

Live chat is an amazing piece of technology that engages customers, enables you to stay competitive in your niche, and helps you convert the ones who are interested in your services or products into buyers. Statistics say that 68% of the website visitors will engage in a live chat and 63% of them will return to the website to repeat their purchases. Also 30% of online visitors make their purchases while they are on live chat, and live chat has been found to increase conversions by over 20%.

Your online store will be missing out on some great benefits if you do not implement a live chat software solution on your website. It may seem like a complicated way to liven up your online store and improve conversions, but it actually isn’t. Here are several ways to achieve better conversion rates and better engagement.

Available Support Around The Clock

Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; this is not enough when you are running an online store. If you want to achieve higher conversions, you need your live chat feature available 24/7. With live chat, there are pre-defined messages; for instant responses. With live chat software, you will be able to answer queries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Every online seller should use this software to gain the confidence of their customers, because being available around the clock will enable you to serve customers from different time zones.

Present With a Human Face

Customers prefer to talk to humans, not robots; so your operators need to personalize their interactions with your online store visitors. It would be a good idea for your chat operator to have a small thumbnail in the chat screen, so that the customers can see who they are chatting with. To successfully personalize your live support, your operators can call the visitors by their names. This will be possible after your online store visitors leave their contact information when prompted.

Initiate at the Right Time

Different kinds of visitors come to your online store; some of them are comparing a few items before they make their buying decision, and some of them are just casually shopping around. So, it won’t be that smart to prompt a live chat with a customer who has been on a product page for too long. A reliable live chat software has tracking features that can be used to target the right visitors, especially the ones who are on the pages where your call-to-action is.

This way, you can answer all your customers question long before they place their order. By analyzing which pages the user has visited and the time spent, live chat operators can initiate a live chat to ask the user whether they have some questions.

Offer the Customers Something Valuable

Live chat software offers a lot of information about the visitor, and that can be used to provide them with a valuable service. By going through the information and chat history of one customer, live chat operators can provide them with suggestions. For instance, if the customers are not satisfied with the design of your product, your live chat operator needs to take a minute to offer them a product of a different design, but with the same features. This can build valuable leads, and the visitor will be interested to know more about your products.

Take Your Customers Where They Need to Be

Many live chat agents often neglect the fact that visitors sometimes do not know how to navigate through your online store. For instance, they may want to visit the FAQ page before they decide what to order, but are experiencing difficulties because the navigation did not catch their eye. This is where your live chat agents can make it easy for them, by sending them links that will redirect them to a page of their choosing. This is an efficient way that will lead to conversions. If you use the right links in the live chat panel, every offering will remain visible to your visitors and they will not get lost in your online store.

Upsell

Live chat software will not only take your online store to a higher level of customer service, but it can also help you increase conversions by up-selling. Once the visitor is engaged and he or she has understood the information provided by the live chat operator, your business will be in a better position to recommend add-ons, upgrades, etc.

You do not have to use your live chat to sell your services and products, but to up-sell. So, while the customers are in the decision-making phase, live chat operators can easily up-sell, and thus increase the average order value and, consequently, your revenue.

Improving conversion rates is a long-term endeavor, but with live chat software, of course, if done properly, you can reduce this time and enable some quality results fast. So, if you follow the tips we have given you below, you will be able to get your customers talking, build trust and loyalty and facilitate action-taking.

Robin Singh is a technical support executive with a combined experience of 6 years. He currently works with Live2Support – a live customer and sales chat software by ProProfs. In his free time, Robin enjoys reading and traveling.