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Leveraging Live Chat to Expand Customer Base and Generate Revenue


Consumers nowadays are flooded with immense retail options and a 24x7 accessibility to support channels. A support platform is highly demanded that can help consumers shop smartly and address their grievances. Live chat has evolved as the preferred mode of communication as it helps provide a human touch to the customers, enable them to compare products, find quick answers, expedite shopping process, receive promo codes resulting in saving money, and is far effective than voice or email.

The Live Chat Effectiveness 2012 report by Bold Chat provides extensive details and interesting findings about behavior of Internet shoppers. The report reveals 5 crucial findings that were extracted from the data gathered. (1)

#1: Live Chat on the verge of adoption by online shoppers
Live Chat Effectiveness 2012 report reveals that Live Chat has reached at the stage of adoption by the majority of online shoppers. It reveals that the number of online shoppers who have got engaged in a live chat sessions rose from 50.4% in 2009 to 65.5% in 2012. It is estimated that this figure may rise to 75% by 2013. (1)
The popularity of live chat can be gauged from the fact that consumers preferred live chat as the mode of communication in 5 out of 8 scenarios. The scenarios included having trouble finding item, general questions, checkout error, compare products, and ask for promo codes.
The proactive chat also saw a significant rise in 2012 with 66% of the entire surveyed online shoppers saying that they had been proactively invited into a chat session at one point of time or the other. This figure was 57% last year. Majority of the respondents have found the live chat to be satisfactory.

#2: Chatters prefer live chat due to its multi-faceted nature
Live chat has turned out to be the preferred medium of interaction between online shoppers due to its multi-faceted nature, control and efficiency. According to the report, ~20% of the entire online shoppers give preference to live chat. (1)
While for online shoppers for US, 21% give their communication preference to live chat. Further, according to the report, 79% of the online shoppers say that they prefer live as it helps to get their questions answered immediately that helps to save time.
The report also highlighted that some shoppers become fan of live chat most likely due to a chat engagement that they initiated for a support related reason.

#3: While live chat fans are highly desirable, frequent chatters demand special attention.
The report also shed light on the demographic profile of the live chat fan. According to the report, the live chat fan is also more likely to have a higher household income, be aged between 31 to 50, college educated, shop more frequently, and spend more. Even according to the report, near about 60% of the live chat fans are more likely to buy if the website offers live chat. Apart from live chat fans who prefer live chat to make purchases, the frequent chatters have emerged as an interesting and attractive sub-group of shoppers.
Frequent chatters are that population that has engaged in a live chat with a retailer for 4 or more times in 90 days period. According to report, 59% of entire online shoppers spend $750 or more in year on online shopping. In this, 70% of live chat fans and 75% of regular chatters also spend on online shopping. (1)

#4: Live Chat in UK is rising
UK was not considered a favorite destination as per live chat was concerned and was not favored much by online shoppers as compared to US, according to Live Chat Effectiveness 2011 report by Bold Chat. UK shoppers are more likely to have used live chat this year as compared to last year.
According to report, proactive chat has also gained significant grounds this year in UK as more than 30 percent shoppers report having been invited to chat as opposed to last. Thus, there is a large scale acceptance, penetration, and improvement in the status of favorability towards live chat in UK. (1)

#5: Online merchants need to treat live chat as a distinct communication channel to get maximum benefits
Live chat as a communication channel is an emerging front capable of driving positive emotional response and requires dedicated attention and focus. Any text based communication channel like live chat requires efficient and talented agents who are proficient in both sales skills and providing customer service.
The popularity and receptivity of proactive chat has increased and it plays a crucial role in creating a live chat fan base. It is necessary to ensure that the proactive chat invitations are rightly send as they can otherwise cause negative experience due to continuous invitations, interference in browsing, intrusiveness etc leading to driving away the customers. (1)

Even live chat fans expect high level of satisfaction from live chat channel. Thus, it is necessary for online merchants to divert more resources, funding, management focus and treat live chat as a distinct communication channel.


(1) Live Chat Effectiveness Report V5 2012

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