Timing is Everything in Online Live Chat Services | OAC Digital
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08.10.2018.

ONLINE LIVE CHAT SERVICES – TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Have you ever walked into a retail store and had a sales person pounce on you the second your feet cross the doormat? Most people will agree it is extremely annoying.

Customers want to get their bearings and browse for at least a moment or two before they are approached. Frequently, by the time you ARE ready for assistance, there is not a sales person in sight to help. They are too busy watching the door for their next victim.

If you’ve ever wondered why this happens, the answer is fairly simple. Business exists to make sales, and sales people are focused on making those sales. If they aren’t able to place themselves into the customers shoes they will impede, rather than help both themselves and the customer with the sale.

The customer journey – a buying decision is a process

Understanding the customer is key to offering the right help at the right time. This is as true of online business as it is in a physical store. The layout might be different, but the visitor is the same – a potential customer.

Live chat brings the sales assistant to the your online business

This can be a great feature to bring your business on the web to life, but it is vital to understand the customer journey before you activate it.

Timing is key to live chat success

Imagine you are a visitor to a new website. Having a live chat window pop up over the home page before you’ve even had a chance to read one single word is likely to make your finger reach for the exit button immediately.

Why? It feels invasive and pushy. If the aim of the website is to make the visitor feel restricted and claustrophobic, it will have succeeded. Of course, as a business owner, this is the last thing you want your potential customers to experience.

Making managed live chat available at the right time

On the other hand, it can be just as annoying for the visitor who is ready for assistance to have to cut short his visit by sending an email and waiting for an answer before making a decision.

So, live chat is an important feature that will improve your customer engagement and interactivity, if it is used in the right context.

  • Consider making the live chat feature available on a side bar, so that the visitor can easily access it when they are ready.
  • Alternatively, a live chat window can pop up after an appropriate length of time. First give your customer breathing space before offering help.
  • Another option is to map the customer journey and bring the live chat window up at a certain point in their navigation.

There is no doubt that managed live chat improves the customer experience on your website, provided that it is understood in context of the customer journey.

Professional web developers can help you to implement the right features at the right time. Speak to us about an optimised website for your customer’s experience.

Related Tag: Managed Live Chat Services

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