How can a live chat widget increase sales or leads on my website?
Have you ever been on a website, seen a product or service you were interested in, but had a simple question that was holding you back from completing the transaction? If you shop online, chances are you said yes to the question.
A live chat widget is a perfect tool to let website visitors ask presale questions necessary for them to pull the trigger on purchasing your product or offer.
Implementing a live chat widget on your website is easier today than ever before. It is even easy to add AI-powered chatbots that provide answers to your customers in real-time.
Would this be an effective way to get you to complete a purchase if you were the customer?
Studies show that having a live chat on your website will increase conversions and sales.
A Live Chat Widget on Your Website Provides Better Customer Support Services
It’s an effective way to reach customers when they are in the buying process.
It offers greater convenience for the customer to get a quick answer to any questions that may be holding them back from purchasing.
Live chat tools can provide a high-quality customer experience to the shopper, and the costs of offering live chat are well within the budgets of any small business.
Some people prefer using a live chatbox on your website instead of calling a support number or waiting for a response from a message sent by email or social media.
Providing a faster response time to live traffic on your website with a chat tool will let you close more leads. According to Drift, if a lead has to wait more than 5 minutes for a response to their question, you’ll see a huge drop off in conversions.
Using a chatbot means you’ll be able to provide every visitor with a quick response to their questions, helping you close more leads, even during your busiest season or while you’re asleep.
There are many chat providers offering chat widgets backed with canned responses and chatbots to dish them out. Drift has their own chatbot service, Zoho SalesIQ is another chat tool for your website that can also tie into your CRM. If you’re looking for a simple chat tool for your website, Formilla is perfect.
What are important things to know when using a live chat service on your website?
If you’re going to include live chat on your website you should plan to include a consistent schedule for your live chat agents. Including your available live chat hours somewhere on your contact or support page would also be a good action to take.
You don’t have to feel pressured to have 24/7 live chat support on your website, most live chat tools will include a way to have an offline mode for your chat widget.
While in offline mode, your live chat widget will let the visitor leave their name, email, and a message that you will receive in your email inbox.
If you have a very popular website with several visitors on it at a time, you may need to find a live chat tool that allows multiple agents to field questions from your customers.
It’s important to provide answers to people over live chat and a timely matter because the whole reason they are using this tool is that they’re looking for instant gratification.
Most websites will see more mobile traffic than desktop traffic, and having the opportunity to chat with these users in real-time does have its perks. Studies have shown nearly half of mobile users expect a chat feature to be present.
Should you include a live chat tool on a mobile device as well as desktop?
Including a live chat on mobile devices might seem like an obvious “YES!” to some, but including a live chat widget on mobile devices does have some negative impacts.
On mobile devices, screen real estate is limited and a live chat widget will float in the corner of the screen, occupying a portion of the screen. Live chat widgets will also add more data to your total page load size. More data means longer load times and potential delays to how fast a page renders. Part of designing websites for mobile users is about balancing what assets you decide to include on mobile.
There is no right or wrong answer to whether you should include a live chat for mobile website visitors or not. It’s recommended that you measure the overall value your business is receiving from having live chat features for mobile users and decide if it’s increasing sales or leads for your business.
How to setup a live chat box for your website right now
It’s easy to get up and running with a live chat for your website after signing up.
Most live chat providers will offer code you can copy and paste into your website’s files, offering seamless integration with just a few minutes of work.
If you’re looking for an easy chat to add to your website, Formilla offers a free chat widget that lets you engage customers on your website in real-time answering questions. If you do not have someone available to answer questions the customer can send in an email instead. Formilla has a chat app that makes it easy for you to offer live chat while you’re on the go.
Formilla offers paid plans which provide more options for customizing your live chat and even allows for multiple chat agents if you have a busy website.
How can I add a live chat to my WordPress website?
If your website is built on WordPress, adding a simple chat box to your site can be done in as little as 5 minutes.
Most live chat providers will have a plug-in for WordPress or a piece of code that contains the live chat widget that you can add to your website header or footer using a plugin.
You should always take a backup of your WordPress website before installing any new plugins, even if it’s a chat plugin from a trustworthy source.
What if I wanted an advanced or smart chatbot for my website?
If a simple live chat system is too basic for your needs, you’ll want to look into smart chatbots or AI chatbots for your website.
These smart chatbots will let you program canned responses and use automation to serve answers to your website visitors.
Most live chat providers offer ways to offer a smart chatbot, but it is usually only available to higher-paying tiers. Always be sure to check with your live chat company for specifics about what their chatbots can or cannot do.
Not all live chatbots are created equal (but we do believe in equality for all!)
Do you need help adding a live chat to your website?
If your business is looking for any help installing website chat software on your website but you don’t know where to get started, you can reach out to Bocain Designs.
We have experience installing live chat widgets from most live chat providers and would be happy to help you program canned responses and chatbots.
