Times are changing and if you want your business to succeed in the modern world, it’s important you adapt to and implement the many changes in new technology to keep up with your competition. Remember how way-back-when, visiting an office and making a phone call was the only way for customers to reach out to a business? Well, that has changed. With new technology, businesses were opened up to all-new ways to engage with and help their customers. Now we have email support, online forums, live chat and social media options as well as traditional phone calls. In this article, we are going to look at the benefits of web chat and how to increase customer satisfaction via web chat.

What is web chat?

Web chat, also known as live chat is an online software tool or platform that allows businesses and website owners to communicate with their customers in real-time. It’s a form of messaging to communicate directly through your website and it’s… well, live!

How is live chat beneficial for your business?

Customer convenience & loyalty

Many people spend a lot of time online anyway making live chat support one of the most convenient ways for customers to get in touch. Consumers prefer live chat because they can multitask while chatting. This means they can get help while browsing your website or working. Studies have shown that just by having a live chat feature on your website, you instill trust in your customers as they feel confident they have access to help if they need it.

Another great feature of live chat is the ability to transfer links and files. So if a customer has a problem that can easily be solved by following steps listed on your website, a supervisor can quickly link them to the appropriate page.

Discover pain points

Discovering common customer pain points and working on a solution to fix and address them is extremely beneficial to your business and customer service satisfaction. Pain points are problems customers have that need to be solved. These issues aren’t easy to discover by means of telephone or email. However, since many supervisors and agents have access to chat histories, they can sort and analyze them, making it easier to discover common customer problems.

Increase sales & Expand Reach

Due to the high consumer satisfaction rate, online shoppers who have spoken with a supervisor on live chat are more likely to make a purchase and return to the site again. Having live chat also gives you an advantage over your competitors. Consumers would rather choose a business that offers a web chat option over one that doesn’t. This is especially helpful for customers who are not local; chatting with a supervisor assures them they are in good hands and will be helped if necessary, expanding your market reach and your reputation!

Cost-effective

It’s not unknown that phones calls are expensive, international calls especially. Live chat agents can multitask and serve up to 3 visitors at a time, saving company costs on toll charges and person-per-hour costs. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Proactive chat

Live chat doesn’t just work one way. Agents can initiate a conversation as well and automatic chat requests can be set up and used to increase live chat engagement rates.

How does web chat help increase customer satisfaction?

Imagine you’re a customer shopping on a website and you have a question about a service or product that’s not in your area and you don’t really want to phone for one question. Here is where a live chat option comes in; you open the chat and wait for a supervisor, within a few minutes you have been greeted and your question has been answered as well as a few more because the consultant was so helpful, and it was so easy. Convenient right? Absolutely!

Without that live chat option, imagine how many potential customers just leave it because they are unsure.

According to many reports, a great percentage of customers prefer to live chat as a method of communication. A recent statistics report from 99Firms, shows 79% of consumers prefer live chat. This same report also shows that live chat has the highest customer satisfaction rate at 92%.

With all the above-mentioned benefits and studies and reports done on customer service, it’s easy to see that implementing web chat increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Conclusion

Web chat is a highly recommended service to offer to increase sales and customer satisfaction. Ready to make your customers happy?

Outsource your customer service with Mango5 now! Outsourcing with Mango5 includes all the benefits of web chat.