Blog

Introduction

I’d like to ask you to start thinking about the power of live chat.

Whether that’s a manned live chat or automated chatbots on your

• Website
• Blog
• Shopify stores or
• E-commerce stores

Strategy Planning & Case Study

So our team has been working on a strategic plan on a live chat for a client in our agency over the last few weeks.

It is a service based business, high ticket and initially, the hesitation was initially:

“We’re the high ticket, what does live chat look like … is it’s beneath us, would our customers really engage with it.” 

So we ran a poll to their existing list and we dropped an initial live chat icon, said,

“We’re experimenting with live chat, is this something you would use. Give us some feedback.”

And we built up some consensus and we got mixed feedback.

• Some people said yes they would always use it.
• Others said they’d use it if they were in a rush and they needed something.
• Others said they want to use it right at the beginning to ask questions, whether their product or service was suitable.

The Outcome & Results

So a mixed bag, but what was a common thread right throughout all of this was there was an appetite to go with live chat.

In excess of 75% of the responses indicated that they either would or would be interested in seeing the live chat on this site.

So we followed that up with a different poll and said,

“So if live chat was on the site and the live chat wasn’t on the site, would that influence your decision whether you would or would not maybe then progress to enquire with a company.”

And for this particular customer, this B to C, so a lot of people that worked throughout the day, they need quick answers on live chat, they haven’t got time to call during working hours.

They can do a live chat on the computer while still working, using a bit of company time.

And then in the evenings when they’re home then they’ve got live chat there.

And whether they speak with their partners about what sort of questions they want to ask.

So overall, over three-quarters of the people insinuated that live chat was certainly of interest.

Audit The Need & Functionality

So what I want you to think about is one:

1. Do you have live chat a
2. Is it dynamic?

So have you just got basic messages or have you got specific messages on each page.

Live Chat Examples

Home Page Examples

• “Welcome, how can we help today?”
• “Do you need help with X?” 
• “Is there anything we can help you with?” 
• “Our customer services team are live ready to help”

Pricing Page Examples

• “Do you need help with our pricing?” 
• “Would you like to speak to a consultant?” 
• “What brought you to our pricing page today”

Services Page Examples

• “Do you need help or any information on product x, product Y or product z”

So you could see how having tailored custom messages there could really help.

The Benefits of Bots

The benefits to look at … Maybe you’re a smaller business, maybe you don’t have the ability to live chat.

So that’s not necessarily a problem.

We’ve just set up a bot strategy.

So we’ve got live chat running for about three out of the nine hours of the day.

The other five and a half, six hours it’s actually got an automated bot on there.

So it looks and feels like a real person.

So if a prospect says,

“Hey, do you have a brochure on product A or product B?”

Then we can say,

“What do you want information on this, this or this, service A, service B, or service C?”

They click that and then it will automatically put them a link into the knowledge base that says,

“Click this link and either visit a blog, download a brochure, watch a video, or would you like to book a meeting with a consultant?”

Which is Right For You?

So you’ve got real-time, live chat and you’ve got out of hours live chat which is automated bots.

So if you are looking at expanding into different countries or looking to get your website to work 24 hours a day, then you don’t have to sit there with matchsticks in your eyes manning a live chat on the basis that they may or may not do that.

It all starts with the base foundational live chat strategy, polling the audience or even looking at your competitors to see what they are doing and if they are getting some traction on there.

The Strategy At The Top, Middle & Bottom of Funnel Areas

Ultimately building a strategy that serves both the top of the funnel, the awareness, the first time visitors, the people, maybe your existing customers.

Maybe you’ve got a customer service page or a membership site.

Very specific messages in there, and it’s convenient and it’s simple for people to raise a live chat with you.

The Audit Trail

You can record conversations as far as that can go onto the CRM record and ultimately you can have that live chat transcript emailed back to the client and, if you are going to use tools like HubSpot could even come to create tickets out of those for your service team or your sales team or whatever to go from there and certain subscriptions.

So I just really want you to get you to think about the benefits of live chat and automated bots.

They’ve come to a hell of a long way since I started playing about with bots end of 2016.

Tell Us Your Live Chat Story

I’d love your comments,

• Do you use bots?
• Do you use live chat?
• Has it increased your sales,
• Increased your customer service,
• Increased your conversions.
• Are you dead against them? If so, I’d love to know why.

Just leave us a comment below. So just have a chat, have a think about it. See if that’s something that you want to do there.

And I’d love your comments as always.