There are many online stores that are suffering from inability to provide a real-time customer service. This can easily lead to cart abandonment as customers are disconnected from someone who can answer their questions in real-time. As the customer reaches the finish line of placing an order, something barricades the checkout process that abolishes the potential sale. The reason could be as simple as answering your customer’s question while they are adding product(s) to their cart.
Live chat has the ability to provide convenience and real-time answers to the online shoppers. An online store without a live chat feature can be seen as letting your customers walk around an empty store and figure out things themselves. Yes, it is understandable that these days many online shoppers are quite used to of figuring out thing themselves but there are a good number of people who leaves the online store just because they couldn’t find the product they are looking for or they had a question about return policy but nobody is there to answer their question. Yes, there is a “Contact us” page on the store site but if customer is interested in buying an item, they want answers right now, they don’t know how much time you as a store owner will take to respond back. It could be a day or two when you get back to your customer and the customer already ordered the item from some other online store..
Today, we will discuss why every online store should offer live chat:
Live chat can easily cut down your service expenses
Live chat software allow customer service providers to handle multiple chat session simultaneously that reduces the amount of time spend in answering number of questions and the need to hire more employees. This helps in cutting down the waiting queue time from minutes to seconds which also leads to higher customer satisfaction. It can be essential for international eCommerce businesses that deal with thousands customers daily.
Live chat brings credibility to your online store site
The presence of a real operator on live chat helps you as a store owner to communicate with your customers and gain their trust. Do you know that answering your customers’ questions successfully can make a difference in winning or losing a sale? Some customers ask specific questions related to issues or features of your product, while others ask general questions about industry, brand or your expert opinion. Just the presence of someone who can help and guide the customers through the process is always very much appreciated by online shoppers.
Live chat can easily increase the conversions
When a customer asks a question on live chat about any product or service, that becomes a prime opportunity for a cross-sell or an up-sell. You can easily present your customers with additional related products that they can add to their shopping cart during the checkout process. This kind of marketing can significantly increase the average order value on your online store site. The possibilities are endless where you can provide your customer various options via live chat such as:
- Bundle deals
- Discount offers
- Related accessories
- Subscription options
nopCommerce allows an easy live chat integration that can be done in the administration section by simply adding the script in the widget zone. The widget zone is a part of UI (user-interface) in the public store where this widget will be displayed or rendered. nopCommerce gives you the flexibility to place live person chat widget on the different sections of your store site like left column or on the right column etc.
Author: Lavish Kumar