Even though live chat has grown in popularity for websites in a range of different industries, it’s still not what typically comes to mind when you think of marketing. Quite often, the concept of live chat is still associated with customer service and IT support.
However, implementing live chat into your digital strategy can be highly beneficial in more ways than one. After years of working with small business websites to elevate their online presence and generate leads, here’s what we think you need to know about live chat for business.
User-Friendly Website for Customers
Live chats conveniently blend two benefits of phone and email interactions: quick response times and the benefit of a paper trail for your conversation with your customers.
Further, live chat can be an ideal option for your customers who would rather have a conversation digitally but would like a faster response time that is sometimes expected of email. In this way, live chat fills that gap between phone and email communication, allowing you to connect with your customers in a new way, perhaps with new potential customers entirely.
Live Chat Promotes Customer Success
Whether you think this or not, your customer’s success is your success as a small business owner. When a customer comes across your business, namely your website, they are typically looking for an answer of some kind. Depending on the nature of your business, this could include whether you provide the services they need, where you are located, upcoming sales or information about specific brands.
In some cases, their question may not be clearly answered by the content that already exists on your website. When this happens, the best champion of your brand is you! This is where live chat can be powerful.
With live chat, customers can ask questions that specifically pertain to them, whether it’s a specific service for their particular vehicle make and model or it’s a general repair question. Just the click of the live chat button can instantly connect you to your potential customer, giving you the opportunity to answer questions, show yourself as an authority in your industry and answer any objections that they may have about doing business with you. This brings us to our next point…
Convert Visitors to Leads
Since live chat acts as another sales and customer service platform, it is also an opportunity for your team to use their knowledge and passion for customer service to convert more website visitors to concrete leads. Along these same lines, live chat has the ability to help you qualify leads, which simply means determining whether your leads are valid and your ideal customer.
Live Chat Helps Your Website SEO
The term SEO is often used to refer to content with keywords that, when typed into a Google search bar, ideally would bring your business up to the top of the search rankings. But there is more to SEO than just using the right keywords.
Google rewards websites that not only provide relevant content to internet users but also prove that a quality user experience is top of mind when it comes to your online presence. Enter: live chat.
Live chat is a very engaging way to connect with your online visitors, allowing the valuable experience of a one-on-one connection between your team and potential leads. As a result, live chat has the ability to not only drive visitor engagement and capture lead information but increase the amount of time spent on your website which, in turn, communicates to Google that your website is valuable – therefore improving your value as perceived by Google and improving your SEO efforts within your digital strategy.
Google also responds to the behavior of your website visitors which, in turn, relates back to your live chat. Some things to consider in this regard, then, is how your live chat is displayed on your website. If your live chat is annoying due to pop-ups, constant sounds and beeping or is even hard to use, customers will quickly exit out of your website. This then indicates to Google that there is some element of your website that is not valuable to website visitors and therefore, will tend to prioritize other websites over yours.
Live chat is a valuable tool, but there’s a right way to do it so that your business can make the most of it. Let’s talk about how live chat can complement your digital marketing efforts! If you have questions about where your business stands, we encourage you to reach out today.