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Content Strategy, Digital Strategy, Web Development, General

Live Chat Improves Customer Satisfaction

Beth Stoller
Client Success Manager

Adding a live chat feature to your website can help drive sales, improve a customer's perception of your brand, and develop qualified leads.


It's Time to Chat

And when I say “It’s time to chat”, I mean that quite literally. Live chat offerings on websites are becoming more and more popular as businesses are beginning to realize the value in engaging with customers in the moment.

It’s no surprise that in today’s fast-paced and digital-driven world customers are demanding more and more convenience when it comes to shopping. Just think about the rising popularity of grocery pickup services, on-demand movies, and 2-day Amazon Prime shipping.

Have you stopped to consider how your business might need to adjust to this new shopping mentality? If you haven’t, you should—and live chat is a great place to start!


Live Chat Statistics Suggest Happy Customers

According to an article by SuperOffice.com, customer service requests often take 10 hours for a response on social media and 12 hours for a response via email. Yikes! That’s nowhere close to the instantaneous information and service that consumers in today’s world have come to expect.

If you wait 12 hours to respond to a product inquiry, you’ve likely already lost the sale.

Live chat overcomes this obstacle by allowing you to answer your customer’s question the second they think of it! This kind of response time is more important than ever, with so many industries having to shift to an e-commerce sales platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without the face-to-face assistance of a sales representative, offering live chat is the next best thing.

It’s easy to see how a tool like this would not only boost sales, but also impact a customer’s overall opinion of a business and their likelihood to become a repeat customer. In fact, the American Marketing Association claims a 20% increase in conversions for companies who implement a live chat feature, and a similar report by eMarketer found that 35% more people followed through with a purchase after engaging with a live chat feature on a website!

Here are a few other highlights to consider from those two reports:

  • Live chat can reduce customer phone calls by 59%.
  • Customers who chat with a business are 3 times more likely to buy.
  • Live chat can be beneficial in all stages of the buying process from marketing to sales to post-purchase.
  • 63% of customers said they were more likely to visit a site again if it had live chat.
  • 38% of customers claimed that their live chat session is the reason they made a purchase.
  • 27% indicated that they purchased more than they intended to because of live chat.

To sum up the benefits, live chat makes customers feel important, gives them an avenue to ask the questions that might be preventing them from a purchase, and helps them to develop a sense of trust with your company—all of this while learning about your brand and interacting with your products.

Is Managing Live Chat Realistic?

You might be thinking there is no way you or your team can handle the workload of maintaining a live chat 24/7.

Well, you’re in luck! First of all, not all companies operate their live chat at all hours of the day or night. Some choose only to have it available during business hours or some other reasonable timeframe. In this scenario, members of your existing sales staff could rotate in responding to product inquiries or you could have one person designated to fill this role. This allows your live chat to be the most beneficial because customers are able to interact directly with those that know your full product offering and services best.

It also might not take as much time as you think when you consider the efficiency of your sales team being able to chat simultaneously with multiple customers at once as opposed to responding to one email or answering one phone call. The article by SuperOffice even purports that implementing a live chat is 50% cheaper than handling phone calls in the long run.


Reusser Design Recommends Intercom

A vendor we have had great experience with is Intercom, a live chat messaging feature. Built for answering questions, collecting data, and integrating with other platforms such as a CRM or email marketing tool, we highly recommend Intercom as a vendor to look at when choosing a live chat tool. For more information, or help getting started with Intercom, feel free to reach out.

Learn More About Live Chat