Without a doubt, there is a chance for lead generation in live chat to greatly boost your revenue and outpace your competition. The ability to communicate instantly is essential.
Live chat is a versatile tool that businesses can use to inform and engage customers in both challenging and stable times. It is particularly beneficial for lead generation while also providing customer support. Taking advantage of live chat can greatly benefit your business.
According to a 2020 study conducted by Forrester, live chat has the potential to increase overall website conversion rates by over 40%. This is quite significant considering that typically, only around 2% of website visitors convert into leads.
While approximately 67% of businesses employ live chat for customer support, a mere 37% utilize live chat for marketing objectives, including lead capture on their website.
By employing a combination of automated and human-operated tools, one can utilize live chat to generate leads and gain a competitive advantage. Here are 10 strategies that can help you achieve this goal.
How To Use Live Chat for Lead Generation
1. Greet website visitors with a chatbot welcome message
Welcome messages for chatbots typically consist of a pleasant greeting, providing the visitor with basic details about the site or page they are currently on, followed by various interactive options to initiate a conversation.
A website bot is essentially a bot version of your website, featuring highlighted attributes and visual menus.
To enhance user experience, it is recommended to design a menu that allows visitors to specify their preferences. Adopting a guided conversation approach is more effective than utilizing open-ended text or immediately collecting their contact details.
Possible additional information to include in the menu: – Daily specials – Gluten-free options – Vegan and vegetarian dishes – Children’s menu – Allergen information – Wine and cocktail list – Dessert selections – Happy hour deals The following is a revised version of the given text, rephrased step by step while maintaining the same meaning: Menu Information to Include: 1. Daily specials: We offer daily specials, ensuring there’s always something new and exciting to try. 2. Gluten-free options: For our customers with dietary restrictions or preferences, we provide a range of delicious gluten-free dishes. 3. Vegan and vegetarian dishes: We cater to vegetarians and vegans with a variety of tasty and nutritious options. 4. Children’s menu: We have a special menu dedicated to satisfying the taste buds of our little guests. 5. Allergen information: Our menu includes detailed allergen information to assist customers with specific dietary requirements. 6. Wine and cocktail list: Enhance your dining experience by indulging in our carefully curated selection of wines and cocktails. 7. Dessert selections: Complete your meal with our delectable array of desserts, ranging from classic favorites to innovative delights. 8. Happy hour deals: Join us during happy hour and take advantage of our special discounted prices on selected food and drinks.
- Blog link
- Opt-in to subscription updates
- Links to product or service description pages
- More info on pricing
- A way to get in touch with customer service or sales
2. Capture more leads with Omnichannel chatbots
Using Facebook Messenger automation to power web chat has advantages over plain live chat.
The most significant advantage for lead generation purposes is that if a website visitor is logged into one of the 1.3 billion Facebook Messenger accounts, you have the ability to instantly capture that person as a lead.
Also, with Customers.ai’s OmniChat technology, you can get the advantages of both worlds. If customers are logged into Facebook, you can instantly capture leads. If they are not logged into Facebook, you can still provide them with all the same capabilities.
There are other incredible advantages of having a website with omnichannel chatbot featuring Messenger automation.
- Persistent conversations that track customer history
- Default contact data from Facebook including name, location, language
- The ability to send follow-up messaging and do remarketing to Facebook chat visitors
3. Opt-in for SMS, Messenger, and email updates
Website visitors who participate in live chat are promising prospects.
During a chat conversation, it makes sense to invite them to sign up for marketing updates via SMS, Facebook Messenger, email, and other means.
There are numerous excellent opt-in strategies to contemplate for your lead generation campaigns through live chat, including providing VIP access or conducting a contest/giveaway.
SMS opt-ins are the way to go if you want to engage in a channel that your competitors are unlikely to be involved in.
4. Use your captured data and bot analytics to your advantage
For the purpose of maximizing the number of leads generated through live chat, it is imperative that both your live agents and bots are aware of the identity of the individuals they are engaging with.
By combining automatically collected Messenger data, tags, notes, chat histories, custom variables, and attributes, you can generate comprehensive customer profiles and audience segments that will definitely enhance lead conversions.
When rephrasing the text, it is important to maintain the same meaning and not add or remove any information. Some key areas to consider are:
- Traffic insights – Are you getting qualified visitors and leads? In your live chat dashboard, consider looking at the referring link, number of visits, location, operating system/device, time on site, number of chats.
- Product opportunities – Are people asking for things you don’t do? Use tags and add commonly asked for items to your product team lists.
- Missed opportunities – Are people asking about things you clearly offer? It’s possible your website is not communicating this well enough.
- Top 10 FAQs –What are visitors most common questions? Think about how you can use your chatbot and/or website to address these questions better.
5. Generate leads 24/7 with live chat support automation
When your chatbot is the only available resource to assist your website visitors, you should carefully plan your strategy in order to use automation tools for lead generation during offline periods.
If your chatbot only focuses on capturing new leads and fails to answer a visitor’s questions, you are neglecting the customer’s care.
If there is a lack of resources to have live agents available round the clock, the solution is to ensure there are a minimum of 5-7 frequently asked questions (FAQs) provided for each question, using intent-based Q&A triggers.
The Customers.ai visual chatbot builder makes it easy to create Q&A chatbots.
Examples of frequently asked questions or phrases that your chatbot should be able to identify include “I can’t remember my password” and “I can’t recall my username.”
Q&A triggers simplify the process of linking a chat experience to keywords or frequently asked questions from visitors.
You have the option to rephrase the given text like this: Additionally, you can choose to provide links to resources on your website that deal with the aforementioned problems.
If a customer question is too complex and they cannot find the desired answer, it is worth noting that using live chat for lead generation can be a beneficial option.
To achieve your goal, you should utilize an exit statement. For instance: “I would be delighted to have one of our experts promptly address your question, and I will transfer your information to them.”
Following the mentioned process, obtain their contact details using a chat form and inform them that a reply will be given within a specific period.
To start using live chat and bots effectively, it is recommended to allocate support requests to your sales and product teams for approximately one month. This approach aims to enhance your collection of questions and corresponding answers in your knowledge base.
Then, you have both a digital FAQ for your chatbot to pull from, as well as documentation to provide your support team.
6. Engage visitors leaving your site or abandoning their cart
There are various factors that contribute to cart abandonment. It could be because the visitors were unable to find the desired information or due to excessively high shipping costs.
However, what if the explanation was less significant? For instance, the visitor simply added a few items to their cart to return and complete the payment at a later time.
No matter what the reason is, you can always make the most out of every visit.
A chatbot has the ability to interact with a visitor who attempts to leave the website or shopping cart by posing questions that may result in obtaining a lead or feedback, at the very least.
BONUS: What is a live chat widget?
A live chat widget is a chat box that pops up on your website, and it is capable of being integrated into it. Its purpose is to enable users to have conversations with both live customer service representatives and chatbots. The chat window serves as an alternative means to contact customer support for queries related to customer support and potential future purchases, much like email.
To install it on your website, technical expertise is not necessary. All you need is good live chat software. Once you receive it, you can install the customizable widget with just a few clicks. Below are the listed important features of high-quality live chat widget software.
The majority of live chat widgets are currently operated by live chat agents, but businesses that need to expand their chat capabilities or offer 24/7 service are increasingly preferencing chatbots over live chat agents as the solution.
The inclusion of a live chat widget is possible on social media pages, mobile apps, and websites.
Use a live chat widget because…
Over 50% of participants indicated a preference for online communication with a business as opposed to utilizing:
- Social media
- Phone support
Unlike other channels, live chat widgets allow users to contact a business at any time they have a question and quickly receive a response. It is possible to have chat widgets with multiple purposes, all operating from a single, accessible window.
You have the option to use a live chat widget.
- Permit visitors to contact you right away across your whole website, rather than having to look for a means to do so and then wait for a slow response.
- Supervise user behavior across your website to rapidly spot areas where users are encountering problems and provide proactive guidance.
- By tracking frequent instances of website bounce or shopping cart abandonment and providing incentives to buy, you may turn window shoppers into customers.
- Post FAQs to help customers rapidly locate solutions without leaving the website.
- Due to how quickly they answer, chatbots may save each company, on average, $300,000. The cost savings result from increased team productivity and reduced team number.
- 67% of company leaders claim that bots boost sales.
- 54% of tech executives claim that using bots has increased productivity.
- CSAT (customer satisfaction) levels increase by 24% thanks to chatbots.
- With chatbots, response times are 3 times faster.
- Consumers expect to use chatbots 74% of the time.
What are the benefits of a live chat widget?
- Make customer support available and practical
Live chat widgets provide a distinct customer support option in comparison to others because they allow consumers to directly interact with your customer service or sales staff on your website or mobile application. With live chat support, clients can avoid waiting in long call queues or engaging in asynchronous email conversations, as it allows for immediate, real-time contact.
- Improve client engagement
You have the option to enhance customer interaction on your website by adding a chat widget. By sending them a message in response to their activities, you can effectively handle and comprehend any issues they face while accessing your website. Utilizing a chatbot allows you to send personalized messages tailored to visitors’ actions on your website.
- Reduce ticket volume with self-service
Your live chat widget enables customers to access your knowledge base and FAQs, which can be used to address simple problems without having to reach out to a support representative. As a result, the number of incoming tickets is reduced, allowing your employees to focus on dealing with more complex issues.
Agents have the ability to handle multiple chats simultaneously using live chat, with a skilled representative being able to manage 4-6 chats at a time. Phone support does not possess this capability. When employing a chatbot, it can proficiently handle all common inquiries and promptly provide customers with responses, thereby enabling you to maintain control over your initial response rate even during peak periods of customer demand.
You can avoid hiring additional agents to handle a growing number of support requests by having agents respond to multiple inquiries simultaneously. By using a single connection to your chat widget software, you can redirect most common inquiries, resulting in a faster resolution time. Implementing a chat widget on your website provides several benefits without increasing support expenses or spending limits.
