Were you aware that 42% of consumers express a preference for live chat functions due to the absence of hold time?
It’s no longer surprising that live chat has become the upcoming customer support tool in the market. It is also increasingly popular among both B2C (with 74%) and B2B (with 85%) business owners as a sales tool.
The sales and support roles of live chat software are no longer limited. With the available features, companies find it increasingly convenient to employ live chat for customer engagement on their websites.
Live chat can be advantageous in capturing your visitor’s attention and initiating a conversation to comprehend their buying intentions and future steps. Although not all engagements lead to conversions, it aids in enhancing your understanding of your audience and making necessary improvements. In addition to comprehending the visitor’s intent, there are various other rationales for incorporating live chat into your customer engagement strategy.
If you have been wondering about the other reasons, we are here to assist you. This blog will concentrate on some suggestions to enhance customer engagement through live chat. Let us begin.
9 Practical Tips to Increase Live Chat Engagement
Just knowing about the live chat features that can increase engagement on your website is not sufficient. You must also learn how to personalize these features and more in order to enhance customer engagement through live chat. Do not worry, we will guide you through tips for improving customer engagement via live chat in this section. Let’s begin!
1. Customize & Place the Chat Button Correctly
Implementing various strategies to enhance engagement on your website is crucial. One effective approach involves customizing and appropriately positioning the chat button. By incorporating appealing or multiple chat buttons, you enable visitors to easily initiate discussions with your operators, leading to increased interactions. Although seemingly straightforward, this tip can significantly impact the outcomes when executed correctly.
With tools such as ProProfs Chat, you have the option to customize your chat button in a more advanced way. This allows you to modify it according to the theme of the page where it is being placed or the overall theme of your website.
To enhance the likelihood of engaging in conversations with visitors on your website, you can consider adding multiple chat buttons on a single page. Some live chat solutions offer the option to customize the location and appearance of each chat button you place on a single page.
In the event that you are not comfortable with the idea of having multiple chat buttons on one page, consider adding a bouncing chat button instead. You have the ability to choose the speed at which it floats on your webpage and other specifications to ensure its visibility. However, you must also ensure that it does not interfere with the browsing experience of visitors.
2. Add Conditions to Trigger Automated Messages
To ensure that your automated messages appear on the website, it is vital to establish the appropriate conditions. This is crucial as you have the option to incorporate six types of live chat triggers using your engagement tool.
- You can implement these triggers on specific pages to help visitors either land on the right page or on high-selling product pages so they can engage more and end up converting as customers.
- You can also implement live chat triggers on the conditions like the number of visits a single visitor makes on your website.
If a visitor is browsing your website for the same product for the third time, you can send them a message to acknowledge their curiosity and offer assistance in connecting and engaging with your brand. The message could say, “You appear to be interested. How may we assist you today? :)” This approach ensures their attention is captured and acknowledges your awareness of their specific interest in the product.
- Some triggers also work on the basis of time spent on a particular page.
When certain visitors spend a significant amount of time on a particular service or product page, it could be due to their desire for further information or uncertainty regarding their ultimate selection. This is an ideal moment to initiate a chat in order to actively communicate with these visitors and assist them in making a quicker decision.
In addition to these, there are three additional conditions that you can utilize while striving for proactive live chat engagement.
- Conditions based on exit intent
- Conditions based on URL parameters
- Conditions based on user data
3. Track Real-time Visitor Activities on Your Website
If you truly desire to actively interact with visitors, it is necessary to have knowledge about their activities on your website. This is where the importance of tracking their real-time actions arises.
By utilizing the live chat visitor monitoring feature, your operators are enabled to track various data, including:
- Geographical location
- Number of visits to the website
- Time spent on the website
- Name, email address
- Device information
With the ability to track the page a user landed on and the number of pages they have viewed on your website, you can provide proactive customer engagement through the use of live chat.
4. Customize Existing Eye Catcher Templates
The main focus is to create an attractive appeal on your website in order to increase visitor engagement and enhance visibility of the chat icon.
However, when selecting a focal point for your website, ensure that you consider two important factors.
To start, the eye catcher, which is prominent on your website, takes up a significant portion of the screen. Therefore, it is crucial for you to reduce the size of the eye catcher slightly to prevent it from occupying excessive screen space.
Secondly, those who provide this function also offer ready-made templates that you can utilize directly on our website. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that these templates are not restricted to the provided options. Modify the appearance of the attention-grabber so that it aligns with the theme of the page on which it is being implemented.
5. Track Chat Analytics to Identify Key Areas of Improvement
To enhance engagement with live chat, you can also identify the challenges encountered during customer interactions. Fortunately, the availability of detailed reports, chat transcripts, and history allows you to pinpoint the exact moments when your conversations fail to retain visitors and potential clients for your business.
You are able to monitor the quality of your interaction with visitors by means of feedback and ratings in reports.
By analyzing which operator receives poor ratings from your visitors, you can examine their chat history and access transcripts to determine their shortcomings. This will provide valuable insights for training your operators and incorporating relevant scenarios into interview sessions.
6. Create Announcements for Events to Bring More Engagement
When creating announcements, whether it is for a flash sale or an upcoming webinar event, the primary goal should be to increase customer engagement through the use of live chat. These announcements should encourage individuals to connect and interact with your website or chat operators.
The image above shows an announcement about an event that gathers industry experts in one location. Individuals who are curious about the new strategies they have would probably be interested in registering for the event. To facilitate the process for these interested individuals, they have included a button for instant registration.
By making purpose-driven announcements, you can generate the necessary engagement and successfully convert interested prospects into consumers for your brand.
7. Be Quick at Replying to Customers with Canned Responses
Please rephrase the text below step by step while keeping the same meaning. Do not add or remove any information. You can also use pre-written responses to enhance customer engagement during live chat.
The type of engagement it can assist you with may vary slightly. While chat greetings and announcements are used to encourage customers to interact with you, canned responses enable you to continue the conversation with one visitor while simultaneously attending to others.
They will assist in decreasing response time and allowing operators to handle multiple visitors without compromising the conversation’s quality.
8. Use Operator’s Image in the Chat Window to Keep the Engagement Going
To enhance the personal connection during customer engagement, consider displaying the operator’s image within the chat window.
To ensure that your live chat software includes an operator’s profile, simply add an avatar and save the settings. If any existing profiles lack an image, edit them to include an avatar. This way, when the operator interacts with the visitor, the avatar will be visible in the chat window. By making this effort, visitors will feel that they are not conversing with a bot and will be more comfortable discussing their issues thoroughly.
9. Don’t Leave Customers Hanging for a Response, Route Chat to the Right Department
Chat routing is crucial in ensuring a continuous conversation as it helps direct visitors seeking assistance from experts in specific fields to the appropriate department. This is particularly important as nobody prefers to endure lengthy response times.
If such a situation arises, here is what you can do.
There are two options for routing a chat to a specific department: implementing automatic routing conditions that allow visitors to choose the department via a pre-chat form or manually redirecting the chat to the desired department by the operator.
By thinking step by step, you can ensure that visitors stay engaged with your brand and ultimately make a decision.
8 Top Website Chat Apps to Improve Customer Engagement
What is Website Chat App?
A website chat app, also known as a chat widget, is a software application designed for user engagement. It enables website visitors to interact with a business through a chat window on the website. These apps prove highly beneficial for both customers and businesses, facilitating interaction and conversation directly on the website.
1. REVE CHAT
REVE Chat is a platform utilizing artificial intelligence to aid businesses in improving customer support quality and boosting sales. It provides a comprehensive customer engagement solution equipped with various tools to elevate service delivery. By utilizing this chat platform powered by AI, organizations can offer round-the-clock support and convert website visitors into potential leads.
The REVE platform offers a range of live engagement tools including video chat, co-browsing, and live chat. These tools enable businesses to engage with customers throughout their entire journey. By utilizing this platform, businesses can easily connect with customers through their preferred channels and provide a comprehensive support experience across all channels.
2. Intercom
Intercom offers businesses a customer messaging platform with a range of tools and features for engaging customers. One of its powerful features is live chat, which can be leveraged to provide personalized support and enhance customer satisfaction. By utilizing Intercom’s web app chat, businesses can engage with users in real-time, provide prompt assistance, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction.
3. Drift
Drift is a conversational marketing tool that offers multiple features to offer online support and generate leads. This tool primarily concentrates on conversational marketing, allowing businesses to interact with customers instantly and initiate personalized conversations.
4. Zendesk Chat
Zendesk Chat is a cloud-based chat solution that allows for real-time customer communication and offers powerful tools and features for providing top-notch customer support and fostering strong customer relationships.
With the use of this web chat app, businesses have the capability to engage in conversations with customers across websites, mobile apps, and Facebook Messenger. Additionally, various noteworthy elements are available, namely simultaneous chat sessions, analytics, and skill-based routing.
The proactive message feature provided by Zendesk Chat enables targeting of online visitors and sending automated chat invites. These invites can be based on the customer’s location, purchase history, or referral page.
5. LiveChat
LiveChat is a highly popular tool for customer support services across various channels, including Whatsapp, Facebook, email, SMS, and more. Additionally, it can be seamlessly integrated with multiple tools and e-commerce platforms to enhance customer engagement.
LiveChat is a fitting option for businesses that seek to assist a significant amount of customers and website visitors. The tool possesses several essential features, such as a ticketing system, chat routing, notifications, and team management tools. Functioning as a reliable live chat solution, it enables the option to incorporate clickable buttons and quick replies within the chat windows.
6. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a web chat application that offers a comprehensive range of features for engagement, making it a 360-degree solution. It provides easy and smooth conversations through its live chat feature, and its value is further elevated by the inclusion of additional features like a ticketing system, a knowledge base builder, and a built-in call center.
LiveAgent’s self-service options eliminate the need for customers to contact an agent in order to obtain answers to FAQs or check the support ticket status.
7. Tidio
Tidio, a well-known live chat software, offers great features for customer service. It primarily focuses on sales and conversion and brings together chatbots and live chat. By integrating live chat, email, and messenger into one platform, businesses can effectively and effortlessly address all customer issues.
8. Olark
Olark is a user-friendly live chat software and customer management tool that can be easily set up and operated. It offers a high level of customization, allowing individuals to easily modify the colors, position, and shape of the chat boxes. Moreover, the software enables the inclusion of welcome text and agent phone numbers in order to humanize live chats.
Key Features of a Website Chat App
Depending on the specific software and business needs, website chat apps can provide a variety of features that enhance customer service and foster stronger relationships with customers.
Certain important characteristics of a website chat application encompass –
- Real-time conversation – A web chat app can enable real-time conversations between visitors and support agents. This can boost the response rate, resulting in an improved service experience. 89% of customers can make repeat purchases if the service is improved.
- Automation – AI-powered chatbots can simulate a conversation with a user and offer automated support. The use of a chatbot can also help in automating a variety of tasks across service, marketing, and sales.
- Visitor tracking – Using a web chat app, a business can track visitor behavior and measure engagement. This can provide helpful data on visitors’ activities, their search history, and preferences.
- Analytics – A company can get analytics and reports on chat interactions between visitors and support representatives. This can help track team performance and make improvements.
- Integration – Website chat apps come with the feature to integrate with other helpful software and applications such as CRM tools. This integration capability can help organizations better manage their customer interactions.
- Customization – It’s possible to customize the look and feel of a website chat and match it with the style and branding of the website. Customization can add value in providing a seamless experience to users.
