If you already have traffic to your ecommerce store (or service business) there is one fast and easy step you can take that can instantly increase sales: Provide instant answers via live chat as many hours as you possibly can. If you don’t have live chat on your site, read on for how you can get hosted live chat absolutely free.
Why should Live Chat make such a large difference? Because shoppers don’t buy until they have confidence that they have the answers they need to make a decision. The faster and more efficiently you answer their questions the sooner they’ll buy. Live Chat closes more sales even on well-designed sites with excellent product descriptions. Be sure to optimize your chat to make it warm and friendly.
Are You Getting the Most out of your existing Live Chat service? Would you like to add excellent hosted Free Chat on your site absolutely free?
- Increase your sales by having someone logged in and available as many hours as humanly possible.
- If you have many employees, train more of them to be able to use your chat service.
- Ensure your chat users have the resources and training required to answer quickly what they can and know what to say when they don’t have an instant answer.
- Make sure all your answers are cheerful, helpful and friendly.
Rethink the Live Chat ICON Size and Position
Where you position your Live Chat function and the size of the graphic used to draw attention to it can have a huge effect on how much it is used. I had a client who accidently bumped their Live Chat function to the top right of their page and made the icon excessively large. This occurred during a redesign and was not intentional.
Sales doubled during the short time the Live Chat icon was large and prominent. They dropped back to “normal” as soon as they moved it back to the bottom of the left column under their product categories. Until their designer’s “mistake” accidentally bumped it to the top right I didn’t even know they had Live Chat – and apparently neither did those shopping on the site!
No Live Chat? Get the Best Hosted Live Chat FREE Now
Volusion offers totally free hosted Live Chat to any Web site that desires it. The free Live Chat version allows one person to be logged into the Live Chat from any location. A small business could log out at work and then back in when they get home.
Be Creative in Manning Your Free Live Chat
- Don’t assume you can’t keep your live chat open longer hours at least for the holidays. You could train friends, family, or employees to work from home answering your live chat. The more they know about your products or services the better. Or you could log in and turn up the volume so you could answer while you’re relaxing in front of the television. The sale you make could make it all worthwhile.
- Be sure you select a Live Chat solution that allows you to log in from an unlimited number of computers. Volusion allows one person to be logged in at a time from anywhere on their free version. They charge for each additional simultaneous log-in. Even though their service is considered one of the very best, their Live Chat pricing is lower than any others I’ve checked. (And you can’t beat free for this quality Live Chat service.)
LIVE CHAT SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS:
- Bold 360 Chat – Live Chat Performance Benchmarks
- LivePerson – Their site indicates an 18-20% increase in conversion rates due to live chat. On demand Webinar available.
- Activa Live Chat Proactive Chat
LIVE CHAT SERVICES:
- Increase Ecommerce Conversion Rates with 24×7 Virtual Customer Support and Chat Services
OPTIMIZE LIVE CHAT:
- ecommerceINSIGHTS.com – Let’s Chat About Live Chat for the Holidays
- AutomativeDigitalMarketing – Why Live Chat
- GrokDotCom by FutureNow – Make Your Live Chat Persuasive
- ClickZ – How to Screw Up Live Customer Chat (And How to Fix It)
- GrokDotCom by Future Now – Quick Tip: Use Live Chat Transcripts to Boost Conversions
- InternetRetailer – Forrester Analyst Shows How Web Retailers Win in Tough Times
- GrokDotCom by FutureNow – 3 Ways to Lose an Online Sale
- GrokDotCom – Warning against Being TOO Aggressive with Live Chat and How to Tell When You’re Being Too Pushy
- Website Magazine – High Impact Tweaks for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Ecommerce Tips:
- NEW: Ecommerce Mistakes That Make You Look Like An Amateur
