Live Chat Software: Should You Invest In It? (It’s Easier Than You Think)

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If you are a website owner and aren’t yet familiar with live chat software, you should be. Even if you’re an aspiring website owner, it is likely you will sooner or later need to invest in this useful piece of supplementary technology. Live chat software allows real-time communication, used primarily by businesses to interact with their visitors and customers.

Live chat enables immediate back-to-back contact with visitors and has been widely popular worldwide. Why do you ask? Surely it would get annoying after a while? Providing you are a business or website owner with a drop of common sense and social skills, you have every power to create a positive experience by using a live chat software. It would be silly not to use such a useful tool to better your website’s user experience and monetization value, right?

As of earlier this week, Facebook has officially announced their entry to the live chat market. Following the release of Messenger as a separate app, many had doubts, although the separation of the feature was obviously part of a larger plan.

How Will Facebook Messenger Add Value to Websites?

Whereas the market for live chat software is certainly an emerging one, Facebook has carefully added even more value to a useful feature. Messenger is now available as an official plugin, allowing users to chat not only with humans but alternative bots. As of 2014, there were over 2m one-man businesses in the UK alone. While worldwide figures are currently unknown, the indication of almost 1.3bn websites live shows the competitive characteristics of web presence.

Now, where does live chat come in? Due to the era of transparency, customers have been placed at the pinnacle of the consumer food chain. Visitors of websites are not only expecting exceptional customer help but immediate support. Taking into account the increasing amount of small businesses who cannot afford a customer support assistant, Facebook Messenger’s bot will be an absolute game changer. Furthermore, with the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), companies who are adaptable to bot technology are not only putting themselves ahead of the competition but their users too.

These bots can be deployed online to perform a large selection of tasks, such as:

• Automated appointment scheduling;
• Frequently asked questions on demand;
• Automated services and customer support;
• Status updates with ease.

Granted that these bots are as efficient as expected, large chunks of human hours can be cut by website operators. Not only will this save time and money, but rocket launch these websites to a new spectrum of user interaction at little to no cost.

So Should I Get Live Chat for My Website?

Simply put, yes. Similarly to interaction in a physical situation, we as humans crave attention. Whether we are open about it or not, it’s true.

This is where the general importance of optimizing your live chat software will drastically affect the results you get. We have all been to websites offering a product, where we get the annoying pop-up from ‘Samantha’ or ‘Edward’, pitching the same service all over again every 5 minutes (apologies to all Samanthas and Edwards, merely a cliche example). Later on in this article, we will discuss some basic features to keep an eye out for, when setting up your live chat.

According to some jaw-dropping statistics from WhosOn.com, a leading chat software provider, the overall value of visitors greatly increases when factoring in the potential opportunities using live chat. Additionally, the presence of a human being or bot can significantly boost your website’s trust factor, marketability, and approachability.

Statistics and Facts from WhosOn – A Leading Live Chat Provider

Let’s take a look at some interesting statistics from WhosOn’s study. We have picked out some mind-boggling sales related statistics to start with:

• 31% of online shoppers expect instant help during a purchase;
• 62% of visitors would complete a purchase, should there be a live chat service available;
• Over 50% of e-shoppers abandon purchases, when unable to find instant answers;
• Visitors willing to engage in live chat are worth up to 4.5x more than regular visitors in value.

Not only does live chat increase your website’s monetization potential, but overall improves your visitors’ time and experience as a whole – here are some more facts from the aforementioned survey:

• Majority of submitted issues are resolved under a minute when using live chat;
• It takes an average time of 23 seconds to respond to a live chat query – hate those long phone call waits, don’t you? So do your visitors;
• 87% of top consumers consider live chat to be a vital website feature;
• Less than 15% of customers experience issues with live chat, staggeringly low.

Now without making it sound like a sales pitch on our behalf, having live chat on your website is genuinely a useful feature to invest a couple of bucks in. Let’s take a look at some options.

Which Live Chat Software Providers are Reliable?

Consequently to the problems it solves, the live chat market is now competitive. Webmasters, bloggers and small businesses are now spoilt rotten with choices. Since online markets are growing faster than ever, there are already dozens of providers to choose from, all of them boasting the latest technological features the average website owner can ask for.

Additionally, the beauty of setting up your own live chat is the ease of process. More than often there is no programming or technical knowledge required. Should you be wishing to install a live chat client, click-and-get features are reassuringly simple to use. To get you started, we decided to pick one of the top contenders as an example, currently dominating as one of the best live chat clients out there. Bear in mind, there are many reliable options, the Website Builders team are intending to review and publish reliable material on all top choices very shortly.

LiveChat – Current Market Leader

In terms of a viable option, LiveChat is a winner. Brought to you by a passionate team of 70+, the idea was initially proposed in 2002, when the way of B2P communication was bound to change.

LiveChat is dense in useful features, for a modest monthly price starting at only $16 per month, making it a perfect solution for bloggers looking to monetize even more. Features include the standard built-in data security, chat transcripts and a ticketing system to keep track of all requests. As a customer of LiveChat, you are also able to customize bot messages your visitor’s see depending on – just to name a few of many:

• Which page they have visited;
• How long they have been on your site;
• Whether they are a returning visitor;
• Their page visit history on your website.

The above should be a clear indication of the usefulness of an adequate live chat software or client. With additional perks of full integration and customization potential, LiveChat adds great value to any website or business which may require queries for a variety of reasons.

Some alternative providers offering popular clients are Zoho, Freshdesk, LiveAgent, Intercom, Zendesk and Kayako. Be sure to keep a close eye out for Website Builders’ exclusive live chat review section in the near future.