Should Your Business Offer Live Chat Support?

As new technology continues to evolve business processes, business owners have to protect themselves from "shiny-object syndrome." The temptation to keep current and try new tools can cause major distraction and fail to move the business forward.

As more companies are adopting live chat for their websites, you may wonder if this is worthwhile or another distraction. In this article, you will see the reasons businesses are continuing to add live chat, and why it may make sense for your business.

Should Your Business Offer Live Chat Support? 5 Ways to Make a Good Assessment

So how can you decide whether to introduce live chat into your business or not?

1. Quick response times

One of the biggest advantages that live chat brings to the table is the fact that it helps businesses respond in real-time to inquiries. Every second you keep a prospect or customer waiting could lead to them seeking help elsewhere.

2. Available for support 24/7

Another question that you need to ask yourself is whether your business serves clients around the clock. 

With live chat, you can offer your clients support at all times. All you have to do is to program a chatbot that can handle common customer questions when your live chat agents have are out of office.

For example, a law firm may not have a receptionist to book appointments after hours, but a chatbot can step in and keep the process moving along. 

3. Overcoming objections

One customer service technique that is helping businesses convert new website visitors is proactive customer service. You reach out to the customer before they reach out to you.

This is exactly the opportunity that live chat offers you.

By reaching out to customers who show interest in particular products, services or goods, you can easily help them overcome any objections that may be keeping them from taking the next step.

Let’s look at a typical scenario. Let’s say your business is in the SaaS space. New visitors may not know much about your product. Perhaps yours is just one among many that they are checking out. By proactively reaching out to them, you create an opportunity to sell them on the benefits your product offers (and a free trial perhaps). 

4. Move where your customers are going

Technological advancements of the past decade have transformed the way people do life. Your customers are now spending more of their time online rather than offline.

That, for you, means you have to position yourself in such a way that your customers can easily reach out and communicate with you. And live chat is the preferred method communication for most people today.

Older methods of communicating with customers are fast losing their power to convert. If your business is to thrive, you need to keep up with current trends. 

5. Do you need a competitive advantage?

Of course, every business needs a competitive advantage. For you, that advantage could come as a result of implementing a live chat service. Since live chat is still a relatively new technology, adopting it now will put you leagues ahead of your competitors.

Get started with Smith.ai Live Web Chat risk-free

It's time to try live chat on your website. Just one new client captured via chat can pay for a year (or more) of Smith.ai's live web chat service. We provide fully staffed live website chat with professional agents. Outsourced live chat is best for small businesses like law firms, e-commerce businesses, IT consultants, financial planners, property managers, realtors, and marketing agencies (to name just a few!).

Our live agents are highly skilled and can answer common questions about your business, qualify new leads, schedule appointments, take payments, and more. You stay in the loop when chat transcripts are sent to you after each conversation and logged in your CRM. There's no setup fee, services are month-to-month, and there's no annual contract. Plans start at just just $140/month and are risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee.