INCREASING REVENUES

Live chat brings significant benefits to your business when compared to email, phone support, instant messenger services and other communication platforms. A full-featured chat platform is a must-have tool for your business to drive revenues higher by helping customers and employees close sales opportunities.

In my previous blog post, I discussed ways to reduce costs using Live Chat for Employees and Customers. In this post, we will look at the ways to use Live Chat to drive revenues higher.

Get customers the information they need in real-time

Live chat is a platform that allows support teams to “talk” directly with existing and potential customers. Most often this connection is made from the company web site or other messenger channels. Using typed dialog, employees can promote sales by answering product questions, explaining features, confirming availability and move sales to closure.

For example, you run an on-line shoe store. A customer wants to know when a pair of shoes he wants to buy will be back in stock. Instead of losing that customer to another site, a live chat session can help get answers directly to that customer in real-time and let him know when the shoes will be available.

The chat session can be more effective than phone calls or email. With phone calls, customers may need to call repeatedly as new questions or issues arise. Sales staff may not be immediately available, causing the customer to leave a message delaying the potential sale. Chat can be always on and available to quickly route customers to the agent with the knowledge to solve the problem.

Phone calls are inconvenient and require added effort on the part of the customer. With live chat, the customer is already on the website shopping. A simple click of a button on the page and the customer is quickly chatting with the right person to answer their question. Email, too, requires extra effort for the customer to send the message. Response time on email is slow and doesn’t allow the customer to know someone is working their issue. Long delays in responses may drive customers to competitors or ruin sales momentum that would push the sale to closure.

Chat is the best option as the customer knows their question or concern is being addressed in real-time without calling, being placed on hold or having their message or email lost.

Increase revenue through upsell opportunities

Live chat also creates opportunities for upselling. Through chat, skilled chat agents can identify upsell opportunities. Seeing that a customer is interested in a product, they can quickly identify add-on itemsto recommend to the customer as well. If they are shopping for shoes, the agent can recommend socks to match. The agent can even mention that there is a promotion running.

Increase revenue by offering promotions during online chat sessions
Like upsell opportunities, properly trained chat sales agents can offer promotions to customers they engage.

A customer is questioning the cost of shipping for her order. Sensing the sale may be lost due to the objection, the sales agent can offer via the chat session an online promotion code for free or discounted shipping.

Helping a customer choose between two items, the agent decides to offer a discount if the customer buys both items. She offer him a discount code for 20% off with the purchase of both items. Happy customer and revenue grown significantly.

Employee to employee chat. Help sales agents get answers quickly and save the sale.

As sales agents help customers, they may encounter problems that need assistance from other employees. Chat sessions between employees can quickly handle these issues and get the customer the answers they need. Similarly, full-featured chat platforms will allow chat groups and chat transfers.

With group chat, a sales agent can bring another employee into the chat to help resolve issues or get questions answered. If necessary, the sales agent can transfer a chat to a new group.

A customer needed help ordering shoes. After getting help with the questions about the shoes, he realizes he needs help with shipping as well. The agent helping him can transfer the chat to another agent to ensure the shipping questions are handled as well.

Track your sales inquiries

With chat communication, you’ll have a centralized digital record of customer inquiries, dates, times, products and specific customers. This tracking can help identify common issues and provide help in resolving product, website or process issues. This tracking is also useful in following up with customers. For example, your business may have been having issues with credit card processing which caused hindered customers in making a purchase. With the issue resolved, any customer who used chat to get help can be contacted to let them know the issue is resolved.

Similarly, if a product was out ofstock, chat tracking can be used to convert the customersessionsto follow-up notifications once the products are back in stock.

Live chat can be a powerful tool for the sales team and growing company revenue. See how StraViso and its full-featured chat platform can drive sales and revenue growth in your organization. Let us help you reach your revenue growth goals

Contact us today at info@straviso.com for more information and to schedule a time for a demonstration of our chat, notification and automation platforms.