What Are the Benefits of Live Chat? Is Live Chat a Real Person?

In this blog, you’ll find answers to questions like what is live chat, is live chat a real person, and the benefits of live chat. Live chat vs. phone support!

Introduction

In this digital era, businesses are switching to online platforms, and physical interaction is no more required. Live chatbots are either replacing or complementing humans in all spheres of life. 74% of B2C companies and 85% of B2B companies use live chat for sales. However, only 31% of B2C businesses and 54% of B2B businesses use live chat for marketing. The benefits of live chat are endless, some yet unexplored. Read along to learn about some benefits of live chat and how it can help you in your business. 

What Is Live Chat? 

Customers want fast and engaging solutions to help them connect with the business. Such kind of engagement can be created by communicating with the customers. Since people are switching towards businesses, we all know human interaction is minimal. This is where live chat support can come in handy.

 Live chat support allows customers to connect with businesses instantly through a website or mobile app. Both proactive and reactive work through live chat windows and pop up to see to provide assistance to the browsing customers, or the chat can be initiated by the customer whenever they require help. Having live chat support helps you to interact with your customers and visitors in real-time without having to contact them personally. 

Live chat Vs. Phone support (Voice Chat)

There is not much of a difference between voice chat and phone support. The only difference between them is phone support is provided through telecommunication networks, and voice chat is used with the help of the internet. 

Well, both live chat and phone support can be solutions to customer support, but there are still some differences between them:

1. One notable difference between live chat and phone support is the response time. A live chat provides proactive support. While interacting on live chat software, the agents can swiftly initiate a conversion, and consumers can get instant solutions to their problems. Phone support is generally reactive, i.e., the agent initiates conversion when initiated by the customer.
2. Live chatting allows you to analyze customer data better and can help your solutions quickly. Phone support also allows the storage of consumer data in the form of recording, but it is a tedious task to decode all the recordings and obtain critical data from them. 

5 Advantages of Online Chatting

More and more businesses are leveraging the benefits of online live chat to provide fast support to their customers on the website itself. 

1. Real-time Support

Live chat support provides faster support to website visitors. Modern-day customers prefer asking for support on live chat software rather than by phone or email. 

By providing support to the customers in real-time, you can not only encourage your visitors to give positive feedback on your business but also help you to increase your market value. Your company can use the data from the live chat software to provide accurate solutions to customers within a short period.

2. Helps Increase Your Sales

Live chat support will help you decrease your customer response time and provide faster support to them when needed. Customers can directly share their problems with the chatting agents allowing you to discover customer pain points easily. This helps to develop a positive image of your business in their minds, increasing the buyback rates and average order value from your website and positively impacting your company’s sales and income.

3. Increasing Customer Retention Rate

When consumers get proper support from a company, they become loyal to it. Providing a great customer experience will help your company build a loyal customer base and increase customer satisfaction, which will surely help the company in tough times. It can also help you to gain new customers, thus increasing the company sales and average order value on your website.

4. Reduce Customer Support Costs

Hiring any team to take care of customer support for your company through call services or email can be costly as you have to pay the charges and the team’s salary. Live chat support allows you to handle multiple visitors in real-time on a one-to-one basis. 

5. Increase Your Credibility 

Adding a live chat feature to your website assures your visitors that there is someone to clear their doubts and provide solutions to their problems instantly. It helps to boost trust among your customers and increases your credibility. 

Along with advantages, there are a few disadvantages of live chat as well:

1. Personalization Issues

Live chat can be somewhat like talking to a chatbot as you can’t see the face or hear the voice of the person on the other end. That’s why many people prefer phone support over live chat. The quality of the chat depends on the live chat agent thus, there is no consistency. 

2. Communication Issues

Many people cannot express themselves through live chat, and they are uncomfortable with typing lengthy sentences.  Users prefer other ways like voice chat or phone support in such cases. 

Conclusion 

We hope now you have understood the benefits of live chat. It is one of the best ways to manage customer communication channels. It is more efficient and cost-effective than old-school email and phone support methods, and it even leaves behind the modern-day voice chat feature. 

So, is the live chat channel the winner? Well, the answer is ‘NO.’ The actual winner is Omnichannel or multi-channel support. If you want your business to provide the best customer support, you need to provide support to all your customers however they want. Even though live chat is very good, everyone might not be comfortable with it. A business has to combine the benefits of live chat with other interactive services to offer customers the best of both worlds.

Live support can be the best for short questions and resolving doubts on the go, but a company needs to have customer call service or phone support to resolve more complex issues or receive consumer feedback. Though the Omni channel method may not be as cost-effective as providing only live chat, it can help you in many ways, from boosting sales to increasing customer retention rates. Temasys’ Skylink Cube is a hassle-free way to make your website ready for live chat as well as audio and video calls. A business can avail of basic services for free, and premium calling starts as low as $1 a day.