Customers are the king of any business and this is why more and more companies are looking for ways to engage with the customers. A variety of media is used for customer engagement, ranging from call centers to social media. However, one important tool many retailers miss is live chat on their websites. This has been shown in a study conducted by LogMeIn in 2013. This study shows that more than one-fourth of shoppers are likely to make a purchase when they get to talk to a live agent. This is because having a live chat is similar to having a salesperson when someone walks into a store. Any questions or doubts that a customer has can be clarified right away when there is a sales agent present through live chat.
Other than this obvious reason, there are other aspects too that make live chat an important feature for online shoppers. Firstly, live chat is convenient for shoppers. They can get their questions answered at any time through shopping and this helps them to make the right buying decisions. Also, live chat is better than calling a customer service number because users can multitask while they shop instead of going through many numeric options to reach to a call center agent. Further, live chat is faster than call centers and this is yet another reason for customers to prefer a live chat within the website.
From the businesses' point of view, live chat provides the service that customers need right away and this helps them to build a better relationship with the customer. Also, it reduces costs because having a live chat agent is cheaper than a call center. Employee efficiency is high as well because employees can multitask and can chat with many customers at the same time.
All these factors make live chat an important tool for both shoppers and businesses, therefore, it is time retail websites add it to their sites.