Top Ten Benefits of Live Chat for eCommerce: How Chat Can Power Business Success

In recent years, live chat has taken the business world by storm.

It now plays an important role in digital customer service, with 75% of consumers preferring live chat over any other contact channel.

That's why an increasing number of retail and eCommerce brands are using live chat for sales and customer support.

And, with eCommerce set to account for 25% of all retail sales worldwide by 2025, it's clear that live chat is a crucial part of the eCommerce puzzle.

But why has live chat for eCommerce become so essential? And how can it benefit your brand and fuel business success?

In this article, we'll answer these questions and more. We'll cover:

• The importance of live chat for eCommerce
• Top ten benefits of live chat for eCommerce
• The key to ensuring live chat success for your eCommerce brand

The importance of e-commerce live chat

Ecommerce live chat typically appears as a window or pop-up on your business website.

It allows your customer service team to be instantly available to any website visitor and provide real-time answers to their questions.

It was once the case that the majority of commerce and customer service took place in person - most consumers would enter a store to seek advice and make purchases.

But today, we live in a digital era.

That's why live chat is so important for retail and eCommerce businesses. It provides a personal and immediate way to connect with customers in the digital realm.

And, it allows you to meet your customers where they are - at the heart of their online buying journey.

As a result, live chat has become an integral element of the eCommerce customer experience.

It allows your brand to offer exceptional support throughout the digital journey and help consumers feel more secure in their online purchases.

Live chat for eCommerce: The top 10 benefits of customer service chat

Live chat for eCommerce comes with a range of significant advantages for both your business and your customers.

Let's dive in and explore the top ten.

1. Boost revenue

The first key benefit of live chat for eCommerce is its ability to increase revenue.

Case in point, 79% of businesses report that integrating live chat has a positive impact on sales, leads, and revenue.

Live chat allows you to guide customers through the online purchasing process and help them overcome any doubts by answering their queries.

It essentially provides customers with a virtual shopping assistant - which is why website visitors who engage in live chat are 2.8x more likely to convert than those who don’t.

And it's not just the chance of a sale that increases with eCommerce live chat - the value of individual conversions improves too.

In fact, research has shown there to be a 10% increase in the average order value when customers engage in live chat before making a purchase.

This is likely because live chat creates more opportunities to upsell. Your customer advisors can utilize the rapport established through a live chat interaction to recommend additional products or further services.

These advantages are what makes eCommerce live chat such a powerful tool for supercharging revenue.

2. Capture more leads

Capturing digital leads can be challenging for retail and eCommerce businesses.

Even if your website has high traffic, you may find it difficult to turn website visitors into real opportunities. 

Live chat can be a critical part of the solution to this problem. It allows your brand to generate more leads naturally through increased customer interactions.

When you offer live chat, more potential customers will get in touch with you directly to ask questions about your products or services.

This can be useful whether you operate a B2B eCommerce marketplace or a small B2C store.

As a result, you'll be able to build relationships with more online leads and eventually convert them into paying customers.

Live chat can also help you generate more leads through its ability to capture customer information.

For instance, when a customer initiates a chat session, you can ask for their contact details so that you can follow up with them later.

That way, even if they don't make a purchase immediately, you'll still have their information on hand so that you can reach out to them at a later date.

By utilizing live chat for eCommerce, you can transform your business website into a lead generation machine.

3. Speed up resolution times

Another significant benefit of eCommerce live chat is its speed - in fact, it's 100x faster than most other digital communication channels.

The ability to communicate with a customer in real-time makes for much faster problem-solving, especially for complex issues that require multiple, back-and-forth exchanges.

As a result, live chat resolution rates are 13x faster than email and online contact forms.

As well as fast resolution times, live chat also improves wait and response time.

Currently, the average wait time to connect with a chat agent is just 35 seconds and the average response time stands at 2 minutes, 40 seconds.

This is much quicker than the average wait time for a phone queue (13 minutes) and the average response time for customer emails (12 hours).

Quicker resolutions and responses benefit your business by helping you to build a positive public image and trust in your brand.

‍This will contribute to stronger customer relationships and brand loyalty, making it far more likely that customers will come back for more.

4. Reduce cart abandonment

Cart abandonment occurs when a customer adds items to their online shopping cart but doesn't complete the purchase.

This can happen for a number of reasons, such as the customer getting distracted, not being able to find what they are looking for, or encountering difficulties with the purchasing process.

Live chat can help reduce cart abandonment by keeping customers engaged with your website and providing them with instant assistance as they shop.

‍It's vital that you provide this, as 57% of customers will abandon a shopping cart if they can't get their questions answered quickly.

By being available to answer questions, provide advice, and help with any problems, you can keep customers focused on completing their purchases.

Additionally, live chat can provide an extra level of personalization that may be just what a customer needs to encourage them to convert.

For example, imagine a customer is in the process of entering their delivery information but becomes confused about the different shipping options.

A quick message via live chat clears up the confusion and the customer is able to complete their purchase without any further issues.

Without live chat being available in this scenario, the customer might have abandoned the purchase, unable to get the answers they need quickly.

Live chat for eCommerce allows your brand to be there for your online customers when they need support most. This leads to fewer abandoned carts and more successful sales.

5. Increase customer engagement

Once you make live chat available on your eCommerce site, you’ll likely enjoy an increase in customer engagement.

This occurs through an increase in customer conversations. Our customer Healthspan, for example, has seen a 500% increase in customer interactions since launching Talkative’s live chat.

More interactions mean more opportunities to convert and build customer relationships.

Live chat also encourages customers to engage more with your website which leads to recurring visits.

In fact, 63% of consumers are more likely to repeatedly visit a site that offers live chat. If customers are repeatedly returning to your website, they're more likely to become repeat customers.

The surge in digital customer engagement as a result of live chat will naturally lead to more sales, improved customer retention, and stronger brand loyalty.

6. Humanize the eCommerce customer experience

The great thing about eCommerce live chat is that it humanizes the digital customer experience.

It bridges the gap between online shopping and visiting a brick-and-mortar store.

Customers like the convenience of digital communication, but they also want a humanized experience when they reach out to your business.

‍In fact, 75% of consumers prefer humanized communication and support from humans over AI-powered technologies.

A pop-up chat message offering instant support from a real human has a friendly, personal vibe. It’s more akin to an in-person customer interaction than writing an email or phoning a call center.

This is because it mirrors the experience of a shop floor assistant asking if you need anything while you browse a store.

The human element of live chat is ideal for providing more detailed guidance and solving complicated queries fast.

It also gives your customer advisors the opportunity to provide the more personalized experiences that today's consumers crave.

By humanizing the eCommerce experience with live chat, you can provide better customer service and improve customer satisfaction rates - both of which will contribute to long-term business success.

7. Gain insight into customer sentiment

Customer sentiment is the overall attitude of a customer towards a business and its products/services.

‍It's crucial because keeping customers happy is the foundation of a successful brand.

Live chat interactions are one of the best ways to gather information on customer attitudes.

You can take full advantage of this valuable resource by implementing progressive technology that allows you to measure and understand customer sentiment.

Talkative's customers, for example, achieve this through the use of Enhanced Sentiment Analysis.

With this feature, you can harvest data on customer sentiment from every web chat conversation, giving you a deeper insight into customer attitudes and satisfaction.

You'll also be able to track the sentiment of your agents' messages, helping you ensure that your customers are getting the best support and service.

By understanding customer sentiment, you can ascertain the ways in which your brand performs well and the areas that require improvement.

This information can be utilized to optimize the digital customer experience and make better business decisions.

8. Overcome language barriers

We’re all aware of the complications that a language barrier can create - especially through text-based engagement channels like live chat.

Communication issues and misunderstandings can easily arise, and these can be problematic for advisors trying to help and assist your digital customers.

Potential customers may become confused or frustrated if they are not adequately understood, and may even lose confidence in your business as a result.

To solve this problem, Talkative has embedded real-time multilingual technology into our live chat software.

Your customer advisors can use this tool to instantly and effortlessly translate live chat sessions into over a hundred different languages.

This enables your eCommerce brand to provide exceptional service and experiences to any customer, in any location.

Your products and services will be accessible to consumers all over the world, giving you the opportunity to expand your customer base.

9. Provide virtual shopping experiences

As we've touched upon, live chat is a great tool for replicating the in-store shopping experience through a digital channel.

With live chat for eCommerce, you can transform your website into a virtual store.

Your advisors will be able to guide customers around different product options online and provide in-depth consultations - as if they were in person.

And with the Talkative platform, the virtual shopping experience doesn't end at live chat - you can also easily escalate any chat interaction to a cobrowsing session, web call, or even a video chat.

That way, the customers who need assistance beyond text-based communication will also be fully catered for.

Virtual shopping experiences can provide a number of benefits for both shoppers and businesses.

For consumers, they offer a convenient way to have a shopping experience in the comfort of their own homes. They also provide access to a wider range of products and services than what is available in brick-and-mortar stores.

For businesses, virtual shopping experiences can lead to bigger sales and help reduce the costs associated with running physical stores.

By providing virtual shopping experiences with live chat, you can enhance the online buying journey and take your eCommerce customer service to the next level.

10. Cost-effective customer support

Finally, offering live chat through your eCommerce site has the advantage of being a cost-effective way to provide great customer service.

Live chat can be up to 50% cheaper than providing traditional phone system support.

This is because it increases productivity - one advisor can handle multiple chats at a time, a feat which simply isn't possible with phone calls or emails.

It also comes with a number of time-saving features, such as canned responses, that improve speed and efficiency.

And, you can also opt to deploy an eCommerce chatbot alongside live chat.

These AI-powered virtual assistants reduce costs even further by handling simple queries, 24 hours a day.

This frees up your agents to dedicate more time to the customers who need them most.

The addition of live chat to your customer service strategy will save you time and money without impeding the quality of customer experiences your eCommerce brand provides.

The takeaway

It's impossible to ignore the growing importance of live chat, and other digital channels, in the world of retail and eCommerce.

Online shopping is here to stay and its prevalence is only going to increase in this era of digital transformation.

It's essential that eCommerce brands are equipped to embrace their growing significance and meet customers where they need them most.

They need to be able to connect and engage with the right customers, through the right channels, at the right time.

And what's the best way to achieve this? By investing in the right technology.

That's where Talkative comes in.

With our platform, you can bridge the gap between in-store shopping and its online counterpart, ensuring that your customers can always access the support they need - wherever they are.

We provide a complete suite of digital engagement channels that'll empower your customer advisors to provide next-level service and exceptional ecommerce experiences.

As a result, they'll be able to engage and convert more customers than ever before.

Want to learn more? Book a demo with Talkative today and discover the key to eCommerce live chat success.