A software investment of any kind takes due diligence, and purchasing live chat software should be no different. The live chat experience that you provide reflects the quality of your brand as a whole, which makes it critical to only use the best website chat software possible. When potential customers visit your website and want to get in touch with you, business messaging channels, such as live chat, are the fastest and easiest methods available.
Every live chat solution, in its simplest form, should make it possible for your company to connect with your customers while they are on your website. But that doesn’t mean every live chat solution is right for your business. In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can determine which website chat software is best for your business.
Determine Which Features are Important to You
There are some universal features you should expect when investing in any software such as:
- Implementation guidance that can help you on a successful start and use of a product,
- A history of reliability to avoid being plagued by downtime, and
- A commitment to security, such as being SOC II compliant.
These features are just as important when purchasing live chat software. You’ll also want to consider answering questions about why you need a business messaging solution like live chat and what type of experience you want to deliver. Here are a few questions to consider:
- Where do people get hung up on my website? Do they need the most help searching for products, understanding pricing, booking an appointment, or placing an order?
Some companies choose to have chat available on specific pages, while others offer chat on every page. The live chat solution you choose should be able to provide both options.
- Do I want to offer a reactive chat experience and let customers reach out whenever they need help or do I want a proactive chat experience that invites customers to chat with us?
No one will know your business better than you do. There is no one-style-fits-all for live chat. Ensure that you have the option to provide proactive or reactive chat to your customers.
- Do I want to customize the look of my chat?
Your live chat should be a reflection of your site and your brand, so make sure you work with a platform that allows you to customize colors, greetings and other details within the chat experience to fit the look and feel of your company.
Answering these questions are a good and basic foundation for choosing the best live chat software for your business. Let’s take a look at some of the more advanced features of live chat that you’ll want to consider.
Critical Aspects of Successful Business Messaging Software
When customers visit your site and fire up your chat feature, they’re looking for a quick response time and quality service. No one wants to send off a message to a business and wait until you get a chance to get back to them. If that was the case, they would have sent an email.
Some wait time before chatting with a human might be acceptable, but why make it the rule when it could be the exception? A modern chatbot messaging solution allows instantaneous and high-quality responses that can seamlessly greet customers, gather information, and point customers in the right direction or even hand the conversation off to a human.
The ability to start a conversation, determine the intent, and route the conversation to the appropriate person, all before a human agent accepts it, make intelligent chatbots a non-negotiable attribute for any web chat software. Chatbots can offer suggestions based on customer feedback or route your visitors to the appropriate human agent if need be.
But chatbots are only one aspect of a multitude of advanced features to consider. Chat technology has evolved and now offers features that deliver a better experience for the customer and the agent. For example, Quiq’s messaging software can tell your agents which page your visitors are on when they click to chat with you, present their entire chat history with your company, and even monitor how the conversation is going based on sentiment analysis.
Look for Rich Messaging Solutions
Nowadays, communicating online goes far beyond text-based chat alone. Short videos have become a language in and of themselves, and entire conversations can be carried out through emojis. Chat software that includes rich messaging capabilities allows you to raise the bar when it comes to business chat, and offer more fun, immersive, and interactive experiences.
With rich messaging, you can complete transactions, schedule appointments, and even send rich media to engage your customers in a deeper way. Look for a web chat software that supports rich messaging so your business messaging can stand out.
Choose Capable Analytics
Business messaging can give important insights into what’s working and what’s not when it comes to products and promotional strategies. The data you gather from your company chats can be critical to developing new strategies and adjusting business processes.
The ideal web chat software should allow you to report on conversations, queues, or agent performance – human or bot. Look for a platform that lets you export your data or even integrate it into an existing business intelligence platform.
Only Settle for Asynchronous
Customers can’t always afford to stick around until the conclusion of a chat conversation. Asynchronous messaging platforms allow conversations to pick up where they left off, so they don’t have to endure the inconvenience of a chat conversation timing out and then restarting a new conversation. Your live chat solution should deliver a frictionless experience for your customers and allow them to set the pace of the chat. Quiq Messaging provides asynchronous communication across all supported channels, so even if your customer has to step away or gets distracted from the chat conversation, they can pick up right where they left off.
And the Winner Is…
When we take into consideration all of the factors listed above, there emerges one clear winner in the chat game. Quiq offers an all-encompassing messaging solution for businesses looking to drive conversions and provide more capable customer support. We’ve only scratched the surface on what Quiq can offer here — robust analytics, asynchronous conversations that provide a frictionless experience, and solid security all fall within the scope of this powerful platform.
When you’re ready to discover the true potential of business chat for your enterprise, schedule a demo today.
