live web chat Archives

Cart Abandonment Skyrocketing? Try Live Chat

Posted on December 8, 2022November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

You see it all the time. You’ve probably done it yourself. It’s one of the highest abandonment rates of any kind.

You guessed it: Shopping carts.

The poor, lonely online shopping cart. Filled with items you thought you wanted, you hoped you could convince yourself to buy, and maybe some misguided additions from late-night browsing.

It has practically become a national pastime. And while it’s expected, it’s also difficult to manage in the e-commerce world. Finding cart abandonment solutions can feel like an uphill battle, but it’s all about making small changes to your online shopping experience.

Keep reading for some strategies to reduce cart abandonment rates with live chat.

Let’s dive into cart abandonment statistics.

For the uninitiated, shopping cart abandonment is when online customers add items to their shopping carts and exit the page without making a purchase. It’s an expected but frustrating part of the e-commerce experience.

And it happens way more than you think. According to SaleCycle, the average shopping cart abandonment rate in 2021 was 80.68%. Here is how it breaks down by industry:

Retail: 73.86%
Fashion: 83.98%
Travel: 86.3%
Utilities: 86.85%

Now, what is the standard cart abandonment rate in 2022? Statistics vary widely, so the Baymard Institute took the average of 48 sources and came up with 69.99%. That’s not a small number.

Why do online shoppers abandon their shopping carts?

Not all cart abandonment is the same—and we shouldn’t treat it as such. There are many different reasons customers stop shipping mid-purchase, and only some of them have to do with your business.

Difficult checkout processes: Online shoppers are greatly influenced by how easy it is to make a purchase. Do they have to create an account? Can they pay through Paypal or other easy payment methods? Or do they have to search for their credit card and enter their information physically? SaleCycle found that 34% of retail shoppers abandon checkout because they are forced to create an account.
Unexpected costs: According to SaleCycle, 23% of retail shoppers abandoned carts due to shipping issues. When shipping costs and other fees aren’t tacked on until the very end of a purchase, customers may abandon the checkout process altogether.
Unfriendly mobile experience: If there’s any friction in the checkout process due to a poor mobile experience or any other technical issues, only committed customers will try to troubleshoot the problem. Many will give up, and you’ll lose the sale.
Price shopping: E-commerce has made it really easy to shop around for low prices, so many customers will add items to their cart and then head to other websites to search for a lower price. SaleCycle says 18% of retail shoppers abandoning their carts are doing this.
Low buying intentions: Some use shopping carts as a way to curate their top selections, treating them more like a favorites list. These shoppers are more likely to add tons of items to their carts without any intention of finalizing the entire purchase.
Distractions: Some customers simply get bored, distracted, or pulled away from their devices.

Start by collecting customer feedback.

Before you spend too much time and effort on finding a solution to your cart abandonment problem, spend some time figuring out why your customers aren’t completing the purchase. First, identify your abandonment rate, then survey customers to see why it’s happening. It could be a problem with your checkout process, mobile responsiveness, or return policies.

Start by surveying your customers with live chat (also known as web chat). Place a chatbot on your shopping cart page and trigger a survey when customers turn to leave. While you won’t be able to get information from every cart abandoner, you’ll get a general idea of the problems you need to solve.

Once you’ve checked in with your customers, you can start searching for the right cart abandonment solutions.

Start conversations at the right time.

Live chat gives customers an easy way to talk to your service team directly from your website. If you’re not already using live chat on your business’s site, you’ve probably seen or interacted with it before. It’s typically a chat window that pops up on the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.

Live chat can be helpful or annoying, depending on how well you use it. A welcome message is typically expected—or at least tolerated—when users first visit a website, but any additional messages might be unwelcomed unless you reach out strategically.

Using AI-enhanced chatbots and live chat, you can help guide your site visitors through the purchase journey. Based on which pages they view and how long they spend on each page, shopping cart bots can infer when customers have stalled and need some assistance.

Maybe a customer has gone back and forth between sizes and needs assistance finding your sizing chart. Or maybe they’ve bounced back and forth between pages and can’t decide which membership tier is right for them. A well-timed message can help them make the decision and keep them from abandoning their shopping cart altogether.

Build trust with 24/7 availability.

Trust is a big factor in online shopping—more now than ever before. In fact, 88% of customers believe trust is more important in times of change, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report.

Since shoppers can buy from your company at any time, they also expect service at any time. Over 80% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company, according to Salesforce. Not getting their questions answered (no matter what time of day) can lead to shopping cart abandonment.

Pairing live chat and chatbots allows you to serve your customers while your contact center is closed (because agents need to sleep!). Using AI and natural language processing (NPL), great chatbots can fill in for agents on a variety of customer service problems. This means you won’t lose sales when your team is offline.

Trigger discounts and special offers.

Sometimes customers need a little push to complete their purchases. When shoppers stall on a page or show the intention of closing out the page altogether, use shopping cart chatbots to trigger incentives.

Consider offering incentives like free shipping, sharing bundles and special offers, or discounts. This method is especially effective for new customers and can go a long way to converting them into long-term fans of your brand.

Bonus tips: 3 things that make a big difference.

Live chat is a phenomenal tool to increase your website conversions, but there are other things you can do that will make a big difference to your numbers.

Here are three bonus tips to help decrease your cart abandonment rate:

A mobile-responsive website: If your website isn’t easy to navigate on mobile devices, you’re missing out on a large customer segment. The cart abandonment rate differs by device, according to research by Baymard Institute:

Desktop: 69.75%
Mobile: 85.65%
Tablets: 80.74%

Make your cart mobile-friendly and see an instant reduction in your cart abandonment rate.

Transparent shipping costs and return policies: Many customers reach their shopping carts and go through the purchase process only to be shocked by shipping costs or other additional fees.

Fight this before it happens by sharing this information in easy-to-reach places on your website. Even if you charge for shipping, inform customers early to prevent sticker shock when they see their final total.

A frictionless checkout experience: Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to buy from you. Ensure you have plenty of payment options, only ask for the information you absolutely need, and ensure a guest checkout option. Make it as easy as possible to buy from your business, and the results will follow.

Prevent cart abandonment before it happens.

Don’t underestimate the power of conversations. Prevent cart abandonment and boost sales when you proactively engage with customers early and often with live chat.

Is Live Chat Better than Form Filling?

Posted on October 12, 2022November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

Forms have ruled the online space since the beginning. And they’ve served us well. But are they going extinct?

Here’s the better question: Should they go extinct?

Live chat (often referred to as web chat) has penetrated the online world, with businesses in both the B2B and B2C online space embracing it. While it’s been used to supplement businesses’ main info-gathering method (forms), now live chat is taking over.

Businesses are replacing contact forms with live chat, using a combination of live agents and chatbots to deliver the best experience.

Let’s compare live chat and form filling.

Why form filling isn’t ideal.

Form filling has been the standard for years, but that also means customers are wise to them. They know sharing their email, and phone number potentially means fending off follow-ups they’re not ready for.

With the mad dash to move sales and service online in the past few years, contact forms just aren’t cutting it.

5 ways forms fall short

Conversion rates are low. The average form conversion rate is 3–5%, according to WebFX. There are many outliers to that average depending on the industry and other business factors like marketing. Yet, customers have to be pretty sure of your product or service to fill out your contact form—without additional incentives like discounts or lead magnets. This means that even if you’re getting people to your forms, few are turning into sales.
They take a lot of your team’s time. Do you have an easy way of sorting form entries before they get to your team? If you don’t, your generic forms are siphoning your sales and customer service teams’ time. Sorting through inquiries (are they just asking a customer service question, or are they looking to buy?), vetting leads, following up when you don’t have enough information… It all adds time before you even get to the sales process.
Poor customer service. People have high expectations for customer service. Over 80% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report. Try as you might, customers don’t get instant answers through contact forms. And if their issue requires multiple back-and-forth emails, you’re adding unnecessary friction.
You’re probably losing sales. How many customers reach your contact form only to bounce? You’re probably very familiar with that number, but what about all the customers who bounce on your website without even making it to the contact form? Even when customers have questions, they might not poke around your website to find your form and ask it.
You might be alienating customers. Some people are introverts! The thought of filling out a contact form and possibly receiving a phone call can be daunting. Even if they’re interested, the fear of talking to a person can keep them moving forward.

Forms vs. live chat: Why is live chat better?

More and more businesses are embracing live chat as an easy way to engage their website visitors and convert them into paying customers.

Here are a few ways live web chat outperforms contact forms.

Instant gratification.

Live chat connects customers with your team members (or a chatbot) instantly. No matter how quickly you respond to contact forms, you don’t get the same satisfaction of a quick conversation using chat.

Even knowing that live chat is an option will make your customers more likely to engage. It’s like having a salesperson at a traditional brick-and-mortar store. You may not want to have them walk you through the displays, but it’s nice knowing they’re there if you need them.

Human connection.

Customers don’t engage with a contact form—they fill it out. There’s no back-and-forth conversation and no way to make a connection until after they’ve taken that step. Live chat with your agents (or even a well-trained chatbot) gives them a human connection, and maybe even gives them more affinity for your brand.

Always accessible.

Forms can go on every page, but there’s almost always scrolling/searching involved to find it. The benefit of live chat is not only its accessibility on your website, but that it can engage your web visitors in conversation even before they think they need it.

And when you swap forms for chatbots, customers can engage with your brand any time, 24/7. When they have a question on Friday night, they don’t need to wait until Monday morning to get a response.

Familiarity over formality.

Forms are only the beginning of a conversation that will inevitably lead to an email, and then a phone call. Then your customers think they’ll be dealing with unwanted phone calls. It feels like much more of a commitment they’re not ready to make. It’s much simpler for customers to ask a few questions in live chat and leave the conversation when they need to.

Customers prefer it.

Compared to other forms of customer service, live chat frequently performs better, with faster response times, higher CSAT scores, and quicker resolutions. According to Salesforce, 42% of customers prefer live chat over other communication methods. Plus, your customers are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat, according to 63% of respondents, reports SaaSworthy.

What can you do with chatbots?

While live chat can run sufficiently when staffed by your own team, chatbots take it to the next level.

According to Databox’s informal survey, 50% of respondents said chatbots convert better than forms, while only 39% said forms convert better. (The other 11% said they convert the same.)

Here are some things chatbots can do to save you time and improve your customer service:

Answer customer questions.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Gather customer information.
Determine the department to route customers to.
Move customers into an agent’s queue across channels.

Forms vs. live chat: Who wins?

Hands down, live chat.

Live chat gives customers the one-to-one experience they prefer when choosing an online business. And with personalization becoming an even bigger part of the customer experience, having conversations is vital.

Drive Satisfaction and Sales with Google Business Messaging

Posted on June 22, 2022November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

One of the most impactful—and often overlooked—tools in customer service is Google Business Messages. Google business messaging gives your company the power to take care of customers on their terms.

The result: You foster greater trust and close more sales.

Before we dig into the benefits of using Google Business Messages, let’s back up and review how it works.

Learn More About the End of Google Business Messages

What is Google Business Messages, and how does it work?

Google Business Messages is a conversational customer service chat feature that lets you connect with customers in a variety of different channels—starting with Google. Current and potential customers can ask your company questions in real-time directly from Google Search, Google Maps, your Google Business Profile, and even your company’s website.

There are two options for using Google business messaging:

Turn on your business messages chat function directly through your Google Business Profile. This option gives you basic chat capabilities. You can set up an automatic welcome message, but you’ll have to enable notifications and respond manually to each customer inquiry.
Use Google business messaging API to connect via a third-party app, like Quiq. This option comes with more features and functionality, allowing you to switch back and forth between virtual and live customer service agents depending on what your customers need.

3 reasons to implement Google Business Messages.

Great customer connections start with genuine communication. Messaging platforms let you engage with the people you serve in a convenient, casual way.

And Google Business Messages takes those connections to the next level, offering your company powerful messaging capabilities on a grander scale.

Here are three reasons to adopt Google messages:

1. Raise customer satisfaction.

In an increasingly digital, asynchronous world, it’s not enough for your company to be available only through phone and email. You have to cater to customers in the places they spend their time—then communicate in the mode they like best.

For most consumers, that means instant messaging on a mobile device.

Google Business Messages gives your customers an effortless way to ask questions, grab basic business information, and connect one-on-one with your customer support agents for personalized help. Plus, with messaging, customers get a written record of information from your company that they can revisit at their convenience.

When customers have a positive experience with your company, they’re more likely to come back—and recommend you to their friends and family.

2. Capitalize on Google searches.

Google is where (almost) every search starts. Over 92% of online searches happen on Google, and a whopping 96% of those occur on mobile devices. Simply put, Google is where people live when they’re online—and where they get the majority of information about the products and services they’re interested in.

As a company, you can capitalize on the status quo by incorporating Google Business Messages into your customer engagement strategy. When you make your company even more accessible on Google’s pages, you can reach customers—old and new—with minimal effort and maximum return.

Give customers easily visible, one-click access to your customer support team, and they’ll come away with knowledge at their fingertips.

3. Drive revenue and sales.

Google Business Messages isn’t just a conversational tool—it’s also a sales opportunity. A Facebook report found that 65% of people are more likely to shop from a business they can chat with.

At the most basic level, you can program your virtual customer service agents to offer helpful information and solve problems, but you can also use business messages to go above and beyond for customers.

Personalization takes the shopping experience to the next level.

Accenture found that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize them, remember them, and provide personal recommendations. By providing thoughtful product recommendations and guiding customers through the purchasing process, you can convert leads and score more sales.

How to ramp up revenue using Google Business Messages.

Try the following tactics to get more out of Google Business Messages—not just with customer enjoyment, but sales too.

1. Introduce customers to products they love, then entice them to buy.

When customers use Google Business Messages to start a conversation with your business, chances are they’re already interested in your company. But you can turn that interest into a sale—or even repeat sales—by deepening their understanding of your products and the value they offer.

After all, searching through pages of products on a website can be overwhelming, even with excellent navigation tools and filters. And scouring a website for FAQs can be tedious. On a messaging platform, though, customers just have to share a few details, and your customer service agents can take over the conversation from there.

Here are just some of the ways you can entice customers to buy using Google’s business messaging:

Answer product questions: Remove friction from the buying process early on.
Share product photos, catalogs, and carousels: Give customers new items and options to explore and get excited by.
Link blog posts and video tutorials: Build trust with customers by providing extra information, like ideas for incorporating a product into your life or instructions on how to use it for maximum effectiveness.
Provide personalized recommendations: Help customers get closer to what they need with tailored suggestions that account for their unique concerns and motivations.
Direct customers to sales reps: Connect customers who need more in-depth information or product explanations to your knowledgeable sales reps.
Share promo codes: Incentivize customers to take action by dropping a promo code or discount inside the conversation as a thank you.
Accept orders and add items to check out: Make it easy for customers to wrap up their shopping experience and press purchase.

2. Give your customer support team more time to create positive interactions with customers.

With Google business messaging API, your customer support team can spend less time addressing minor concerns and more time building bonds.

How?

By taking advantage of AI-powered chats. In Google messages, you can create an automated list of FAQs to send to curious customers so they have accessible information about store hours, online orders, refunds, shipping timelines, and delivery statuses.

When you program virtual customer service agents to address common customer inquiries, your support agents are freed up to focus on high-value conversations. These types of conversations happen when individual customers need help finding specific products, checking out, or handling returns. In those situations, your customers want attentive, personalized assistance—and fast—from a friendly person who’s easy to talk to.

Turning high-value conversations into positive interactions is key to closing sales and keeping customers happy.

3. Uplevel your brand and image by following messaging platform best practices.

Paying attention to the details when messaging can improve your brand reputation and differentiate your company from the competition.

Like any platform, there are strategic ways to make the most of Google Business Messages—and there are easy mistakes to make. You’ll create stronger customer connections and maximize your sales opportunities by following a few best practices.

Here are some to keep in mind:

Create an automated welcome message: Invite customers in by greeting them warmly and letting them know you’re available to help.
Reply fast: Speed is everything on a messaging platform. Take the time to set up a wide variety of automation that get customers the answers and information they need fast.
Be conversational: Use a relaxed and approachable tone in your conversations. Little things—like saying thank you or apologizing for an issue—go a long way toward building trust with customers.
Use visuals: Supplement your answers and directions with visual aids. Send product photos and videos, or use screenshots to help customers figure out where to go on your website.
Simplify the chat: Use rich messaging features like quick reply chips and typing indicators to expedite the conversation. These and other RCS features reduce the legwork for your customers.

It’s also a good idea to regularly review your Google Business Messages analytics to find out what’s working and where you can make improvements.

If the data shows that a majority of customers drop out of the chat after a few questions, for example, you could try rephrasing the questions, switching their order, or leading with different information.

Or maybe your analytics reveal that customers tend to ask the same easily answerable questions at the top of the chat. In that case, try updating your automated FAQs or opening the chat with quick reply chips that address the common questions.

Even minor adjustments have the potential to make a big impact on customer satisfaction.

Drive sales with Google Business Messages.

Google Business Messages helps you accomplish two separate but connected business goals: delight customers and drive sales.

Not only do business messages make it easier for customers to reach you, but it also makes it easier for you to cater to those customers. Dynamic messaging features and thoughtful automation give your customer service agents more tools and time to do what they do best.

When you partner with Quiq, we’ll help you set up and optimize your Google messaging platform, so you get the results you want.

Comparing Live Chat and Chatbots

Posted on June 10, 2022November 15, 2024 The Quiq Team

How often do you interact with brands online? In-person?

Brand interactions now happen online more often than they do in-person. Salesforce projected that in 2022, 61% of company interactions would be online, and only 39% would be in person. That number has been steadily increasing since 2020.

With more people spending more time in front of their screens (whether mobile or desktop), customers need a convenient place to connect with your business.

And your website is a good place to start.

Live chat (also known as web chat) is the simplest way to connect with your customers online. It usually involves a chat feature that lives on your website where customers can instantly start a real-time conversation.

So, where do chatbots come into play? We get it—with all the jargon thrown around, it can get confusing. (What happened to the days of customer service by phone or email, right?) While live chat is the method of communication, chatbots are the ones doing the communication.

Let us explain.

Say you need to contact an e-commerce company to return an ill-fitting shirt. (Too long, too tight, too orange…whatever the case may be.) Even though it’s a simple transaction, you still need to request a return label. So you go to their website, open the live chat box and type in your request.

You’ll likely get a chatbot responding to your inquiry and helping you through the process.

Chatbots, like the AI-powered ones we implement for our customers, often stand in for live agents when interacting with customers.

But it’s not as simple as implementing live chat, finding a low-fidelity bot, and putting it to work. It takes careful planning and, above all, a fierce customer-first approach to successfully implement a chatbot strategy.

Continue reading as we compare live chat to chatbots, when to use each of them (or both), and how to navigate the customer service experience.

Why live chat is a must.

Where phones used to be the easiest and fastest way for customers to reach you, live chat is quickly replacing it. Live chat is a communication channel where customers can get immediate answers to their questions.

Now, 42% of customers prefer online chat (another name for live chat in this instance) over other communication methods, according to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customers Report.

Compared to other forms of customer service, live chat frequently performs better, with faster response times, higher CSAT scores, and quicker resolutions.

Plus, your customers are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat, according to 63% of respondents, reports SaaSworthy.

Why should you use chatbots for customer service?

Customer expectations are increasing. While at the same time, your customer service team is asked to do more with less. Something has to give. Or does it?

Chatbots build a bridge between your stellar customer service team and your customers. When comparing live chat and chatbots, don’t think of them as adversaries. Chatbots aren’t replacement tools for human interaction but merely extensions of your customer service team.

Here are just a few things chatbots can do:
Answer customer questions.
Troubleshoot common problems.
Gather customer information.
Determine the department to route customers to.
Move customers into an agent’s queue across channels.

In fact, 48% of U.S. customers believe AI should make life easier, according to Zendesk’s CX Trends Report. For people ages 25–39, that number jumps up to 80%.

How to make your chatbot stand out using live chat.

The biggest problems you’ll face when implementing a chatbot strategy for customer service are perceptions and expectations.

On one side of the spectrum, many people have high expectations for AI. Pop culture has skewed public perception, making them think AI can do nearly anything seamlessly without much work on their part.

On the other side, some people simply hear (or see) the word “bot” and dismiss it as stupid and useless. (Probably from previous bad experiences with low-end, faulty bots.)

There’s currently a long way to go before AI-powered chatbots meet customer expectations. Here are a few ways AI chatbots are failing customers—and how you can use this information to make your customer service stand out.

Accuracy is everything.

The stat: 47% of consumers report not getting accurate answers, according to Zendesk.

As an extension of your customer service team, customers need to be able to trust the information they get from your chatbot. Customers who don’t trust your chatbot quickly lose faith in your business.

While we like to think that AI is infinitely intelligent, chatbots are only as good as the information you feed them. Just like you have to spend time straining your customer service agents, you need to spend time inputting information, writing scripts, and QA-ing your chatbot.

How to fix it: Ensure your chatbots have access to all the information your customer service agents do, including product databases and customer data.

Speed still matters—even if your agents’ time isn’t at stake.

The stat: 56% of customers say it takes too long for the bot to recognize it can’t help solve their issues.

It’s like listening to the five-minute interactive voice response (IVR) menu before realizing you need to talk to a representative. Forcing customers to answer too many questions or go through too many routing menus is an easy way to frustrate them. Especially when 48% of surveyed consumers in the U.S. believe chatbots should save time when contacting a company.

How to fix it: While it’s a good practice to use chatbots to collect information before connecting with a live agent, keep them as few as possible.

Also, consider measuring chatbot performance, much like you would a live agent. Are they resolving issues quickly? Are they able to solve problems with just one interaction? That way, you can identify weak spots and continue improving.

Don’t make customers repeat themselves, ever.

The stat: 44% of customers say the most frustrating thing about working with a chatbot is when they have to start all over again with a human agent.

We know customers hate to repeat themselves. It’s one of the things they hope AI-enabled bots can prevent. According to Zendesk, 49% of surveyed consumers believe AI should keep people from having to repeat themselves.

How to fix it: When combining live chat and chatbots, make the handoff from bot to agent seamless. Use the information collected by the bots to auto-populate your conversational platform and give agents access to the conversation so they don’t miss anything.

Be transparent and give them a choice.

The stat: 44% get frustrated that they don’t have a choice between speaking with a human or a bot at the beginning of a conversation.

Think about IVR systems. They (almost) always give you an option to connect directly with a live representative, and it’s easy to tell when you’re talking to a live agent.

But it’s not as easy to identify over live chat, and customers can feel deceived when they think they’re reaching out to a person. And when they’re having a hard time explaining their issue, walking through it with a bot can just add to their frustrations.

How to fix it: Name your bot, and have them introduce itself as a robotic assistant. Include an option to connect directly with a live agent (when available) in that welcome message. While you want to encourage customers to interact with your bot in order to reduce the burden on your live agents, you don’t want to force them. Give them a choice.

Infuse bots with brand personality.

The stat: 47% of surveyed consumers believe AI should improve customer service quality.

Admittedly, you’re battling a perception when introducing chatbots into your customer experience. When customers hear “chatbot,” they immediately think of robotic, monotone voices. For web conversations, that translates to personality-less text or poor attempts to sound “human” that end up sounding… fake.

The easiest fix is to create a chatbot experience that matches your brand’s personality, whether that’s enthusiastic, fun, empathetic, or straightforward.

Our client Daily Harvest, a popular meal kit delivery service, knew they needed to create a chatbot to help alleviate their overburdened customer service team. But they wanted to ensure customers got the same excellent customer experience the brand has become known for. They partnered with Quiq to build a custom AI chatbot that not only solved common customer issues but could also interpret customers’ language and syntax, their food preferences, and more.

They ended up with Sage, Daily Harvest’s digital care guide. Besides reducing call volume by 60% (a huge win in its own right), they optimized the customer experience and improved their already extraordinarily high CSAT rate.

Make live agents and chatbots part of the same team.

With the right planning (and the right partner), chatbots and live agents can work seamlessly together to serve your customers.

According to Zendesk, only 38% of businesses use both bots and human agents for live chat. That means there’s a big opportunity for improvement.

Since 83% of customers expect to connect with someone immediately when contacting a company, according to Salesforce, you need to pool your resources to meet (or exceed) customer expectations.

Start crafting your chatbot and live chat strategy by taking these preliminary steps:

Collect customer issues by volume. What questions do you get the most?
Organize them by complexity. Are they simple “where’s my order” questions, or do they take several steps and individual problem-solving?
Identify which can be solved with bots or which needs a live agent.
Figure out how bots and humans can work together to solve problems.

Don’t think of live agents and bots as working in silos. The best tactic is to use them both together at various times in the interaction.

Use a bot to collect information and troubleshoot problems upfront. Then, tap in a live agent when the problem gets complex. You can also pull in a bot at the end of the conversation to close out transactions, ask for feedback, or talk about the next steps.

Empower your customer service team to embrace chatbot interactions, and work in tandem to deliver the best customer experience.

Leverage live chat and chatbots with Quiq.

Quiq’s AI-powered chatbots work just like your live agents. With our Conversational Platform, you can combine native Quiq customer service chatbots, bots developed in third-party frameworks, and human agents any way you like.

The question is no longer if you should choose between live chat or chatbots, but how you can use both to deliver the ultimate customer experience.

How to Elevate Your E-Commerce with Web Chat Software

Posted on February 23, 2022November 15, 2024 Mark Kowal

There are a lot of moving parts to your e-commerce strategy. Is web chat software one of them?

When customers visit your company’s e-commerce website, what happens? Your company has likely spent many hours thinking about the customer experience. No matter how good your UX designers and copywriters are, your site doesn’t replicate the one-to-one service you get from an in-person experience.

But web chat gets you pretty close.

Plus, customers love it. Customer satisfaction when interacting with agents over web chat is 73%, which is higher than both email and phone.

Dive into web chat software and explore how to integrate it into your e-commerce strategy.

How does web chat software work?

Web chat software, like Quiq, uses a widget to enable chat directly on your website. On the front end, customers see a chat icon they can click to reveal a chatbox to instantly connect with your customer service team. There, they can have a conversation with a live agent to get quick answers to their questions.

Alternatively, you can have chatbots automatically welcome guests to your website, ask if they have any questions, and or provide suggestions when customers have stalled.

What you see behind the scenes and on the backend will vary greatly depending on which platform you choose. Quiq’s robust features include visitor tracking, chat history, chat routing to live agents, sentiment analysis, chat continuation, and much more.

The benefits of web chat software.

Even though we’ve all gotten used to the online shopping experience, there’s still something missing: the human element. Web chat software can help your business connect with customers again, much like they do when they step into a brick-and-mortar store.

A human touch brings many benefits to the online shopping experience. Customers are more likely to make an emotional connection when they interact with a person over your website experience. Your live agent can help with sizing, suggest complementary products, and offer personalized advice that won’t make it into your web copy.

Plus, customers expect businesses to engage them in some way, even when they’re just browsing a website. According to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customers Report, 59% of consumers expect a company to engage them proactively.

There are also a lot of business benefits on the backend to help your customer support agents and ultimately your bottom line.

With web chat, you can:

Connect with customers on their preferred channel
Build customer trust and loyalty
Answer customer questions 24/7
Lower call volumes by engaging proactively with customers
Collect relevant information with chat analytics
Increase conversions
Lower your cart abandonment rate
Improve customer satisfaction rates with quick resolutions

How to use web chat for e-commerce.

Your e-commerce strategy is thorough, but without web chat software to incorporate live customer conversations, it’s incomplete. Here are five ways to use web chat to meet your goals, along with tactics to help you get there.

1. Prep your team for live chat.

Don’t just convert your team from emails and phone calls to live chat and expect everything to go smoothly. Live chat is a different beast, so you should prepare your team accordingly.

Here are some tips to help get them ready for live text conversations:

Decide on a conversation style: Voice conversations don’t always translate well to text. Sometimes it takes a little extra to convey a friendly demeanor. Share with your team how you want them to write to customers. Will they use exclamation points? Emojis? Text-shorthand? Decide how you want to sound and then give your team examples to help them translate it to chat conversations.

Provide quick access to answers: Your support agents need to be able to access information quickly to be able to share it with the customer. Ensure they have access to a knowledge base within the web chat software or within easy reach.

Give them the right tools: Find web chat software with robust features. For example, Quiq provides features like sentiment analysis and AI-powered text prediction to get fast answers to your customers’ questions. Also ensure your team is comfortable with the conversational tools you’re implementing before opening them up to customers.

2. Initiate conversations, selectively.

Ever walked into a brick-and-mortar store only to be scared away by an overanxious store clerk? No one wants to be the pushy salesperson. It’s the same when customers land on your website. You want them to know there’s someone available to help should they need it, but you can’t be too eager with your messages that you annoy them.

Either welcome a visitor to your website or jump in to help at a key crossroad. It’s best not to send multiple messages when the site visitor hasn’t engaged (other than to minimize the window).

3. Trigger conversations before customers bounce.

It’s perfectly fine to have a welcome message greeting your customers when they first land on your site, but you can also introduce chat messages at key points in your buyer journey.

If there’s a specific page or point in the shopping experience that always has your site visitors jumping ship, automatically trigger a welcome note or a simple “How can we help?” message.

Here are some tactics to think about employing:

On a product page: If your site visitors are stalling out on a product page, it’s possible there’s a question they need answered. Maybe they’re looking for more product specs, or they aren’t sure how to determine their sizing. Program a chatbot to ask if they have any questions after 20 seconds of page idling. You can have your chatbot answer the easier, more common questions, or connect them to a live agent should any complex queries come up.

Part of your website web chat plan should include chatbots. To see how you enhance your customer service workflows with AI-powered bots, click here.

At checkout: Do customers fill up their shopping cart and then stall at checkout? Send in a discount code through your chatbot to encourage a sale. A well-timed coupon can trigger a decision and give your customers a gentle nudge to purchase.

An FAQ page: When customers find your FAQ or contact page, they generally already have a question that needs answering. Be available for customers to ask more specific questions, or get immediate help.

4. Provide personalized upsell opportunities.

Amazon is notorious for attempting to upsell with its algorithms and not doing a very good job. (You buy one country album and you’ll forever see Willie Nelson memorabilia in your product suggestions.)

Customers crave personalization and help from your live agents. And businesses are far from meeting customer expectations. According to Salesforce, 47% of customers say businesses don’t use their personal information for their benefit. Using web chat software to proactively provide product suggestions to your customers can go a long way.

Personalizing your messages is made easier with a service like Quiq. Your live agents get insights into your website visitors’ behaviors and interests. Here are a few ways you can use these features to provide personalized upsell opportunities:

Track page views: Use their search history to get a better idea of their interests and what they’re looking for. If you find your customer is searching for living room furniture and select an armchair, pull matching coffee table or sofa suggestions.

Pick up where you left off: The buyer journey is peppered with interruptions—especially online. If your customer gets called away and returns later, you have their activity history to help them continue the conversation and pick up where they left off.

Provide specialized insights: Do you have several product categories that require different expertise? Pair specialized customer service agents to certain areas of your site. Chat routing ensures conversations are directed to the right agent or bot. That way, you can provide expert help for your customers depending on where they land on your site—and improve conversions as a result.

5. Collect customer feedback.

Collecting customer feedback at multiple points in the customer journey is crucial for business success. You can use chat in many different ways to ask customers for their candid feedback.

Here are a few of the ways you can introduce surveys to your customers through web chat.

Assess agent interactions: Probably the most natural way to ask for feedback is right after a customer has interacted with a live agent. The customer has already established they’re comfortable using the web chat feature, and it’s a great way to evaluate the web chat/live agent experience.

Collect emails for follow-up surveys: Ask customers who are communicating in the web chats to share their email for follow-up surveys. Then you can follow up with more general surveys, like Net Promoter Score® surveys.

Ask about the web experience: Use your web chat to capture a customer’s attention without being as intrusive as a pop-up. Ask about the web experience, offer a CES survey, or ask about general pain points in the buyer process.

What makes web chat with a conversational AI platform especially useful is your ability to ask survey questions and get responses directly within the chatbox. There’s no need to send your customers elsewhere, which would drastically reduce response rates.

Start more conversations with web chat software.

Adding web chat to your e-commerce strategy is a great way to start building customer relationships. Introduce web chat software to your business and bring the human connection.

4 Tips for Communicating Effectively With Customers Over Live Chat

Posted on November 20, 2020November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

Consumers want answers, and they want them right away. Slow customer service can result in lost opportunities for businesses across all industries. That’s why live chat is more popular among businesses and corporations than ever before. This fast, efficient communication method is a great way to address the questions and concerns of both new and long-standing customers. With the help of a few customer service live chat tips, it’s easy to improve consumer relationships and stay competitive in the industry.

Tips for Effective Live Chat Customer Service Messages

For consumers who have questions while deciding whether to buy a product or service, live chat is a quick and simple solution. With live chat customer service messages, consumers have their questions answered and decide on a course of action within minutes. Like any other part of a customer support strategy, it takes planning and precision to develop a successful live chat program. Here are a few live chat customer service tips that can help you communicate more quickly and effectively.

1. Keep a Conversational Tone

While the tone of a conversation may vary depending on the situation or customer, it’s important to be friendly and conversational. Excessive formal language can translate as boring, while a message filled with errors and too much slang may read as unprofessional. Although the occasional slang or emoji is acceptable in the right context, it’s best to communicate professionally during live messaging.

2. Write Short Messages

Consumers like quick, easy answers. They prefer replies that are short, sweet, and to the point. It’s easy to lose potential leads by offering answers that are too long and complex. Short messages are more digestible and easier to read, which makes them ideal for consumers who are in a hurry to find solutions.

3. Point to Relevant Materials

Additional resources and materials play an important role in allowing businesses to communicate with new customers. These materials can help answer questions, point consumers to other offerings, and even encourage them to buy more products. During live chat, it’s important to find ways to keep the conversation going so the consumer receives the support they need and walks away satisfied with their service. Pointing to relevant materials is a smart way to keep people engaged and asking questions.

4. Focus on Speed

Live chat is different from other types of messaging and communication because it all happens in one sitting. If a representative is too slow to respond, they could lose a lead within minutes. That’s why focusing on speed without sacrificing accuracy and quality is so important. Live chat features such as Quiq Replies offer standardized messages the agent can use with a simple keystroke to respond both quickly and consistently.

Greater speed during live chat can result in more leads, happier customers, and better profits. In some cases, chat bots also keep the conversation going by helping potential leads while representatives are unavailable.

Contact Quiq for More Live Chat Customer Service Tips

Live chat is a powerful strategy that can help any business attract more customers and build better customer loyalty. The key is to keep replies quick, short, and to the point while maintaining a positive tone. For more information about customer service live chat, contact us online today.

How This Holiday Season Will Be Different for Retailers

Posted on November 2, 2020November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

This holiday season, retailers are interacting with consumers a little bit differently. The COVID-19 crisis has had a huge impact on industries in 2020, forcing retail business leaders to rethink their marketing and sales strategies.

Consumers are spreading out their holiday shopping and doing their business online. Stores are limiting their customer capacity, which means it’s shaping up to be a nontraditional holiday season for both the retailer and the consumer.

Understand How Consumer Behavior Has Changed

As the holidays draw closer, holiday season retailers are finding ways to adapt to changes in consumer behavior. It’s crucial to understand how these behaviors have changed the industry so you can develop a plan of action. Some of the ways shoppers are responding to social distancing measures include:

Buying online: eCommerce is growing rapidly thanks to COVID-19, and more consumers are turning to online shopping than ever before. Quiq messaging software makes it easier for shoppers to get the remote support they need.
Using contactless ways to purchase and return: The current situation has prompted consumers to look for safer methods of purchase and return, such as curbside pickup and delivery.
Increased value-driven buying: Thanks to the uncertainty of consumer finances, many shoppers feel more value-driven this holiday season. They want to make sure they receive the best value for their dollar.

How This Holiday Season Will Be Different

Retailers and consumers are finding ways to adapt as social distancing becomes the new norm. This holiday season will be different from what we’ve seen in the past due to the number of people buying online and managing reduced income. Some of the points to keep in mind include:

Less consumer spending: This year’s consumers are looking for the exact product they need at the right price, and it’s the retailer’s job to provide that value. Quiq’s software helps retailers enhance customer service with live chat, instant messaging, and chatbots. Better communication technology allows agents to serve buyers more efficiently.

Less in-store traffic: Many buyers are now choosing delivery, mailing, and curbside pickup, which serve as convenient and contactless options. Retailers are using Quiq solutions to optimize the online shopping experience so more people can enjoy the benefits of low-risk buying. If a shopper has a question, text and chat can take the place of phone calls and emails. Messaging is a convenient and cost-effective substitute for both retailers and consumers in an era where more people carry around mobile phones than ever before.
Less impulse buying: Because fewer people are buying in stores, they’re unable to see products in person before they make a purchase. Quiq offers Rich Messaging, which allows consumers to make purchases easily over the phone and engage with representatives as needed. Augmented reality also allows shoppers to see products in great detail before they make a purchase. This capability offers a fluid and exciting way to engage with potential buyers on a platform they can feel comfortable with.

Adapt to This Year’s Challenges With Quiq Software

Holiday season retailers can use Quiq software solutions to accommodate value-driven online buyers this year. While these may be atypical times, you can navigate the current situation by taking advantage of the latest website and messaging technology. Contact us today for a demo to learn more about Quiq options.

How to Use Live Web Chat to Increase Sales on Your Website

Posted on September 21, 2020November 15, 2024 Max Fortis

The transition to eCommerce has transformed the shopping experience. Whether people are looking to purchase electronics or other consumer goods, they expect to complete the entire transaction online.

When shoppers have questions about an online retailer’s products, they need an easy way to contact a representative. Live web chat enables agents to speak with consumers in their preferred mode of communication, right at the point of purchase. When you implement a website sales chat feature, you can improve your sales conversion rate, build customer loyalty, and alleviate friction at key points in the sales funnel.

Quiq is a business messaging customer engagement platform that helps eCommerce companies conduct productive conversations and get more sales for their online businesses. Learn more below about how companies use Quiq to improve the online shopping experience.

Have Personal Conversations That Engage Customers

Shopping online is convenient, but it can also feel impersonal. Live web chats enable online retailers to create a personal connection with each individual shopper. A customer engagement platform like Quiq enables agents to respond to customers in real-time, ensuring shoppers can get their questions answered at a moment’s notice. When consumers feel that a company’s employees truly care about their needs, they are more likely to make a purchase.

Sell and Troubleshoot Proactively

When shopping online, some consumers may navigate away from your website rather than ask for clarification or assistance. A website sales chat feature cannot increase sales or engagement if people don’t use it. With customer engagement software, representatives have the ability to start conversations proactively, prompting customers to engage even if they normally aren’t accustomed to. Live chat gives agents the ability to address purchasing issues and product-based questions before customers abandon their cart or leave the website altogether.

Integrate Conversations Across Channels

Today, people want to engage with eCommerce companies through the channels that are most convenient for them. To convert leads who prefer to communicate through both text and web chat, businesses need to integrate cross-channel conversations. This enables agents to not only respond to messages consistently and efficiently as customers switch devices, this also creates a seamless customer service experience for the customer by adapting to their preferences.

Use Chatbots to Achieve 24/7 Coverage

Today’s consumers shop at all times of the day, including after normal business hours. A customer engagement platform with integrated chatbots empowers eCommerce companies to serve consumers and increase sales around the clock. Allow chatbots to handle simple inquiries after-hours or reduce service volume for agents so they can focus on answering queries with the highest conversion potential.

Boost Sales With Quiq’s Conversational Customer Engagement Platform

Quiq’s robust customer engagement platform is packed with features to help eCommerce businesses boost sales and engage with shoppers more effectively. For consumers, Quiq’s software makes interacting with customer service simple and enjoyable. Behind the scenes, the software allows employees to:

Simultaneously engage with multiple customers across multiple channels
Preview what customers are typing to provide answers more quickly
View previous conversations to ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction
Work alongside bots to streamline customer service conversations

To discover how Quiq’s live chat software will increase online sales for your eCommerce business, request a demo today.

Featured Resource

Forrester Report