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Live Chat ROI: Transform Conversations Into Conversions

Live Chat ROI

Ever find yourself subconsciously anticipating a popup at the lower-right corner of every website you visit? You’re not alone.

That’s how live chat has become synonymous with having a website and online business.

Even 79% of businesses agree that live chat positively impacts revenue, sales, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

Live chat offers diverse return on investment (ROI), empowers businesses to interact with their customers in real time, and provides instant support and personalized assistance.

So, if you also want to stay at the top of your game, keep your customers delighted, and get the income streaming in, you’re at the right place.

This post discusses how the live chat tool provides the best returns on investment to businesses, how you can measure the live chat ROI, and maximize it for your business.

Let’s get started.

How Live Chat ROI Can Supercharge Your Business

If you’ve been sitting on the fence about utilizing the power of live chat tools, maybe you’ll be convinced with these persuasive returns on investment live chat offers:

1. Strengthens Your Email Marketing Strategy

Pre-chat forms are a valuable tool for your business to capture visitor details and generate leads. By making them mandatory, you can ensure that every chat interaction brings in new leads, expanding your potential customer base.

pre chat form

You can add the captured details to your email marketing list for targeted campaigns. However, divide email marketing based on leads and customer interests to ensure relevant communication. For instance, promoting silk gowns to a male audience would yield less effective results.

Don’t underestimate the power of live chat in engaging with visitors, even if they are not making an immediate purchase. These interactions provide invaluable insights that can shape your business and marketing strategies.

You can leverage these interactions to profile your customers and gain ideas for enhancing your operations. This knowledge translates into better customer experiences, higher conversion rates, and, ultimately, business growth.

This integrated approach helps you in lead generation, personalized marketing, and ongoing strategy refinement based on customer profiles. So, if you optimize your marketing efforts this way, you can drive business success and maximize your growth potential.

2. Bridges the Gaps in Customer Support

One of the reasons behind a high cart abandonment rate is the gaps in customer support. Customers may have queries and questions but couldn’t find help in time.

Questions like “Is this available in a different color? Do you also accept cheques? Is this available in a different size? Can you get it gift-wrapped?” are common among customers.

Using live chat to answer such questions for a customer can drastically increase your conversion rates. You can leverage features like proactive chat, push URLs, and others to help visitors easily navigate your website.

You can also pair your live chat tool, like ProProfs Chat, with a knowledge base so customers can resolve minor queries independently.

Build a rapport with your visitors by providing the information they seek without trying to sell.

3. Simplifies Your Business Operations

Integrating live chat with your CRM and help desk tools is crucial to get the most out of it. By doing so, you can ensure seamless communication and enhanced customer support.

When you connect live chat with your CRM, you can save chat transcripts as CRM tickets, giving you a complete record of customer interactions. This helps you build customer profiles and capture leads directly in your CRM, making lead generation a breeze. 

Also Read: How to Use Live Chat Software for Lead Generation

Plus, with easy access to chat history, you can quickly verify any promised discounts or refunds, keeping you out of legal hassles. 

So, take the leap and integrate your live chat with your CRM and help desk tools for smoother operations, improved response times, and personalized assistance that keep your customers satisfied and your business thriving.

4. Helps You Leverage the Proactive Approach

The proactive approach of customer service live chat help makes it most appropriate for pre-purchase requests.

Proactive engagement makes customers prefer your brand and buy from you. You can make your live chat pop up by defining the rules allowing the live chat window to pop up with a canned or tailored message.

Leverage the Proactive Approach

For example, you can set up a chat invitation to appear after a visitor spends approximately 30 seconds on your homepage and have the first message say, “Hey, is there anything I can help you with today?”

5. Automates Service With Chatbots

Integrating chatbots into your live chat tools can revolutionize customer service by automating various tasks and providing instant support. 

You can quickly address common customer queries and provide immediate assistance by programming chatbots with predefined responses. 

Additionally, chatbots can gather essential customer information, such as order details or account information, before transferring them to a human agent for further assistance. This seamless transition ensures a smooth customer experience.

Moreover, chatbots can proactively engage with visitors based on specific triggers or actions on your website. 

For example, if a visitor spends significant time on a product page, the chatbot can offer assistance or provide additional information. This personalized approach enhances customer engagement and increases the likelihood of conversion.

Also Read: 26 Best Customer Engagement Tools to Stay Competitive

Automating certain aspects of your live chat service can improve response times, enable you to handle a higher volume of inquiries, and provide round-the-clock support. This efficiency allows you to scale your operations without compromising on quality.

6. Increases Subscribers and Customers

The live chat ROI you get from establishing a chat process isn’t always monetary. You can boost lead generation with live chat, which results in conversions and promotions.

When you plan your email marketing campaign, knowing who to target and how to increase the audience is critical.

For this, you can use live chat and increase the audience pool by capturing leads, using pre-chat form whenever a visitor chats with your operators.

This will:

  • Increase your leads bank.
  • Build an audience for your email marketing campaigns and newsletters.
  • Help to update your CRM customer profiles and track visitors’ interests.

7. Gives Complete Control of Your Website

Live chat gives you an overview of your website and visitor activities. It informs you about the people coming and going on your website, what they are doing, which page they are on, and where they are located.

All such statistics can help you in

  • Understanding the profiles of visitors landing on your website.
  • Knowing the parts of your website which are confusing or require work.
  • Blocking any spam visitors or visitors coming from untrusted sources.

8. Faster and More Effective Customer Support

Your customers can either call you or send an email even without a live chat, but do you ever wonder how effective is it?

In the call support, a customer needs to find your support number, dial it, and press an IVR button to reach your customer support executive.

Suppose the operator has doubts regarding a customer’s query. In that case, they will put the customer on hold, which will eventually result in frustration and a bad reputation for your service, irrespective of the fact that it has nothing to do with the product you are selling.

Even with emails, the support may be inconsistent; some emails would be answered sooner than others.

On the contrary, live chat is a tool that can resolve customer queries quicker than any other form of customer service.

With live chat, you can:

  • Provide faster responses with canned responses in real time.
  • Handle multiple chats reducing the call support operating expenses.
  • Co-browse to help visitors navigate through the website and build rapport.

Chatbots and live chat reduce call support expenses and provide simpler and faster customer communication.

9. Consistent Feedback From Customers

Customer feedback is considered one of the most important aspects of a business. Whatever the majority of customers want, you need to deliver it to generate revenue, be it customer satisfaction or a good experience.

Live chat provides a platform where customers can make suggestions, raise complaints, share opinions, etc.

With live chat, you can:

  • Gather feedback with a survey form whenever a visitor chats on your website using survey tools like Qualaroo.
Gather feedback with a survey form
  • Save chat transcripts as feedback for future reference.
  • Communicate with visitors on the go with mobile & tablet compatibility.

With such communication options, you can use customer responses to develop a better organization, from products and services to customer support and even after-sales support.

10. Simplifies Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management is essential in any field. Every business spends a lot of money on getting the right tool to manage customer profiles and other processes. Live chat provides that extra edge to handle all customer relations efficiently. 

Live chat acts as the catalyst in speeding up your customer relationship management, and here’s how:

  • Convert chat transcripts directly into CRM tickets with a single click.
  • Send captured leads to your email marketing accounts.
  • Create and edit CRM contacts while chatting with visitors.
  • Route chats to the right departments for faster resolution.
route chat

This way, you not only speed up your customer management process but also avoid the discrepancies in maintaining customer records and simplify the operation of customer support executives.

11. Saves Hiring Costs

Multitasking is an ordinary thing now, and it can quickly reduce your cost of staffing. Live chat has options for multi-chats, where an operator can handle up to 6 chats or more.

It will reduce your traffic on call support so that you will require fewer call operators. And as most online customers prefer chatting because of ease and multi-tasking, this will benefit both you and your customers.

 12. Promotes Instant Issue Resolution

No customer likes to wait on an IVR or in a queue to ask your support executive a simple question such as “How do I turn this on?”

Provide them with instant responses over chats. It is simple, as it is easy for customers to find you. Plus, you are marketing your business through people. So, when you save customers’ time, you build rapport and save the time of your operators.

How to Track Live Chat ROI Effectively

Measuring and analyzing the live chat ROI specifically related to the live chat implementation is essential for businesses. It allows them to evaluate the impact of live chat on their business objectives and overall profitability.

This process involves tracking and analyzing data to gain insights into the effectiveness of live chat interactions.

By scrutinizing key metrics and performance indicators, businesses can gauge the success of their live chat initiatives and make data-driven decisions to drive improvements.

Here’s how you can do it

Identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Identifying the KPIs related to the live chat is critical in measuring its ROI. Relevant KPIs include average response time, customer satisfaction ratings, and lead generation rates.

Tracking these metrics provides valuable insights into the effectiveness and impact of live chat on business outcomes.

Also Read: 14 Live Chat Metrics & KPIs to Measure Operator Performance

Track and Analyze Live Chat Data

Tracking and analyzing live chat data plays a crucial role in understanding customer behavior and improving ROI.

By capturing data from live chat interactions, businesses can gain insights into customer preferences, pain points, and opportunities for improvement.

Similarly, analyzing this data enables businesses to optimize their live chat strategies, enhance customer experiences, and drive better live chat ROI.

Calculate Live Chat ROI Metrics

Calculating specific live chat ROI metrics is essential for assessing the financial impact of the investment.

Quantifying these metrics helps businesses understand the financial returns generated by their live chat initiatives and make informed decisions about future investments.

Here are the live chat ROI metrics and their benefits for businesses:

  • Cost per Chat: Tracking the cost per chat helps identify areas where costs can be optimized, improving operational efficiency and increasing ROI.
  • Cost per Conversion: Monitoring the cost per conversion helps evaluate the effectiveness of the chat strategy in driving desired outcomes, reducing acquisition costs, and boosting live chat ROI.
  • Revenue Generated through Live Chat: Tracking the website revenue generated with live chat interactions helps allocate resources effectively, optimize chat strategies, and focus on initiatives that generate higher revenue. All this ultimately leads to an increased ROI with live chat.
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Influenced by Live Chat: Tracking the CLV helps tailor chat experiences, nurture customer relationships, and maximize the value generated from each customer that leads to increased live chat ROI.
  • Conversion Rate: Tracking the conversion rate helps assess the effectiveness of chat in driving desired actions, maximizing the value derived from each chat interaction, and achieving higher live chat ROI.
  • Average Response Time: Tracking the average response time ensures prompt and efficient customer support, improving customer satisfaction, engagement, and conversions, ultimately contributing to improved live chat ROI.
  • Customer Satisfaction Ratings: Tracking customer satisfaction ratings helps gauge the quality of chat support, identify areas for improvement, and enhance customer satisfaction, positively impacting live chat ROI.
  • Chat Engagement Rate: Tracking the chat engagement rate helps assess the popularity and effectiveness of chat functionality, increasing customer interaction, conversion opportunities, and live chat ROI.
  • Resolution Time: Tracking the resolution time ensures efficient and timely support, enhancing customer satisfaction and the overall effectiveness of chat support, leading to increased live chat ROI.

Pro Tips to Maximize Live Chat ROI

Once you set a live chat process for your business, what’s the next step you follow? Although live chat already offers rich ROI, it never hurts to increase it, right?

So, explore these tips to boost your live chat ROI and ensure you offer a seamless customer experience.

Stay Updated With Live Chat Best Practices

Staying informed about the latest live chat best practices is vital for maximizing live chat ROI. The digital landscape and customer preferences are constantly evolving, so businesses must stay updated with industry trends.

This way, you can ensure you leverage the full potential of live chat and implement strategies that align with customer expectations, leading to improved engagement, conversions, and live chat ROI.

Also Read: 17 Live Chat Best Practices For Sales & Customer Support

A/B Testing and Experimentation With Live Chat

Conducting A/B tests and experiments with live chat enables businesses to identify the most effective strategies and approaches.

By testing different chat formats, placement options, or proactive messaging techniques, businesses can gather data on what works best for their audience.

This iterative approach boosts live chat ROI by supporting continuous improvement and optimization of live chat performance.

Train Chat Agents to Serve as Sales Agents

Customer service, sales, and marketing are fully independent disciplines in their own right. And so, it’s best to expose your chat agents to receive a little training in sales and marketing.

Also Read: What Is Multi Channel Customer Service and Why It Is Important

Senior sales department members can organize brief sessions for your chat agents during lean periods.

Additionally, you can use tools like ProPros Training Maker to train your live chat agents efficiently.

Once your live chat operators move up the learning curve, they can use some of the powerful support features, such as proactive chat, push URL, and visitor monitoring, to enhance your sales.

Incorporate Customer Feedback on Your Chat Process

“Listen to customers and you will hear them. Look carefully at customers and you will see them. Do both and you will understand them.” — Ron Kaufman

Listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into the live chat strategy is crucial for increasing ROI with live chat. Customers provide valuable insights into their preferences, pain points, and expectations.

Customer Feedback

By actively seeking feedback and making necessary enhancements based on customer input, businesses can tailor their live chat experience to meet customer needs, resulting in higher satisfaction, engagement, and improved live chat ROI.

Analyze Chat Transcripts for Performance and Course Correction

Do you recall hearing on customer service phone calls that the call may be recorded for quality purposes? 

Chat conversations are also recorded as text documents, and what is more, even customers can get a copy.

Each time a live chat session concludes, customers can click a link in the Visitor Chat Window and request a copy of the transcript.

Likewise, your managers and supervisors can analyze chat transcripts to see how your chat agents are performing on the sales front and suggest new ways to generate new business and close sales.

Implement a Mobile Solution

When you implement a live chat mobile application, it should be extremely easy to use on a smartphone, especially if your customers are accessing your e-commerce store using your native app.

You can use a tool like ProProfs Chat to integrate live chat tools into your mobile app and start tapping into customers’ mobile experience with your business.

Also Read: Best Chat Widgets to Elevate Your Website Experience

Update Your Canned Message Library Frequently

It will take no time to convert your visitors into buyers once you can positively define their user experience on your e-commerce site with the help of live chat.

canned responses

One way to go about it is to review your pre-scripted messages frequently. You can modify them when needed and update your canned message library with new messages when you have new products or services to announce to your chat community.

Start Unlocking Higher Live Chat ROI & Enhanced CX

Live chat technology has become a valuable tool for businesses offering a high return on investment. 

Companies can boost live chat ROI by incorporating live chat into their websites or customer support systems.

Live chat enables real-time communication, allowing businesses to provide instant support, answer customer queries, and resolve issues promptly. 

It reduces customer wait times and eliminates the need for phone calls or emails, improving customer experiences. With such a proactive approach, you can easily convert visitors with live chat.

Moreover, live chat provides valuable data and insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to make informed decisions and optimize their marketing and sales strategies. 

Investing in live chat can yield substantial live chat ROI by driving customer engagement, boosting sales, and optimizing operational processes.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why does live chat matter?

In dynamic times like this, when customer expectations are constantly evolving, incorporating live chat into customer service strategies is critical, at the least. Here are some reasons why having a live chat for your business matters:

  • Real-time Communication: Live chat enables businesses to engage with customers in real time, allowing immediate response and problem resolution.
  • Enhanced Customer Experience: By offering a convenient and personalized communication channel, live chat improves the overall customer experience, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.
  • Valuable Feedback: Live chat interactions provide businesses with valuable insights into customer preferences, pain points, and areas for improvement, helping them refine their products and services.
  • Competitive Advantage: Incorporating live chat and chatbots into customer service strategies gives businesses a competitive edge by offering a more efficient and effective way to engage with customers compared to traditional channels.
  • Building Stronger Relationships: Live chat facilitates direct and meaningful interactions, allowing businesses to establish stronger customer relationships and create a positive brand image.
  • Adaptability: Live chat can be customized to fit different business needs and customer preferences, providing flexibility and adaptability in customer support processes.

To learn more, watch this video: 

Watch: What Is a Live Chat Software & How It Works

2. What is the ROI of live chat?

Live chat has multiple benefits and offers incredible return on investment (ROI). For example, it bridges the gap in customer support, helps you take a proactive approach to boost conversions, strengthens your email marketing strategy, among other things.

3. Does live chat increase sales?

Live chat significantly contributes to sales directly and indirectly. It works as a lead generation tool to turn visitors into leads by proactively engaging with them.

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About the author

Jared is a customer support expert. He has been published in CrazyEgg, CoSchedule, and CXL. As a customer support executive at ProProfs, he has been instrumental in developing a complete customer support system that more than doubled customer satisfaction. You can connect and engage with Jared on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn