Optimization with live chat

There are many ways to improve your landing page conversion rate: an eye catching design, a noticeable CTA button, few fields, fewer mandatory fields, social auto filler, etc. Another way to boost your conversion is adding a live chat to your landing page.

What is a live chat?

According to Webopedia "Live support is a Web service that allows businesses to communicate, or chat, in real time with visitors to their Web site. Live support applications are commonly used to provide immediate customer support and information to clients and customers".

More people and businesses are using this method than before, however it still not considered one of the most prominent methods to increase conversion.

Aurelie Chazal also talks about this in her post “5 Surprising Ways Live Chat Can Boost Your Conversion Rate”. She says that “Adding a chat window to your landing page might not be the first thing that comes to mind when looking for ways to boost your conversion rate. Yet, it is an excellent way to establish a first contact with potential customers and eventually boost sales”.

How can the chat help you?

What is it about live chats that makes visitors corporate? What is the added value when using it?

Rob Carpenter talks about the integration of live chats with your landing pages in his post “The Case For Using Live Chat On Landing Pages”. He says “Every now and then, customers just need to deal with a real person. No pop-ups, FAQs or forums – a real, living, breathing human being.
A great way to put people visiting your website in touch with real people is by using live chat on your landing pages.”.

He also claims that customers love the live chats: “Part of the reason customers love it so much is because it’s an extremely effective and efficient method of getting your customers and prospective customers in touch with real people on your customer success team...Not only does live chat help create happy customers, it helps create returning customers – that is crucial.”

According to “Conversion rate experts” “visitors prefer the live chat over a phone call. They claim that “Live chat can allow you to hear from visitors who wouldn’t call you. They might prefer live chat because
- They don’t have access to a phone.
- They are in a public place (or at work) and don’t want to be heard.
- Live chat doesn’t cost money.
- They don’t want to be stuck at the end of a phone waiting for someone to answer.”
- The Live Chat is a good way to get specific, non general information across.
Landing pages cannot give your visitors all the information they seek, and even anticipate what they would ask some of the time. And between you and me...here are always these few visitors who want to ask the questions directly even though everything is written down…

Emma Sturgis (“What Live Chat Can Do For Your Landing Page”) Describes the chat as a good tool for answering customer questions. She says that “It is very difficult to get a true understanding of a company from a single ad or even from the landing page. One of the best ways to overcome the confusion your customers may often have is to offer them live chat, providing a way for their questions to be answered almost instantly. This is especially important in complicated industries where customization is commonplace, such as textiles or manufacturing”.

A purchase is a purchase is a purchase

Angela Sokolovska, (“Live Chat: The Most Underused Tool in Your Arsenal”) compares regular purchase to online purchase. She shows how the one on one interaction with the store clerk is missing in online buying, but says it doesn't have to. She emphasizes the significance of this interaction by quoting a survey (conducted by IMShopping “in 2009) where ”shoppers want real people available to help purchase products, even in a digital setting.”
Angela also talks about the benefits of targeted chats “in a conversation with Live Chat provider Olark, we discovered that on average about 33% of proactive chats (where the operator starts the conversation with a visitor, instead of the other way around) receive a response from the visitor.”

Let’s talk numbers

Crobox in their post “The relationship between live chat and conversion rate” give real life examples of companies that implemented a live chat feature on their site and were rewarded for it.
One example is intuit: “Intuit increased their conversion rates by up to 211% by having a proactive live chat widget located at key parts of their website.
Another example given by Crobox is Ez Texting:
“Ez Texting provides web based text messaging services for business, ranging from small companies to large publicly listed companies.
As reported by VWO.com, after implementing the live chat feature on their site they increased their sign ups by an impressive 31 percent compared to when they didn’t have live chat.”

More advantages of live chat are are pointed out in ChatToolTester.com:
“- More competent service: compared to phone support it's easier for your staff to "know all the answers" because they can just quickly ask colleagues if they get a tricky question. The customer won't even notice it.
- Instant feedback: chat is usually faster than phone support where you usually have to have to go through cumbersome menus. Not to mention email support where nobody even expects an instant answer.
- Help more people at the same time: chat agents are usually able to serve three or even more people simultaneously.
- No more problems with strange accents or bad lines
- Absolutely no extra costs for the website visitor even when they are from another country”.

FormTitan provides a live chat

The FormTitan form builder not only enables you to create online forms and landing pages, but it focuses on improving your conversion as well. One of the optimization tools provided is the online chat with which you can engage in conversation with your visitors and help direct them towards your target.
Using the chat is easy - all you need to do is turn on the “Chat” option in the form settings and start the chat in the “My Forms” page. The chat enables you to answer visitors who reach out, as well as initiate a conversation yourself when you see a visitor on the page. It also lets you see how many fields were already entered in the form to better assess the visitor’s progress.