13 Live Chat Benefits Every Business Should Know in 2024

Live Chat has become the ‘Dopamine Button’ of customer service. Just like your brain rewards you with a dopamine hit when you get instant gratification. Live chat delivers that same sense of satisfaction to your customers. The result? Real-time support, more leads & conversions, lower customer service costs, and so on.

Research indicates that 38% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase due to positive live chat interactions. Moreover, 52% of customers are inclined to become repeat buyers if live chat support is available.

When your customers feel heard and valued in real-time, you’re not just answering questions, you’re building relationships. In this comprehensive article, you will find the benefits of live chat and some success stories of businesses that have implemented live chat and achieved better outcomes. Why wait? Let’s begin the journey!

What is Live Chat?

Live chat is a synchronistic, help-orientated, communication tool that has been successfully used by shopping websites. It is a service-based helpdesk software that allows online chat between the service provider and the client. 

Let’s say a customer visits your site, ready to buy, but gets stuck on product details and leaves. That’s a lost sale. With live chat, you can step in instantly, answer questions, and guide them to checkout just like a personal assistant on call 24/7. It’s a simple way to turn confusion into conversions and missed opportunities into loyal customers.

13 Live Chat Advantages for Your Business

When it comes to improving customer service, live chat offers countless advantages. But to fully understand its impact, it’s important to look at the benefits from both the customer’s perspective and the business/agent’s perspective. Let’s have a look at the well-rounded view of live chat benefits:

From the Customer’s Perspective: Enhancing the Experience

1. Instant & 24/7 Support Anytime They Need

Imagine you are browsing an online store at midnight and having a question. Who’s there to help? You did not find anyone and left the site frustrated. This is how your customers feel when they don’t get any real-time support.

With live chat on your website, your customers never have to wait. According to research by SuperOffice, 79% of customers prefer live chat because of its immediate responses.

In fact, live chat is no longer just about human agents responding in real-time; it’s now a tool that extends beyond traditional customer service. With AI and automation, you can support customers 24/7, even when your agents aren’t available.

2. Personalized and Tailored Assistance

Did you hear about the Expectancy-Confirmation Theory (ECT)? This theory posits that customers form expectations about a service based on their previous experiences and what they believe they will receive. When their expectations are met or exceeded, they are more likely to feel satisfied. 

For example, with REVE Live Chat, you can provide immediate, personalized responses and can meet the expectations of your customers to improve your customer satisfaction.

According to studies, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that meets their expectations and provides personalized interactions. This live chat advantage makes it easier to engage customers and drive conversions.

3. Convenient and Seamless Communication Across Channels

Your customers expect seamless omnichannel support. They want to move between platforms without interruptions, and with live chat on the website, that’s possible. 

A report show that, 64% of consumers expect real-time assistance on multiple channels. If you implement a live chat for your business, your customers can reach you wherever they are. This gesture will build long-term loyalty.

4. Proactive Support That Solves Problems Before They Arise

Anticipatory customer service is all about predicting customer needs and addressing them in advance. Proactive live chat allows businesses to address customer concerns before they even ask. 

A Forrester report shows that 44% of online consumers appreciate proactive chat offers when they’re considering a purchase. This feature is one of the benefits of live chat for e-commerce, as it leads to smoother transactions and fewer abandoned carts.

5. Faster Decision-Making and Reduced Abandoned Carts

Customers have always been choosy. It takes some doing to keep them pleased. And if the checkout process is even a wee bit out of place, you have lost one of them. Cart abandonment is a big challenge for brands all across the world. In fact, the average cart abandonment rate is a shade below 70 across industries.

Live chat reduces the cognitive load of your customers by providing instant access to information and support. Live chat on your website reduces cart abandonment by answering questions in real-time. 

Studies show that businesses using live chat experience a 40% increase in conversion rates (Invesp). Live chat can significantly reduce cart abandonment rate by providing instant answers, proactive chats, tracking Insights, and targeted engagement.

6. Clear and Transparent Conversations

Customers value clarity. With live chat for customer service, every interaction is recorded, providing a transparent communication trail. Additionally, Live chat opens a direct communication channel that is transparent and easy for customers to use. 

73% of customers say valuing their time is the most important thing a business can do (Forrester). By offering live chat, you eliminate long hold times or slow email responses and improve your customer communication speed and clarity.

7. Consistent Engagement That Builds Trust

The key to great customer service is consistency. Customers want to know that they can rely on you to deliver the same level of service every time. Regular, timely engagement via live chat creates stronger customer relationships. 

According to HubSpot, 83% of customers report being more loyal to brands that engage with them consistently. Consistent engagement is one of the live chat benefits that reinforces customer’s trust and loyalty in your brand.

From the Agent/Business Perspective: Improving Efficiency and Growth

8. Multitasking Efficiency for Handling Multiple Customers at Once

One of the biggest live chat advantages for businesses is the ability to handle multiple conversations simultaneously, improving agent productivity. 50% of companies using live chat reports increased team efficiency (Comm100).

Your support agents can handle multiple concurrent chats at a time. This way you can create an efficient customer support team.

9. Reduces Support Costs While Improving Service

Another key benefit of live chat for customer service is cost reduction. Live chat helps businesses economize customer handling and also saves precious time for agents. 

Live chat is cost-effective for many reasons:

• Simultaneously handling of multiple chats – Agents can handle multiple conversations simultaneously and also use multiple options for chat distribution and utilization. 
• Effective support in minimum time – Brands can connect with customers in real-time, identifying the complexity of the problem and resolving the issue in the first contact.
• Low help desk costs – Help desk costs can be lowered by reducing the queue time and intelligently routing chats across the right departments.
• Increase average order value (AOV) – Delivering real-time assistance to customers can help increase average order value agents can use live chat to show exactly the products needed.

10. Data-Driven Insights for Continuous Improvement

As a business owner, you can really enhance your support team’s efficiency and make continuous improvements with live chat analytics. You can an eye on your agents’ performance, you can use visitor data, chat histories, and performance reports to see how well they’re doing and how long customers are waiting for help.

When you take advantage of live chat performance analytics, you’ll be able to evaluate how effective your chat support is and pinpoint areas that need improvement. You can regularly measure key chat KPIs, which help you elevate the customer experience.

Here are some key live chat metrics to keep in mind: 

• Response time shows how quickly your agents respond when a chat starts.
• First contact resolution measures how effectively they solve customer issues right away. 
• Total resolved conversations tells you how many chats were successfully handled compared to the total assigned.

Live chat analytics provide businesses with valuable data on customer behavior. This insight helps teams fine-tune their strategies and make informed decisions. Companies using live chat report a 10-20% increase in customer satisfaction (SuperOffice), showing the power of data in optimizing service.

11. Automation for Business Scalability

Live chat automation enables your business to scale support as it grows without increasing costs. 30% of companies report improved efficiency thanks to chatbot automation (Gartner). For growing businesses, this is one of the most significant benefits of live chat ensuring they can handle more customers without overwhelming their teams.

Automating live chat conversations with AI chatbots can prove an excellent way to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs which leads to a better customer experience. 95% of consumers believe customer service is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots. 

Chatbots however won’t be able to handle complex queries, so using them together with human-powered support can do the task easily. Here is HDFC Bank’s EVA (Electronic Virtual Assistant) for example, an artificial intelligence-driven chatbot for automation.

Eva can answer millions of customer queries across multiple channels promptly. It can assimilate knowledge from thousands of sources and provide answers in simple language in less than 0.4 seconds. Like Eva, REVE Chatbot can take the automation route and achieve many benefits for your business:

• Round-the-clock customer engagement – Bots can do customer engagement round the clock to answer common support or sales queries when the team is busy or not available. 
• Lesser support tickets – The use of a bot means general queries of customers are answered in a prompt manner which can help reduce the number of help desk tickets. 
• Lead qualification automation – You can qualify good quality leads with the help of a sales questionnaire and can also immediately direct the leads to the sales team or schedule an appointment.
• Hybrid support approach – Brands can use bots to answer frequently asked queries (FAQs) and involve human touch when issues are complex and the bot is not able to answer.

12. Improves Your Customer Experience

75% of companies identify improving customer experience as their top objective.

Live chat is a great help for businesses in quickly solving or addressing customer concerns before it becomes a pain point. Using the advanced features and benefits of live chat software can ensure proactive support which leads to a frictionless website experience for customers. 

Businesses can use live chat to discover customer pain points and offer effective solutions in an easy manner. 

• Instant connectivity can be created with customers to immediately determine their needs and provide products/services that best meet their interests.
• Agents can leverage live chat features to understand every issue to the best of their abilities and offer timely solutions.

13. Strengthens Brand Identity Through Consistent Messaging

Every interaction via live chat is an opportunity to reinforce your brand’s voice. 90% of consumers expect consistent brand experiences across all platforms (CXM). 

Live chat on your website helps you meet these expectations, building a stronger and more recognizable brand identity.

Industry-specific Live Chat Benefits and Use Cases

Live chat has transformed how businesses across industries connect with their customers. Let’s take a look at how different sectors are leveraging live chat for success.

Real-World Success Stories of Businesses After Implementing Live Chat

Businesses are seeing significant growth and improved customer satisfaction after implementing live chat solutions. Here are some success stories that showcase the impact of live chat across various industries.

ZANDO

ZANDO is an e-commerce platform. They reduced their cart abandonment and increased sales 10X after implementing a live chat.

They are using REVE Live Chat and helping their visitors in real-time. They make Audio/Video calls to provide customer support more efficiently. When their customers come to their website and struggle to find some product or make the payment their agent helps the customers through co-browsing solutions. 

Express Kitchens

Express Kitchens, a leading appliance provider, previously faced challenges in delivering real-time customer support. After integrating the solution, they provided immediate assistance to customers and reduced 40% response times.

This shift led to a 25% increase in customer satisfaction, with more clients expressing their loyalty and overall happiness with the service.

Conclusion

Live chat has become an essential tool for businesses. It supports users from the moment they land on a website, providing real-time assistance throughout their journey. This fast communication channel enhances customer service and boosts conversions.

Now it’s your time to realize the major significance live chat can do to your business. You can increase sales and automate responses, making it a game-changer for your customer experience.

To experience the benefits of live chat for your business start a free trial or book a demo now.

Frequently Asked Questions