15 Data-Driven Benefits of Live Chat for Customer Service

Customer service is an enormous part of any successful business. 

In fact, the customer experience determines the likelihood of customer spending. Customers are willing to pay almost 75% more if their support experience is positive. 

So, what do businesses need to implement in order to have great customer service? One up-and-coming technology that is used to improve customer relations is live chat. 

Live chat has become a very popular option for support among business owners and customers.

So, for those interested in learning more about the advantages of live chat, check out these 15 data-driven benefits of live chat for customer service.

The 15 reasons you should implement live chat

1. Improves support experience for customers
2. Real-time conversations
3. Helps with customer acquisition
4. Saves money
5. Identifies customer pain points
6. Allow agents to build rapport with customers
7. Solves problems faster
8. Provides a competitive advantage
9. Establishes long-term customer relationship
10. Reduces repetition for customers
11. Expand internationally
12. 24/7 support
13. Increase productivity for support staff
14. In-depth reporting and data insight
15. Increases customer engagement

1. Improves support experience for customers

Live chat can improve customer experiences during a time when they may be experiencing frustration or confusion. 

Live chat can allow customers to ask questions and swiftly be directed to the right support agent. Additionally, live chats are more accessible than phone calls or emails for different reasons. 

If a person is in a loud environment, they may not be able to take a phone call. As for sending an email, this support option can be much slower than a phone call or live chat.

Customers want their issues resolved quickly and in a hassle-free manner.

2. Real-time conversations

In most live chat platforms, customers can see when live chat agents are available and when they are in the process of responding. 

Live chat is a draw for many customers looking to chat with support agents without having to get on the phone.

3. Helps with customer acquisition

Customer acquisition is the process of finding and keeping customers for your business. 

Customer acquisition tactics are usually handled by digital marketing professionals, as they are keyed into the best ways to get customers to your business website. 

However, simply having a live chat feature makes a website appear more contemporary and easy to use. As a matter of fact, customers are 60% more likely to return to a website when live chatting is available.

4. Saves Money

Hiring in-person customer service agents requires increased salaries and call center real estate. 

Both of these expenses can be avoided with the use of live chat, as representatives can work from anywhere in the world. 

Additionally, live chat is more efficient than phone support, so more customers will receive help and can proceed with making a purchase.

In short: you can hire fewer workers for a potential increase in productivity and profits.

5. Identifies customer pain points

Live chat can provide companies with statistics for pain points experienced by customers. 

These pain points can be the reason why they’re interested in a product or service, or they can be a result of a disappointing experience with the company.

When collecting data from customers, make sure to put a disclosure statement prior to connecting them with a live chat agent. 

This ensures that there is informed consent between both parties for ethical data collection purposes.

6. Allows agents to build rapport with customers

Live chat enables agents to personalize a customer support experience. If a customer is needing more empathetic support or a listening ear, live chat agents will listen without distraction. 

Additionally, agents can handle multiple chat conversations at once while allowing each customer to feel personally attended to.

7. Solves problems faster

While on live chat, customer service agents can pull up the information of a customer in an adjacent tab. 

Furthermore, typed responses can be easier to follow for some customers, as mistakes in speech are often avoided in text.

62% of customers had issues with phone conversations over the live chat option.

8. Provides a competitive advantage

Simply put, businesses or websites that have a live chatting feature are more enticing to customers than those that don’t have one.

Companies that employ live chat and chatbot features will save a collective 2.5 billion hours by 2024, which can be used for other (money-making) activities.

9. Establishes long-term customer relationship

As live chat is favored by many customers, this feature may secure customers for life.  

According to the most recent data, 63% of millennials prefer to have customer service queries handled through live chat versus other methods (phone or email).

10. Reduces repetition for customers

It’s easy to forget the details of a conversation when it’s had over the phone. Fortunately, live chat transcripts can be recorded and sent to customer emails – allowing for transcript visibility. 

Also, live chat features (including chatbots) can remember previous conversations and direct customers to the appropriate channel if their issue is not yet resolved.

11. Expand internationally

Live chat is usually a mixture of chatbot technology and live agents, which can enable the expansion of your business to international locations. 

For example, chatbots can operate in most languages, and live agents can be hired and work remotely from any location.

12. 24/7 support

As said previously, many companies hire live chat agents from around the world, which allows them to have 24/7 support for customers.

This expanded hourly coverage also leads to more productivity and customer satisfaction overall.

13. Increase productivity for support staff

Although some believe that live chatting is less productive than other forms of customer service, the exact opposite is true. 

Customer service teams like to chat with customers to avoid unpleasant phone calls and delegating between voice and computer work. 

Chatting with customers can be more pleasant than phone conversations, and is often a more seamless process overall.

Interestingly, live chat can increase revenue per chat hour by almost 50%.

14. In-depth reporting and data insight

Acquiring customer data can be a tricky process. However, customer data is instrumental in improving company structure to increase profitability. 

Luckily, data can be ethically and easily extracted from live chat conversations on a personal and demographic level. 

For example, you may notice that your younger customer base is more likely to use live chat, so you can market the feature to those people. 

Alternatively, if you realize that live chat is not increasing conversion, you may assess your strategy and agents to figure out the cause.

15. Increases customer engagement

Many customers (especially millennials) are more interested in engaging with a company or website that offers live chat. 

If you want to increase your customer engagement – particularly as time goes on – using a live chat feature is likely to gain you loyal customers.

Improving Your Support with Live Chat

You’ve reached the end of this article on the benefits of live chat – nice work. As explained by the data, it is clear that live chat and chatbot features can support business growth and customer relationship management. 

Whether you’re a business owner or a marketing professional, the near-1 billion dollar live chat market is worth exploring. 

The bottom line is this: your business’s live chat is bound to increase profits, data insights, and customer engagement.