How To Trigger eCommerce Conversions Using Live Chat

As site owners, we all look for new ways to increase the conversion rate. As a result, every functionality is aimed towards creating the best possible experience for the user. The live chat on your website is no different. Site owners using WordPress plugins have it a bit easier since there are different options for live chat for Wordpress. But, it’s not so difficult if you have a custom site either.

The best digital marketers swear that live chat can help increase your eCommerce conversions if done right. The theory behind live chat’s success is that it allows people to find a human connection. People like talking to people instead of just interacting with text and images. As a result, chances are that if your site isn’t a very high converting site already, you can benefit from implementing a Wordpress live chat plugin.

Most sites have a conversion rate of 2% on average. That means out of every 1000 visitors, only 20 sign up for your service or buy your product. A 98% exit rate means that we’re leaving a lot of money on the table. So, here’s how you can increase your eCommerce conversions with Wordpress live chat plugins.

1. Identifying Your Need

So, is the live chat for everyone? The short answer is yes. But, there’s no point wrecking something that’s already working. If you have a conversion rate of more than 5%, then you’re probably well off. Your rate is already greater than the industry average which means that your real customers have no issue finding your products.

If you have a conversion rate of 2–5%, then you need to analyze your drop off points and why your customers are dropping off. You’re still better than most, but live chat can help you. Finally, if you have less than 2% conversion rate, get that Wordpress live chat plugin now!

Now, digital marketing is all about empowering intuition with data. The more intuitive and convenient your site is, the better your conversion will be. To do that, we first need to take note of your site analytics data. Use your Google Analytics data to understand:

• The main pages where prospective customers are likely to visit.
• The conversion rate for each of these pages classified into business hours and after hours.
• The average time is taken by a customer to show purchase intent. Purchase intent can be identified by adding products to the ‘wishlist’ or checking out product reviews and such.

Now, it’s time to identify your customer. Not all visitors are customers. Some come to browse while some come to research for later purchases. In order to sift through the majority of the non-committal visitors, here are some questions you can ask:

• Which countries do your real customers belong to? Where do your non-committing visitors come from?
• Which pages are most visited by your real customers? Which pages do your non-committal customers visit most?
• Does your site have a login area?

Next, we’ll use this information to set up, trigger, and target the right customers for your business.

2. Choosing The Right Set Up

Generally, if you have a custom site, then you would need to place the live chat code into the header of every page. If you use an MVC, then placing it in the header.php will do. Wordpress users have it easiest. All you need to do is download the plugin and activate it.

Once you’ve identified the pages which receive the most drop-offs, you can target them to increase the conversion on these pages specifically. You could also use the chat on other pages, but the ones that are doing well should not be tampered with.

Now, let’s move onto selecting the greeting. When a particular trigger is employed, the live chat issues a greeting or a message. So, if a visitor is on a particular page for more than 20 seconds, the live chat can trigger a greeting offering them help on the topic.

Generalized greetings like “Hello, how are you?”, are most common. You can use your own custom greeting to make it seem non-bot like and add a human touch. For example, “Hey there, I’m Shraddha and I’ll be helping you with your order today!”.

You can set up a live chat with a particular strategy in mind for your respective purpose. So, for an e-commerce site, you’d want your executives to provide help relevant to the order, but extract customer info at the same time.

A blog might use a lead generation tool to help the customer sign up. Similarly, an enterprise can use it as a knowledge base to allow customers to get answers to their queries.

3. Preparing The Triggers

A trigger can be prepared based on the circumstances. There are multiple factors which can be used like:

• Time duration on the page.
• First time visitor or returning visitor.
• Referring website.
• Searched keyword “…” on Google.
• Scrolling to a particular section on a page, etc.
• Visited pages x,y, and z.
• Visitors originating from a particular country and the likes.

4. Capturing Data & Analysing

Now that your live chat is ready and up, it’s time to stick to the strategy and allow it to collect data. This data will help us analyze how well the strategy has worked and if needs any tweaks.

If the conversions increase, it’s a sign of progress. However, if it stays the same or starts reducing, then immediate steps need to be taken. The visitor behavior needs to be analyzed to understand why they are dropping off. Sometimes, based on this data, visitors can also be offered special discount coupon codes to experiment with.

5. Top Tips To Maximise Live Chat Conversions

Before signing off, here are a few tips that will help you avoid common pitfalls and maximize your live chat output.

• Keep the chat 24x7 online — An offline chat is a big turn off for customers. It makes the site seem unprofessional. No one wants to drop off their email without having a word, so it makes no sense to ask for their email saying you’ll get back to them.
• Always answer within 15 seconds — Don’t delay your responses. Online visitors have a short attention span and don’t like to be kept waiting. They’ll just move on.
• Test your data — Use the data gathered to test different strategies. This will help you gauge your customer sentiments and increase your conversion rate.

Conclusion

A websites’ conversion rate is very important for a well-rounded business venture. Using a live chat for your website not only increases customer conversion but also leads to happier and more satisfied customers. Therefore, if you don’t have a live chat option on your site yet, then get it now and effectively stay ahead of the competition.