The power and potential of live chat software as a potent sales tool is gradually being recognized across industries. After having proven itself as a highly effective platform to deliver customer support in real time, live chat, as a tool for both inbound and outbound sales, can best be understood in light of the anecdotal discussions currently taking place within sales and marketing circles. The good news is that you do not require any additional programming resources, apps or plugins to use your existing live chat application to sell your products and services online. Your existing live chat infrastructure provides ample room and scope for such an extension of your website’s technical capabilities. Since conversion is all about communication and live chat software provides the optimal environment for such an initiative, it amounts to an ideal match and a perfect fit. We present below several tried and tested ways in which your chat reps can use on demand live chat to sell well.
Build Rep Confidence
Unless your chat reps are fully convinced about the efficacy of live chat as a veritable sales tool, the effort will be half-hearted at best. Typical chat reps aren’t sales folks. They are support people. Sales may not interest them commissions and incentives not withstanding. Given this scenario, consider the possibility of asking a few members of your sales force to use live chat for sales. Their success just might encourage members of your service team to try sales blended in with a dose of support. Start out by asking your chat reps to gently pursue inbound sales mostly by engaging prospective customers and pointing out the right product to the right customer at the right price.
In a recent study published by Loyalty 360 http://loyalty360.org/resources/article/most-customers-would-use-mobile-live-chat75% of the respondents said that they would use live chat, especially on mobile devices, to receive sales and customer support. As this study indicates, not everyone is averse to a soft sell once in a while.
Provide Sales Training
You can further build confidence and trust among your chat reps by providing them with focused sales training. We recommend an instructor-led model as opposed to the asynchronous self-paced model, at least initially, because some level of hand holding reaps good dividends. The training you provide should be introductory in nature. It should be delivered in the broader context of customer support because support should always remain a chat rep’s first priority. Bringing an outside trainer with proven credentials is usually the way to go since outside consultants rarely carry any corporate baggage related to your organization.
Build Expertise with Sales-oriented Tools
A live chat application, regardless of whether it is browser-centric or desktop-based, is generally equipped with several powerful features that are ideally suited for sales:
Proactive Chat: This feature lets you send a chat invite to your website visitors once they arrive on your website.
Co-browsing: This feature enables your visitors and you to visit specific web pages together while keeping the Visitor Chat Window functional. This feature is particularly useful if you are able to persuade your visitors to make a purchase. With co-browsing, you can even help your visitors to complete the order form, enter payment information, and close the sale. Experienced chat reps are known to up sell customers through co-browsing and “inspire” customers to add accessories and other related products to the shopping cart.
Push URL: This feature lets you send specific links to website visitors through the Visitor Chat Window. These are hyper links which visitors can click to arrive at the page you are recommending through Push URL. This feature can go a long way in converting leads since it empowers chat reps to serve up the exact product or service customers are seeking.
Announce Promotions and Incentives
Your chat reps can also achieve sales and conversions during normal chat interaction. Inform visitors about any sales promotions that are currently in effect. Tell them about any blue light specials your management may have approved. You can also offer free shipping or next day shipping as a sales closure deal.
While the business intelligence which guides us in the use of live chat software as a customer service channel has achieved maturity, using live chat as a sales tool in conjunction with support is still in its infancy. It will, however, not take too long for the sales connection to evolve and we will all be using live chat to sell well before we know it.