Picture walking into a store with an intent to browse products and perhaps make a purchase, and no one greeted you, how would you feel? What if you had questions and needed answers and the staff just stared blankly back and ignored you, would you leave? I would.

Now picture your website as your online presence, in essence your online store front for all of your products and services, are you answering customers questions or staring blankly back?

Live Chat allows you to instantaneously engage with your website visitors via instant messaging with a live person, instead of a bot. Even when you are busy, even after hours, you know your prospects are being greeted, and their questions are receiving answers.  This type of communication is especially impactful now when so many businesses are operating with reduced staffs and closed offices due to COVID 19. Live Chat is an excellent way to continue 24-7 customer service during a pandemic and also when the pandemic is over. The best part? You only pay when the chat converts a real lead, so you may say “hello” or “chat” with 200 people, but you don’t pay until one comes through as a qualified prospect.  Truly a win win situation.

So what is Live Chat? It is the process of communicating with website visitors through a chat box and text-to-chat on your website, so you are able to get more leads by engaging your prospects. Live agents staff this service and are available to engage with potential customers 24/7!

How does it work?

Trained agents with knowledge of your company get lead information, and new leads are emailed to you in real time, with the full transcription of the chat or text conversation. Not only do you have full transparency on what communication took place, you are only charged for the lead if the agent has gathered:

  • The visitor’s name
  • Contact information (email or phone)
  • The visitor is looking for is something you offer
  • The visit is within your target geographic area or service area

There is also an option to add Call Connect. This feature allows prospects to be connected immediately with your business over the phone during business hours, after the agent has gathered the lead info. While this option is not recommended for multiple locations, but it is perfect for businesses that have a centralized phone number.

If you need to have your chats completed in Spanish, Spanish speaking options for chat and text are available.

So now that we are clear on how it helps your business, how to consumers feel about all of this? Well, it turns out that most of us, 79% of us, like to have our questions answered immediately. Not only that, but 51% of people feel pretty good about their ability to multi-task, meaning they can chat while browsing, and almost half of us, 46%, feel that this is the most effective way to communicate. So safe to say consumers feel good! Even more importantly, 42% of chat leads come outside of normal business hours, so being available during those off hours is crucial.

Safe to say Live Chat is awesome and proven to move prospects down the marketing funnel. Now, what if there was a way to actively engage consumers as soon as they come into the website (your virtual store), rather than waiting for them to start the conversation? What if we were able to say hello first?

There is a way and it is our latest chat improvement called Prechat! This enhancement is essentially an invitation that begins messaging visitors in an unobtrusive way soon after they land on your website. This active approach to connecting with prospects revolutionizes lead generation capabilities.

Simple. Brilliant!

What does that mean for your business? Well, on average conversion rates improved 61% for businesses that switched to Prechat.  This lift came from testing our existing chat where you click to chat verses engaging the user via Prechat.

Why does this invitation get more leads? This new chat style that we are offering at Vici, actively seeks to communicate, resulting in an improved chance the visitor will click on the invitation.  Since launch we’ve seen 115% increase in the average number of chat inquiries for clients that switched.

So there is it, say hello first, engage with your prospects, garner more leads.