Leads are crucial! Let’s face it: even if your company has a significant online presence and substantial website traffic and click-through rates, these factors provide little value if they do not result in leads. Businesses that offer quick follow-ups succeed in today’s instant-gratification society. A company that promptly follows up on internet leads increases its chances of turning them into paying clients by almost ten times. Live chat is tailor-made for this purpose. 

However, live chat’s lead generation and marketing potential are frequently overlooked. Today, although many websites offer live chat, it is primarily used for customer support.

Lead generation and its importance

People may express an interest in what your company offers by visiting your website, reading your blog regularly, or even following you on social media. But not all of them will end up being paying clients. Using the lead-generating process, you need to find, target, and turn potential customers into actual, paying clients for your business. It takes a marketing initiative to fill the sales pipeline with qualified leads. No matter how big or small, any firm that doesn’t have an expanding customer base eventually fails. Focusing on high-quality leads attracts clients who are more likely to continue with your company over the long term and continuously increase your profitability.

Leads can be generated through first-rate customer care marketing. For instance, if you provide lower-priced versions of your service or give a free trial, you will be looking at converting these clients to upgrade to a higher pricing plan. Therefore, resolving their problems or actively interacting with them via live chat, which reduces reaction time to customer inquiries, is an intelligent approach to engaging them. Some other ways that live chat help you better serve your customers:

• Live chat helps you collect essential info about customers that help you improve your product quality or service.
• It helps you clearly define your target audience
• Provides you with better marketing insights
• Generates better brand awareness
• Ensures a better customer experience

Why Live chat? 

Due to the shift in communication to digital screens, businesses must revise their marketing and sales strategies. Some companies try to mix the two by assigning sales personnel to speak with qualified prospects after gathering customer contact information via a form on their website or mobile app. However, many people are hesitant to share their information online due to the possibility of exploitation. A chat channel can engage with clients already interested in your company by getting right to the point. Customers may interact with live chat agents whenever convenient and, most importantly, in real time. Live chats have the highest customer satisfaction percentage, at 92 per cent, compared to other engagement options; it looks like the channel of choice for the customers. In fact, 63 per cent of customers are more inclined to revisit a website after a satisfactory live chat session.

Today most people do not like aggressive selling. Before they are amenable to buying services or products from a company, consumers must know that the company understands their needs. This is how live chat can help with lead generation; to quickly and easily learn what each client wants from you or your service.

Analyse live chat data

Another way live chat helps your business generate better leads and sales is by analysing the live chat data. This will help you to give a better and more personalised service. Live chat can provide you with data about 

• The pages your visitors browse
• Visitor location
• How they found you
• Number of visits
• How long have they browsed your website

Benefits of live chat

Live chat is excellent for lead generation. Here we discuss why live chat works so well for marketing and sales.

Speed

Real-time chat is more personalised than form-based data collection and faster than phone calls. With no long waiting time or need for a small conversation to establish a rapport, a well-trained agent can handle several visitors simultaneously. Customers using live chat can also multitask. Live chat also comes out ahead because it enables businesses to speak with customers whenever they’re ready. The chat widget can be kept in the corner of the screen and only becomes active when users are prepared to chat. The whole client experience is enhanced by this combination of prompt response and appropriate timing.

Customisable

Your CRM software can be coupled with live chat software to enable you to store all client conversations and access them as needed. The chats can be customised for each consumer. Your designated chat executive can also provide specific product or service suggestions based on the history of the visitor’s interactions with your business, which will not only make your customer feel appreciated but may also result in a purchase.

Instant clarifications

After browsing your website, a consumer usually makes up their mind in a short time about how they feel about your brand. Fortunately, you can clear up any misunderstandings with a live chat. Live chat is an effective tool for controlling your brand’s story. Customers usually use the FAQs to get the answers to simple questions on their own. A live chat agent, however, may delve further and offer suggestions that can present your company in an even more favourable light.

Proactive

Additionally, having a chat widget on your website allows you to engage in proactive conversation rather than just sending out reactive messages. Qualified leads can be produced by setting up real-time triggers on various web pages based on when and how website users engage with your page. Once the customers start interacting, you can transition to a targeted conversation where you can offer recommendations based on customer data.

24/7 Availability

Customers working the night shift or those from other regions can require your assistance at unusual hours. In this situation, offering 24/7 support is doable by either setting up teams that operate out of several time zones or arranging a shift-based schedule for your customer care team. However, small businesses can find this difficult. To ensure that no prospective lead is lost due to bad timing, third-party live chat solutions that are 24/7 can step up and fill in this gap.

Easy feedback

Since the data gathered via live chat is frequently concise and accurate, it can be used to evaluate the customer experience. Live chats coupled with CRM and analytics tools can also ascertain which lead qualification techniques are more effective for clients than others.

Omnichannel Support

Customers interact with businesses over a variety of channels. Only having a solid messaging strategy on your website is insufficient. Today’s consumers communicate with companies using social media services like Facebook Messenger. No matter which channel people use to contact you, smooth communication and quick responses are made possible by integrating your live chat with all your communication channels.

The management of your company’s resources to benefit your organisation can frequently be done more effectively by third-party assistance providers.

Data Available 

You must first figure out why customers would buy from you to create more individualised services. This will help you generate more leads. Given that leads are more likely to become customers eventually, this can boost your business. If you’re trying to figure out how to generate leads, you’re essentially trying to figure out how to sway people’s behaviour. 

Generating Qualified Leads

People contacting your company is a big part of the lead generation process. For instance, you might wait to contact a prospect browsing your website until they click on a call to action or get in touch with your sales team. But what if you could qualify that lead more quickly? That is where live chat has the edge. You can proactively engage with the customer, or your chat can pop up after the customer has been on a page for a specified time.

LiveChat Agent to Generate Leads

With the aid of LiveChat Agent, creating Australia’s first fully managed live chat service, your website can become a lead- magnet. Create leads across platforms by incorporating LiveChat Agent on your websites and social media pages. Fast deployment, 24/7 coverage, and deployment in less than 48 hours. Prepare to be amazed!

• Author Details

Author Details

Tracey Horey

CEO of Live Chat Agent

Tracey Horey is a 20 year veteran of the Automotive industry and has been writing Automotive content and helping Dealerships optimise their digital space for over 15 years. Her experience working with various sized dealerships and her passion for exploring and understanding new tools for the auto industry has given her an in depth understanding of the challenges all dealerships face in a changing landscape.

accounts@livechatagent.com.au

1800 332 428