How to Boost your Holiday Sales with Live Chat

In the run up to the holiday season, more and more consumers will favour online shopping over braving the mall crowds - and with the help of an innovative messaging service, you can ensure more customers make your site their shop of choice. Want to get the most out of your customers at such a crucial retail period? Using an application such as Userlike Live Chat can be the perfect eCommerce tool during the festive season.

Live chat software immediately connects visitors to your customer support team, making it more likely that a browse turns into a purchase. We’ve listed a number of ways in which Userlike Live Chat can help boost online sales during the holiday season.


1. Instant support

Implementing a live chat function can provide unbeatable support to your customers - not to mention limiting certain admin headaches for yourself. By offering visitors an immediate form of customer service support, you can reduce the familiar backlog of emails and calls that greet you during the Christmas period. Engaging in back and forth phone and email correspondence with multiple users may still be widely used, but it is far from ideal during the holiday months.

The Userlike Live Chat application can quickly guide customers through the buying process with the assistance of a genuine - not robotic - customer service representative. This live chat message tool can be set up to appear on every page of your site too, ensuring users are offered support at every turn. During the holidays, it’s more essential than ever to be able to follow-up customer queries at the drop of a hat. Shopping carts are often abandoned online because of either slow or non-existent customer service. Happily, the live chat tool allows for immediate engagement with visitors, encouraging them to stay, complete a purchase and possibly even return to your site.


2. Early troubleshooting

The beauty of using a real-time chat function is that customers can help you improve your site’s logistics and overall framework as you operate. In allowing visitors to voice their concerns about things like site navigation, for instance, any issues with your site can be detected early and improved upon very quickly. New startup businesses in particular can benefit from this form of immediate feedback during their first Christmas period. Even new online retailers can enjoy an influx of added consumer interest in the December months, but when it comes to clinching deals, holiday sales may suffer because of untested technical issues.

By conversing with users via an instant messaging service, your customers will help you get the most out of your site, and in turn, you can give the most back to them. Immediate customer feedback will enable you to make quick changes and customisations in the run up to Christmas and beyond - leading to better performance and therefore increased customer interest.


3. Quick processing issues

During the frantic Christmas period, visitors will be hoping for a quick, smooth transaction - and live chat can provide them with exactly this. Typically, if a user has a query, they may scramble through the FAQ section of a site to resolve the issue. Understandably, this can make some visitors impatient and less likely to proceed with their purchase. Having a live chat tool on hand, however, can prevent a significant number of lost sales opportunities and instead, convert sit-on-the-fence customers into solid and satisfactory sales.

More so than any other period in the retail calendar, visitors want to be assured that every aspect of their transaction - from postage rates to delivery methods - are clear and simple to follow. If not, they may be tempted to take their money elsewhere or worse still, they may rate your site poorly for vague information and lack of customer support. The live chat tool can ensure a quick and straightforward sale by answering customer queries in a timely and informative manner.


4. Increased sales opportunities

When you’re not directly assisting a customer with a purchase or product query, you can use the live chat application as an upselling opportunity. In the event that your live message system is offline for whatever reason, you can make use of the blank message space to promote seasonal deals and offers. Ensure visitors still feel loved and appreciated with friendly notes that encourage them to sign-up, such as ‘Leave your name and e-mail for a great discount - we’re offering 40% off to new customers’.

In addition to this, you can ensure that when customers have made their purchase, they have the opportunity to rate their experience - promoting your site in the process. Live chat software can implement key social media widgets such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing visitors to connect to your affiliate social network pages and share their recent customer service experience. There’s no better form of promotion than visitors singing your praises for customer service. When used to best effect, a live messaging tool can quickly cement your reputation as a friendly and supportive online company that customers can really trust. Allow just one happy customer to declare this and a flurry of new and repeat customers will soon follow suit.


Greater customer connection

They say the most rewarding client-customer relationships stem from years of communication, but with the help Userlike Live Chat , this can also be true from your first interaction with a customer. The live chat software allows you to draw detailed information from each visitor to ensure you deal with each request in the most appropriate manner.

Using the comprehensive analytics feature, you can track each customer interaction via your dashboard, detailing all chat history and the topics that are relevant to each individual user. Should the same visitor return with a query, they will benefit from a highly in-depth and considerate customer service experience - all thanks to an added insight into user activity. The more you engage with your visitors, the more likely you are to encourage their trust and secure those all-important holiday sales.

With no-fuss installation and a wealth of versatile features and add-ons, Userlike’s Live Chat software is ideally suited to both small and large online companies this holiday period. Increase your conversion rate and improve customer relations by making Userlike a part of your support services this Christmas.



About Userlike

Userlike is live chat software for websites, allowing companies to chat with their (potential) customers directly over the website. Look here for more information.