With all of the tools and tricks available on websites today, the ones that many website owners tend to overlook are the ones that don’t seem like they have an immediate affect on the bottom line. Live chat can seem like it would be used mainly as a customer service tool, however it has huge benefits in adding to the bottom line of what a business brings in as well. Using live chat addresses several of the things that stand in the way of a 1st time visitor purchasing anything or taking any other action on your website.

1. Strengthens your connection with your visitors

Live chat allows visitors to feel more comfortable with your web site and your offering because with a real person on the website, they can get their questions answered immediately. Any objections or hesitations can be dealt with in a very personal manner in a way the best written sales letter can’t do. Live chat adds a personalization feeling to each person that engages in it. This kind of service also can assist the visitor with navigating the website, or assisting with filling out the order forms.

2. Allows instant phone to phone connection between the website visitor and the website owner

Some chat programs allow the chat person to connect the website visitor to a sales representative. This is a powerful feature, especially for lead generating sites that allows the business to funnel their website visitors to their higher closing sales reps. THe way this works is the chat person asks the visitor for their phone number and through the software, connects their phone number with the pre-programmed number of the business. The software rings both phone numbers and when each party picks up their end of the connection, they are both connected. The software is even able to pass the caller id’s of both parties to each other, which adds to the professionalism of the business.

3. Increases the conversion rate of the website

Live chat has been proven over and over again to increase the conversion rate of websites across industries. In some cases adding it has increased the conversion rates by as much as 10 times the standard conversion rate. Using this program with your websites, increased conversion rates can happen almost overnight, whereas using the standard A/B split testing will take a much longer process to increase the conversion rate. In many cases, the conversion rate increases from A/B split testing will not be as great as those from incorporating chat functionality on the website.

The costs of live chat vary depending upon the type of features you need and the amount of hours per week you wish to have live chat on your website. There are programs that are computer response based without a real person on the other end, however these programs actually increase the wariness of visitors on your site than decrease it, especially once your visitors have discovered the chat function is done by a computer. Costs to maintain chat features on your website are quite reasonable when purchased through a service and that investment can really make all the difference to your bottom line especially during high traffic times, like the Christmas shopping season.