Do you provide ‘live chat’ as a customer support channel to your customers? If not, you should.

Live chat as customer support seems to be the new trend. Not only because it’s convenient and economically cheaper than other support channels, but live chat also results in higher customer satisfaction rates.

A significant proportion – 73% of customers feel satisfied after experiencing live chat as a customer service channel. So, live chat seems to be a key customer support channel that you should include in your customer support mix.

Have a look at these stats that prove the significance of live chat as a customer support channel:

63% of customers said they were more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.

It looks like providing a live chat widget on your website can help your customers stay on the website. Live chat can make it easier for your visitors to get quick answers to their questions while using your website and ultimately keep them on the website for a longer period of time.

73% of customers feel satisfied on experiencing live chat.

Live chat is a fast and convenient customer service channel, that’s why Live chat has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel, with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone.

44% of customers want a live chat specialist during an online purchase.

Live chat allows you to be there for customers while they make a purchase, and they want it too. As per Forrester, 44% of customers said that having a live chat specialist available during an online purchase was one of the most important features a company can offer.

79% of consumers prefer live chat because of the immediacy it provides.

One of the main reasons consumers prefer live chat  – it makes it convenient for them to contact a company’s customer service and get an immediate response.

Live chat’s average resolution time is no more than 42 seconds.

77% of customers won’t make a purchase if there’s no live chat support.

That’s a large proportion of customers who won’t buy from your website if there’s no live chat provided, making it crucial to incorporate live chat into your business’s customer support mix.

42% of consumers prefer live chat because they don’t have to wait on hold.

Consumers don’t like to wait! That’s why 60% of consumers ended a business relationship with a company because of “long wait times over the phone,” making them prefer live chat over other communication channels.

Live chat allows the customer support representatives to use a variety of templates while responding to the customers, saving time and increasing the productivity of representatives.

Conclusion

The above live chat statistics have made it crystal clear that live chat is the new frontier of customer service. Consumers seem to prefer live chat as a customer support channel because it saves their time and is convenient compared to other channels.

Along with the benefits that live chat can provide to your customers, it can also significantly save your business’s costs and resources spent on providing customer service.

But despite all benefits, it can be overwhelming for you to set up in-house customer support for live chat. But you can always outsource your live chat support to another company dedicated to providing live chat customer support for just a few hundred dollars.

So, without any doubt, you should provide live chat support to your customers. Also, try Saufter – the customer service software that can help you automate and scale your customer support.