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Instructions for Bold Software Customers

Pick the image that you like, right click on it, and select “properties”.  Copy the image’s URL.  From the Bold Software client, click on Setup > Account Setup > Chats > Custom Chat Buttons

Select your custom chat button definition (for many customers it’s called “My Custom Chat Button”) and hit Edit.

In the screen that appears, paste the URL of the image into the appropriate field. Repeat for the unavailable image and that’s it!

So, the most valuable consumers respond, very few offer negative feedback about proactive chat, and yet businesses still think consumers will run away screaming.

Are these perceptions from businesses left over from brick/mortar retail? Was there research earlier in live chat’s lifespan that indicated a negative response from proactive chat? Considering proactive chat is far less Orwellian than robust analytics, what is it that people were ever afraid of?

The more I try to understand the fear about proactive chat, the sillier the questions get. It makes me wonder if this whole negative perception is based on assumptions rather than actual data.

To provide the counter point to general perceptions, here are a few statistics from our research to consider when evaluating consumer opinions about chat:

- While 52% of the sample surveyed agreed that they find proactive chat invitations helpful, 73% of those whose average online transation is greater than $100 felt that way.

- Additionally, the likelihood that proactive chat will positively influence a shopper’s willingness to engage was over 56% of all survey respondents, yet that number increased to 65% for weekly shoppers.

Looking to learn more about best practices for implementing proactive chat? Read more in our whitepaper about Live Chat’s New ROI – Proactive Chat Invitiations.

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In fact, you might be better than most. A study of small and medium-sized North American companies revealed that 51% of businesses never responded to emails with high-value purchase intent. A more recent study by Hornstein Associates shows a steady decline in customer service response rates since 2002. In 2007, only 33% of companies responded to emails sent to customer service within 24 hours, down almost half from a high of 63% in 2002.

Thanks to BoldMail, a rich email management feature inside of our SMB and Enterprise product offerings, I am able to say that:

• In April, our average response time to sales inquiries was under 6 hours, and
• For the same time period, our average resolution time for support issues was ~21 hours.

Another BoldChat customer, SalesNexus, did even better. They post continuously updated results of their response times on their website. They get this data directly from the BoldChat system within seconds.

There are so many reasons why email programs like Outlook are perfect for managing individual email accounts. There are even more reasons why a solution tailored for individuals is a bad fit for sales and support teams.

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When you click this link, the BoldChat system records your action as a specific type of conversion which we’ve set up called, “Clicked Blog Link”. Our live chat software allows us to report on these conversions in aggregate, or to browse them one by one as you can see below.

To be honest, the aggregate reporting is more useful for business decision making but as it’s not as cool looking, I didn’t include it here.

The screenshot above highlights just some of the information we know about website visitors who completed the conversion type – how they arrived on site, where they came from, how many times they’ve previously been on site, and so on.

You may be thinking, “…how is this any different from a goal in Google analytics, or a conversion in Google AdWords?” As my old roommates from Boston would say, “It’s wicked different.”

Most importantly, our website conversion system ties the conversion data together with chat statistics and this allows us to know if a chat occurred as part of the conversion process. Did the visitor have previous chat interactions? With whom did they chat? How long was the interaction? And so on. This, coupled with our software’s ability to pass conversion value information, makes sophisticated analysis around live chat’s ROI, specific agent commissioning, and marketing program pay-back reporting easy to accomplish.

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You see my point – it’s about as wide open as the Atlantic. In the interest of brevity, and as a way to organize things, I’m going to talk about 3 distinct ways in which live chat interactions can drive improvement in organizations. There’s at least ten times that many, but “3 ways that live chat can impact your bottom line” is as pithy as it is relevant.

1. Answering the same questions over and over is a sign that something is wrong. Most live chat software includes a canned messaging capability making it easy for chat operators to respond to common questions. And even though this functionality reduces the time it takes to answer a chatter’s inquiry, answering the same questions repeatedly from different website visitors is a strong sign that your site isn’t preemptively providing the information that people are looking for.
    
2. Good selling can be taught – but identifying the teacher is important. If you are using live chat for sales (and you should be – see the live chat software research report post), then you will have the ability to tie conversions to chat interactions. BoldChat accomplishes this through proprietary conversion code, which enables us to see – for example – that I am a terrible salesperson.
   During the reporting period, I achieved 3 conversions – only one of which occurred during the same session in which I chatted with the visitor. Apparently, I need some training and it is quite clear formthis report that my training should come from Shea. She achieved 20 conversions, 16 of them coming during the same sessions in which she chatted with visitors. That’s an 80% same visit conversion rate and replicating that will clearly improve our business.
    

Using proactive invitations as a research tool. While our independent research shows that live chat proactive invitations are an exceptional selling tool, they can also be used to engage visitors in conversations about other topics. For the past several days, we’ve been doing this on the BoldChat website. I set up a special invitation (including an offer) to talk to people about our website:

 
I’ve talked with a bunch of folks and learned a lot about what people like and don’t like about our site. Based on one user’s feedback, we made a change to our homepage imagery.

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Thanks to products like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Google’s G1 Android-based phone, SMS communications and mobile email continue to be primary functions of a mobile device, rather than secondary functions. I’ve had an iPhone, Blackberry, and Palm Treo and, while call quality was a factor in my purchases, the main value these phones offered was easy access to other forms of communication. So it may seem like a natural progression for business-oriented live chat software to be compatible with mobile phones.

I disagree. I don’t think conducting live chat on a mobile device will help businesses with sales and customer support. In fact, I think it can harm them. Here’s why:

1. IM and SMS communication has given the world a new form of communication that is based on abbreviations and shortened phrases. How comfortable would you be as a consumer if the operator on the other end of the chat inevitably used this informal, casual type of language to communicate? Not very.
2. While 3G and Wi-Fi are becoming more readily available, how much are you willing to bet your sales on them? In my experience, Wi-Fi is hit or miss and often not available (or very strong) in most of the places I travel to – except my home, where I have a laptop with a full sized keyboard and 802.11n speed connection. 3G is still not as fast as Wi-Fi, meaning lag time between the customer message and the agent response. Does your customer know they are communicating with you over 3G on your iPhone? Is that the best representation of your business?
3. Historically, the number one complaint against live chat is the quality of the communication from the agent. If you are on your Blackberry – in any situation – is that the best environment for you to provide the quality of customer service that will differentiate you from competitors and close sales online?
4. One chat at a time. The biggest value chat can provide your team is the ability to have multiple chats at a time, reducing the cost of each interaction and increasing productivity. How many chats can you fit on your iPhone interface, while keeping the font size readable? Realistically not more than one. The easy argument back is that one is more than zero, but if you are providing an abbreviated, slow, semi-professional response to your customer, they might disagree. Can you help them navigate the website easily? Are you getting information about the visitor that improves that quality of the interaction and your ability to help them find the right product quickly?
5. Scalability. One agent answering one chat on one phone device is not the definition of scalability, therefore the very small increment of value that a mobile device could have offered is even further diminished by the fact that it doesn’t scale well.

Chat provides so many benefits as a business tool. And while the prospect of seeing business live chat go mobile is exciting, when you really analyze what live chat is supposed to do to improve your business online, it quickly loses its shine. There is no doubt that more and more consumers as well as businesses are using mobile devices and that software for these devices continues to become more robust. I enjoy playing a variety of games on my iPhone, checking in on Facebook and Twitter, and being able to get up-to-the moment email alerts (and responding when necessary). For asynchronous communications like email, SMS, and social networking, mobile devices are great. For real time communications, a phone is still better as a phone and chat is better left to people sitting at real keyboards typing 40+ words per minute, with access to canned messages, real time visitor analytics, cooperative browsing technology, and customer history.

We’ve just completed the most recent and comprehensive primary research study on the effectiveness of live chat ever conducted. Why did we do it? Well, we already know that live chat can drive sales and reduce support costs – many of our customers have shared data with us showing the impact our technology has had on their businesses. But many internet retailers we speak with who don’t have live chat are skeptical about it.

We thought we would take a two pronged approach to delivering the highest quality information about the fact that live chat really works.

Prong #1 – From the Consumer’s Viewpoint

Our research with more than 250 regular internet shoppers was conducted using a third party opt-in panel of respondents. The results, quite frankly, are astounding. The 15 page report explicates all the data and draws 5 individual conclusions that every e-tailer must know about live chat software. Let me say here, however, that the overall conclusion is simply this: If you’re not using live chat these two things are true:

1. Extremely valuable prospects are slipping through your fingers, and
2. Your competitors who use live chat are building strong and lasting relationships with their customers that you won’t be able to overcome.

Sure, sure – I work for a live chat company; I’m supposed to say this. Don’t take my word for it. Read the report yourself.

Prong

 #2 –Successful Uses of Live Chat

When you download the study, you’ll have access to several customer case studies which all show how live chat software has boosted sales and reduced costs. You’ll learn about one customer that shut off their phones in favor of live chat and email. The result? They are growing faster than ever. Crazy? Not when you consider one of the findings of the research report. The report shows that for a variety of different scenarios, “calling an 800#” was never the preferred communication method of respondents. That’s right – never.

These case studies are automatically sent to you when you download the research report: The Effectiveness of Live Chat Technology: A survey of internet shoppers, 2009.

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Steve: I’m sure your answer to the question above (Can you really move sales chat offshore) would be, “it depends.” So, what does it depend on?

Chris: The most important factor is the level of American culture involved in your product or service; some things can be taught, some can’t. Heavily commoditized items like cellular phones and long distance service could be easily off-shored from just about any country. However, products that require some knowledge of current events or in-country sensitivities like weight loss products or specialized brands, on the other hand, might be a challenge.

When you outsource a project you are depending on someone else to produce results. If you add bridging a cultural divide to the equation, here are some factors to consider when choosing a country for your offshore sales operations:

1. What percentage of the population speaks the languages you require?
2. How long will it take you to travel to that country?
3. How stable is the government of the country?
4. How many reliable forms of internet are available and how much do they cost?
5. What are the payroll laws? Pay close attention to taxes, holidays, severance pay, holiday bonuses, and maternity laws.
6. What is the cost to house a manager in a safe and convenient location?
7. Can you legally participate in the business? (Some countries do not allow you to work at your own facility without a work visa.)
8. How easy is it to move funds to the country?
9. What is the common knowledge of American culture? What percentage of the population has visited the US? For how long?
10. Will your service agreement be legally enforceable in the country?

Most of the items on the above list are factors that I have seen shutdown offshore projects that otherwise were doing well, so consider each of them carefully.

Steve: If you could offer advice for someone looking for an outsourced vendor for their sales chats, what would you tell them?

Chris: Ask for referrals and call them. The bottom line is results and they are not always easy to get, even here at home. In order for a company to sell to your nitch, they’re going to have to be very good at project implementation and fulfillment. You certainly don’t want to be their first project. Remember that the offshore company is not just trying to sell your product or service; they are representing your company.

Steve: What kind of timeline should someone expect to be dealing with if they decide to go offshore?

Chris: I recommend 30 days of due diligence whether your outsourcing or doing it yourself. Another 30-60 days should be allowed for implementation. If you go offshore, you really should consider traveling to the outsourcing company to provide personal training.

Steve: Would you recommend a pay-for-performance structure?

Chris: Most outsourcing companies charge per hour/per seat. This is wonderful for them, but usually doesn’t work well for you. If the company is serious they should be willing to be paid on a performance basis. I usually use 33% of my US cost as a starting point when negotiating the cost I’d like offshore.

Steve: How involved does the company have to be AFTER they outsource?

Chris: You should be as involved as you are in country. If you are watching lead costs and daily sales in country, you should do the same with your offshore company. If you have a sales manager to whom you’ve tasked the items to in the US, then you should expect to be able to task the same to your offshore sales manager. I’ve seen companies completely hand over their sales division to offshore companies with no regrets. I’ve also seen them let go of their well-trained effective domestic staff only to see sales crater in the offshore setting.

Steve: Tell me a bit about your business:

Chris: A Live Answer has been providing telephone answering services since 1989. In 2006 we began providing live chat solutions, primarily as a sales tool. While our competitors have focused on high volume customer service solutions, A Live Answer has built a solid lead generation and sales system. Utilizing BoldChat for our infrastructure we have been able to implement sales projects quickly and have delivered handsome results to our clients

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Chat gives you the capability to move from your visitor from reading static web pages of features and benefits into a conversation between two people. Engaging them in a chat can be key to take them from visitor to prospect to customer.

Some prospects will self identify by clicking on your chat button – they are already predisposed to chatting with you. But we suggest you proactively reach out to visitors using BoldChat’s SmartInvite. When implementing an invitation, if you ask something abrupt like, “Can I help you?” you should expect most visitors will say no and might even leave your site. Consider instead being focused on making a connection by asking if they have any questions or if they are finding what they are looking for.

When you are successful at getting them to engage, avoid the temptation during the conversation to strafe your prospect with your beautifully honed canned messages touting your phenomenal feature set. They don’t need a rehash of what is already on your website. Instead, ask clarifying questions about their needs and craft relevant responses, using Canned Messages judiciously. As you begin to understand the full extent of their needs, you will be able to gradually inquire about upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

Remember, connection first, then content.