Like your pay-per-click ads though, if your proactive rule is left untouched for too long, it may no longer perform at the same level it did at the beginning. Such a tool is only as powerful as the person wielding it, which means if you are doing proactive chat you should also be reporting, doing regular performance analysis, a/b testing, and conducting rule optimization whenever possible.

3 things you should be doing with proactive chat on a monthly basis:

1. A/B Test your invites. You never know what people are going to respond to, so if your application allows for A/B testing your proactive message – do it. Rotate new messaging in regularly. Pop the invites in different locations on the page. Redesign the look.
2. Run Acceptance Rate Reports. These should be analyzed monthly, if not more often. Visitor behaviors change and an acceptance rate that was once 23% might have dropped to 15%. There are enough analytics tools between your chat provider and web analytics to form a decent hypothesis about why and begin to make changes.
3. Optimize Performance. If you are waiting 60 seconds to invite, would you get more chats if you bumped it to 45 seconds? Test it for a week and see. There is no reason you can’t regularly optimize the performance of proactive chat on your website.

Proactive chat can outperform any other on-site marketing method available from an engagement perspective and a conversion perspective. And like any other online marketing tool, regularly refreshing and optimizing it is key.

Here are the top-cited reasons people abandon shopping carts:

1. 46% – High shipping charges
2. 37% – Comparison shopping
3. 36% – Lack money
4. 27% – Want a coupon
5. 26% – Want to shop offline
6. 24% – Couldn’t find the preferred pay option
7. 23% – Item not available at checkout
8. 22% – Couldn’t find customer support

If you read our report on Live Chat Effectiveness, you’ll discover that live chat can reduce shopping cart abandonment. By placing a live chat button and utilizing BoldChat’s proactive chat feature within your shopping cart pages, you get a chance to address #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. (I’m not really sure what to do about #3.) We suggest you place a proactive chat invitation on your checkout page with a timer delay based on your knowledge of your abandonment metrics. You can use our A/B testing capability to try special offers like free shipping or a discount code. You can also place an invitation on any page that displays an error code offering to help the shopper resolve the error. If nothing else, at least put a prominent live chat button in the cart and on the checkout page so your visitors can find you when they need you (#8 – 22%).

Our customers routinely report a 30% decrease in shopping cart abandonment by taking these (and other) steps. Don’t wait. Your competitors won’t.

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The second reason came from macro-market forces which continue to redefine how businesses interact with their customers.  The dialogue generally revolves around convergence, integration, and single contact resolution (for both sales and support).  We thought, therefore, that a new name – one that embraced this holistic view of customer interaction – was needed.  BoldCCM was born.

CCM stands for:

Customer
Communication
Management

Two product offerings bear this name which means they both offer users the ability to interact with website visitors in multiple ways.  You can learn more about these products and the benefits of integrated website communication management by following the link.

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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!

Meanwhile, IT departments are looking for “best practices” that will “increase efficiency” while executive teams are encouraging “paradigm shifting organizational changes.”

Though it may be counterintuitive, we think that enterprise-sized e-tailers can save money by thinking inside the box. Here’s what we mean:

Consolidate Communications: We know from our own proprietary research that a website visitor’s communication technology preference is dependent upon where they are in the buying process. In a given moment then, there are people on your site who want to chat with you, initiate a click to call with you, email you, be actively assisted, or have no communication with you at all. Putting each of these communication methods into its own box and under its own management is wasteful. Enterprises should consolidate all of these methods under one umbrella with the same interface and staff. We recently launched an integrated suite to accomplish just that. Learn more about BoldCCM.

Get in the Driver’s Seat: Taking control over your own live chat, click-to-call and email management solution is valuable to an enterprise for two reasons. First, it saves money in the short-run because it avoids costly fees associated with ongoing professional services engagements. Secondly, it enables companies to build intellectual capital around an increasingly important competency. We recommend, at least, that firms develop a working knowledge of live chat reporting metrics and proactive invitation logic.

One Chat Resolution: Many enterprises who utilize live chat for support should consider an active co-browsing or full remote control capability. If your product line is complicated or if you sell computer-related items, the ability to actively view and interact with a target customer’s PC could allow you to resolve their buying or support issue in one session. This not only provides a positive experience for the customer, but avoids costly escalations.

The topic clearly struck a chord for business owners evidenced by several days of the story being tweeted and retweeted. While we’d like to believe that it was a fascination with live chat technology that drove the excitement, we understand that the story’s real appeal was its unspoken message.  The idea that website owners aren’t simply beholden to the whims of their visitors but, instead, can effectively exert influence over the buying cycle is a powerful message.  Another recently published article discusses this as well.

“Mastering Customer Capture on Your Website” appeared in Website Magazine not to long ago and was authored, in part, by Bold Software’s CEO.  The article, like the WSJ one, is focused on ‘after-click’ marketing.  It’s primary concern is helping businesses to think about capturing contact information from visitors in a way that drives bottom line improvement.   Even if a visitor can’t be immediately converted to a sale, capturing their information is a step toward making them tomorrow’s customer.

The article discusses using visitor monitoring, live chat, and other tools to assist in information capture.

We’re thrilled to see one of the largest and most influential mainstream business publications report on After Click Marketing.  While the reporter, Raymund Flandez doesn’t use that term, the article’s introduction is its very definition; “These days, the tech-savvy small business is using search engine optimization to steer customers to its home page. But once those online visitors land, how do you get them to buy?”

This simple question, we believe, is giving birth to a new discipline (or at least a new vocabulary) associated with what website owners can do to drive visitors into the sales cycle. After click marketing concerns itself with an engagement action we want the visitor to take.  In fact, after click marketing is really about the optimization of those engagements.  Today’s Wall Street Journal article clearly defines three such actions which ultimately drive conversions.

The three best ways to convert website traffic are:

Add a Click-to-Call Feature

Visitors input their phone number and the technology automatically connects the visitor with a website representative.  This idea is particularly useful for businesses that can’t be tethered to a computer all the time.

Add Live Chat

Congratulations to ImprovementDirect (an online retailer of name brand faucets, among other items) for being featured by the Journal as a smart retailer who uses live chat to drive sales.

Offer a try-before-you-buy program

Allowing customers to try out a product before purchasing it is excellent advice.  In fact, its advice we follow across our own product lines.

We have over 25 button styles, 4 text options, 8 color options, and 2 background choices which means there are over 1,600 combinations.  Wow, that’s a bunch of buttons.  But, here’s the thing; none of these might be right for your website.  Luckily, most systems like BoldChat and BoldCCM enable you to customize the button.  Here are 4 situations that definitely warrant a custom chat button:

Situation #1: To make the chat button stand out: When you want to draw attention to the fact that you are ready to engage your website visitors in a live discussion, you don’t want to hide your chat button.  In fact, you may want to do what the Orlando Magic does on its season ticket page and make the chat button the most prominent image there.

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Situation #2: To make the chat button blend in: ReStockIt.com wants to make it easy for customers to engage them at any point on their site.  As such, they make access to live chat a simple text link, place it high on their page, and place it on every page. It’s hard not for us to like this idea because it’s what we do on BoldChat.com.

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Situation #3: To maintain a consistent brand experience: When you manage a powerful and respected brand, you want live chat to be an extension of that brand.  Live chat can create a deep connection with customers and prospects so it’s important to encapsulate that connection with a consistent look and feel.  Corel clearly understands this as their chat button is exceptionally loyal to the visual tenants of their brand.

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Situation #4: To specify hours of chat availability: Even if your agents aren’t available, a customized chat button can act as an advertisement, encouraging visitors to return when chat is back online.  Cosmetics company e.l.f. offers live consultations with professional make-up artists during the hours of 10-5.  Their chat button is prominently displayed and informative.

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Using proprietary research from Bold Software, eMarketer found live chat “very helpful” for e-commerce sites. In fact, live chat was the preferred customer service option for questions about order status, promotions, shipping or cheaper services, the article said.

Live chat is valuable for “inducing shoppers to make a purchase and getting those purchasers to return to the site,” eMarketer noted.

There’s an even bigger upside, the article said: the fact that people who engage in chat return to shop is “a particularly important point during the recession, when customer retention is crucial.”

The article also included research that indicates some browsers prefer phone contact for certain types of customer service, especially when it comes to very complicated transactions. We agree. That’s why we created BoldCall Express specifically for these types of calls. We’ve found that real estate agents, doctors and lawyers are succeeding with click-to-call.

Want the full scoop? Read eMarketer’s live chat article here.

Download the most recent research on live chat effectiveness here.

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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