For months now, the economy has challenged businesses of all sizes to pull out every cliché they can muster. It seems every marketing department is chasing “low-hanging fruit” while business development professionals are busy with “synergistic win-win relationships.”

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.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal pointed to live chat technology as one of the “Three Best Ways to Convert Web Traffic into Sales.” (read it)  The article discussed a few tools to help businesses capture and accelerate the pace with which visitors moved through the sales cycle.

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.

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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.

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