Live chat implementation isn’t entirely foolproof.  As Matt mentioned, offering mediocre live chat is better than not offering live chat at all.  But if you can avoid the following live chat no-nos, you’ll be on your way to better chats, better leads, better support and better sales.

1. Hiding the chat button. It may seem logical to put your chat button on your website’s “Contact Us” page, but if your visitors don’t realize you offer live chat, will they know to look there?  Probably not.  The key is to place the chat button in a consistent place on your website (like the header) and make it easy for visitors to find.
   
2. Assuming no one is clicking on your chat button. It happens all the time. You decide to offer live chat to your visitors and you place the chat button on your website and then… *crickets*. Take advantage of BoldChat’s reporting tools to find out when visitors are clicking on your chat button and from which URLs. Maybe your website gets more traffic at 4 am than you initially thought.
3. Not customizing the chat window to reflect your brand. With BoldChat, your chat window can be completely customized – from the colors to fonts to the logo and the messages displayed. Matching your chat window to the rest of your website makes your live chat implementation seem even more cohesive and visitors won’t think they’re being redirected to a different website when clicking the chat button.
4. Rarely making yourself available to chat. You know how some local businesses have inconsistent business hours? Maybe your neighborhood coffee shop is supposed to stay open until 8 pm, but if it’s a slow day, they might close early. And inevitably, that’s when you show up at 7:30 hoping for a latte only to be met with the CLOSED sign. You’re probably less likely to visit the shop again when you know the Starbucks down the street is open until 9 pm – no matter what. Well, live chat is like that too. If you offer live chat on your website, but are rarely available to take chats, your visitors will eventually stop trying to chat with you. Did you know you can download the BoldChat client application on as many different computers as you’d like? If you need to install it on every computer in the office to ensure that someone is available for your visitors, you’ll probably notice more chats and more chats can lead to more conversions.
5. Having unrealistic expectations. Offering live chat to your visitors gives you more opportunities to engage them. It’s another touch point that can lead to a sale or increase customer satisfaction. But offering live chat won’t drive traffic to your website and the chats won’t answer themselves (see number four). If you feel like you should be having more chats or seeing more results than you are, let us know. Our professional services team can work with you to make sure you’re getting the most out of your live chat implementation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Live Chat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.