Live chat helps convert browsers into repeat online buyers, according to an article published today in eMarketer, a leading technology research website.

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.

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With our recent research report on the effectiveness of live chat, we paid special attention to the survey respondent’s feedback from about proactive chat. We learned that consumers with the highest likelihood to make an online purchase are also the most likely to accept a proactive chat invitation.  But as Bold Software’s Director of Sales, I find that when I talk to business decision makers at B2C companies, they widely believe that proactive chat will scare away customers.

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.

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We’ve recently made some changes to our corporate branding, product naming, and available features that we’d like to share with both our existing and prospective customers.  Before we jump in to the individual changes, it will be helpful to explain why we made them in the first place.  There are several reasons, though two come to the fore.

First, despite the economy that surrounds us, we’re growing.  And, as we continue to grow, continue to win business from large preeminent brands, and continue to be relied on by media and analysts as experts in our field, we needed to establish a corporate presence beyond the brand names of the products we sell. Though many know us as “BoldChat”, that is simply one of the brands we manage.

Secondly, our growth has been fueled by two types of customers – small to mid-sized entrepreneurial businesses and significant enterprise engagements.  As such, the feature sets each of these customers require has changed over time.  We needed to react and build offerings appropriate for each.

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There are over 235 million websites out there according to a recent survey, and the vast majority of them are not e-commerce sites. While it seems that everyone everywhere is trying to sell us something at every turn, the fact is that most sites are simply informational. You will soon see that this blog post is both informational, and a huge sales pitch – really, I’m not kidding.

For small businesses like real estate agents, insurance brokers, doctors, lawyers, and independent website designers, the following things are likely true:

1. They have websites.
2. The websites are important, but what really closes deals is talking to someone.
3. It’s very likely that most people visit the website before deciding to talk to someone.

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In a recent Internet Retailer story, BoldChat’s Director of Sales, Matt Tharp, gave five suggestions for improving and personalizing your live chat offering.

Here are the highlights:

1. Add operator photos to your proactive chat invitations. 
2. Greet your visitors warmly. 
3. Design the chat window to compliment your website. 
4. Make the chat window a managable size. 
5. Make the chat button easy to find. 

How quickly do you respond to sales inquiries that arrive via email? How about support issues? Stop for a minute and really think about your answer to these questions. Can you quantify them? If phrases like, “pretty fast” and “we’re not so bad” are the best you can do, then you’re like most companies.

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.

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In certain marketing circles it’s considered sacrilege to use your competitor’s name in your own communications. “Why use your money to promote their brand” – or so the thinking goes. While I admit it’s not terrible advice, it’s not always the right advice either. There are certain situations when explicit mentions of direct competitors are not only appropriate, but encouraged.

When the industry in which you compete has not yet ‘gone mainstream’, a decent portion of your marketing effort is needed for education. This is true, in fact, for all the players in the space. In burgeoning markets then, a chunk of the collective marketing executed by all the competitors is being used for ‘category building.’ While marketing-types would like to use 100% of their budgets for brand building, it’s simply not possible until there is a robust market from which competitors can carve out a lasting position.

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Are you on Twitter?

Oprah is. President Barack Obama is. Martha Stewart is. Same with Shaquille O’Neal and John Mayer. Zappos.com CEO, Tony Hseih, entrepreneur Mark Cuban and AOL co-founder, Steve Case are all tweeting away too… and that’s barely scratching the surface of the popular microblogging service’s users.

But Twitter isn’t just for the rich, famous and successful. There are 6 million users currently signed up with the service and, according to predictions by eMarketer, that number could double by the end of 2009.

Twitter is also not just for individuals. More and more businesses are tweeting, to varying degrees of success. Should your business jump on the Twitter bandwagon? Signing up for an account may seem simple enough (it’s easy and free), but the question I often hear is “then what?”

Here are a few tips for navigating the Twitter landscape as a business:

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Here’s the link. Go ahead – click it. I know you want to. C’mon – click it.

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.

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To understand why offering whitepapers as part of a Pay-per-Click strategy works, you’ll have to get inside Google’s head. Scary thought, I know, but surprisingly easy to do.

The first line on Google’s corporate site is: “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Why do people use Google? The question is perhaps pedantic (though amusingly alliterative), it is important not to lose sight of the answer; people use Google to find things. Most often, they are looking for information –as Google themselves states. As such, offering Whitepapers front and center as part of your Google ads seems to fit in with the very philosophy of search – providing information and making it accessible.

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