We live in a digital world, where people are more and more reluctant to pick up the phone, especially when it comes to customer service.

It makes sense, right? If you encounter an issue whilst engaging with a business online, you should be able to contact them online, why should it be necessary to make a phone call? Surely you should be able to have your issue resolved right then and there.

Creating positive customer service experiences online is all about convenience and efficient problem solving, and online chat offers customers both of those things. At the end of the day, if you want your business to succeed, you need to give your customers what they want, and what customers want is online chat.

Online Chat is Popular

The single biggest mistake a business can make, is not listening to their customers. You’ve heard the customer is always right a million times before, I’m sure. While that sentiment is true, it’s more important to realise that what the customer wants, you should be offering.

More and more businesses are integrating online chat into their customer service experience, with truly overwhelming success. A recent survey by Happy Fox offers some unavoidable statistics:

online-chat-stats_1

Successful customer service is about listening to what your customers want, following trends, and evolving your business model to suit customer desires. You have to make sure your business stays relevant, and there’s nothing more relevant in online customer service at the moment than online chat.

Online Chat Makes Money

Making online purchases can often be the source of severe frustration — multiple checkout pages, unclear product details, misleading or inaccurate information. It’s impossible to replicate the level of confidence that in-store shopping provides online. Customers are always going to have questions and concerns when dealing in a digital space, so your ability to quickly and efficiently resolve these issues is the difference between securing a sale or not.

online-chat-stats_2

Online Chat Retains Customers

Customer retention is crucial for any business. The more you can do to resolve customer complaints successfully, the better.

online-chat-stats_3

Online Chat Saves Time

Consumers are greedy. We want everything cheaper, bigger, stronger, and more durable. Most importantly, however, we want things fast. This couldn’t be more relevant than when it comes to solving problems or dealing with online complaints. Fortunately, online chat is the solution:

online-chat-stats_4

There’s an immediacy to online chat that is almost impossible to replicate anywhere else. If a customer is forced to make a phone call and subsequently hold the line while their problem is resolved, there’s massive potential for that customer to become frustrated and abandon their purchase altogether.