47% of consumers are more likely to make an online purchase if there’s a chance to speak to someone live on the website. These conversational selling techniques will help you reap the benefits of live chat to their full ability.
The numbers don’t lie. Within the travel industry, 79% of businesses have seen an uptick in revenue after implementing live chat capabilities on their website.
And as for ecommerce, the results are equally exciting. When customers engage in live chat, they convert at a rate of 40% and their average order increases by 10%. Wow!
This is all really great. But there’s a big problem. While 42% of consumers prefer live chat over any other channel for communicating with a business only 9% of websites feature live chat.
If you’re not yet set up with live chat you can get set up for free with GoSquared Assistant and start implementing all these ideas straight away.
What can Live Chat do for you?
So why is there a gap between how many customers want live chat and how many companies offer it? That’s likely because small businesses are concerned that they won’t be able to support it.
Maybe you’ve been asking these questions…
- How can you manage live chat?
- How can you master conversational selling?
- How can you be available all the time?
- How can you increase conversions, not harm them?
For small marketing and sales teams, this all seems impossible, so they give up. But you can (and should) install live chat and practice conversational selling.
Try these conversational selling techniques to improve your website conversions and customer service.
1. Ask simple, polite questions
When starting a conversation with a website visitor using live chat, you should keep your questions as simple as possible.
Here are some examples of questions you might ask:
- Do you have any questions about our pricing?
- Do you need help choosing which subscription is right for you?
- Darn! The product you’re viewing is sold out. Would you like to join the waitlist for this item?
- Have you seen our brand new line of casual dresses?
Each of these examples is very simple and friendly. Nothing too complicated. At the same time, none of these questions is vague.
Let’s learn more about why you shouldn’t be vague…
2. Ask binary questions (not open-ended) when you can
Questions that are very open-ended tend to get unenthusiastic responses. Questions like “How can I help you?” and “Do you need help with anything?” are not likely to prompt engaging conversations, unless the website visitor really does need help with something urgent.
You can engage your website visitors at higher rates by asking questions that have just two potential response, such as yes or no.
The benefit of asking binary questions is that you get more responses, which prompts more (and better) conversations, which leads to higher revenue, as demonstrated in the awesome statistics above.
Here are some examples of binary questions you can ask to start a live chat session on your website:
- Would you like to watch our new free course on Instagram marketing?
- Are you an in-house marketer or a consultant?
- Do you want help picking the right size?
- Collect feedback on a page or product that just launched
- Help people make purchasing decisions on pages that represent a high likelihood to buy
- Direct traffic to an opt-in that will grow your email list
- Direct traffic to a hot, timely promotion
With each of these questions (and some of the examples in the previous section), there are only two potential responses. Typically: yes or no.
This is a far better way to initiate a conversation than asking “How are you doing today?”
3. Setup chat prompts sparingly
A chat prompt automatically pops up and asks the website visitor a question. Chat prompts are a double-edged sword. They can be very helpful or very annoying.
There doesn’t need to be a separate chat prompt for each and every page of your website. Nor should you assume that you need one and put one on your home page because you see other companies doing it.
Chat prompts should be used strategically:
You can switch up your chat prompts and use them temporarily. Remember: you’re not married to them!
4. Never pop up too soon
Just like you shouldn’t have chat prompts everywhere, all over your site, you also shouldn’t setup chat prompts that pop up the moment your website visitor lands on a page.
If they’ve been on product or pricing page for longer than 30 or 40 seconds, that means it’s more likely that they have a question and need help.
If your chat prompt shows up the moment they land, then you’re interrupting their experience and not even giving them the opportunity to form questions in their mind.
5. Deliver relevant messages and responses
Whether in a chat prompt, at the start of a newly initiated 1:1 conversation, or in a response, you should make your chat messages as relevant as possible.
For example, on a new product page, a chat prompt might appear after the user has been on the site for 20 seconds, and it might say something like, “We’re glad you’re checking out our new backpack style! Which colour option is your favourite?” This question starts a conversation in a positive way while also collecting feedback.
Most importantly, this question is highly relevant to the page that the website visitor is on.
Next up, we’ve got several more tips that help you personalize your conversational selling techniques.
6. Share notes with team members
If you engage in customer service and sales alongside other team members, then you all need to be on the same page. A website visitor might ask a question and then leave and then come back the next day. They might request a refund, receive an answer that they’re not eligible for a refund, and then ask for a refund again a week later.
Use a live chat tool that makes it easy to leave notes for your team members.
7. Review website visitor behaviour across your site
Another way to make your chat conversations highly relevant is to see what actions website visitors have taken across your site.
With GoSquared’s Live Chat, you can review what pages the person has looked at recently, and for how long.
You can use this information to know how to tailor your responses. For someone who has read multiple pieces of content, you may not need to explain your solution or product as much as you would for someone who has visited just one page of your website. Knowing how much interaction the person has had with your site is enormously powerful.
8. See where previous conversations left off
When collaborating with your team, sharing notes on certain customers is super important. Take that one step further and review where previous conversations left off. This way, you can jump right back into the conversation. For the customer, this makes the live chat experience really smooth.
9. Know who you’re speaking with
Sometimes, customers chatting with you on your website will remain anonymous. But other times (when using the right GDPR-compliant tool), you’ll be able to see their social media profiles and company information. For B2B sales, this can help you know how to direct the conversation.
If the company is within your target market, you might want to discuss their needs and move towards booking a demo. If not, you might point them towards signing up for your email list or signing up for a lower-price offer, if you have one.
10. Focus on the customers’ needs, not “the sale”
Salespeople know that sales is all about understanding someone’s needs, diagnosing their problems, and seeing how you can help. Whether they’re buying software, a car, or lipstick it doesn’t matter. Sales requires making a genuine connection and accurately diagnosing the need or desire to suggest the right product or service.
However, the team members managing your website’s live chat may not be expert sellers. Help them understand that sales doesn’t mean being pushy. They just need to ask questions, gather information, and help customers make informed decisions on their own. Forcing customers into a decision is a no-no.
11. Set up an away message that collects email addresses
Your team doesn’t have to be logged in and ready to chat 24/7. You can set up an away message outside of normal business hours that prompts people to ask their questions and leave their email address to get a response. This way, website visitors get the ease of the live chat experience (no filling out forms, no writing emails), and you don’t have to man the ship at all hours.
12. When you’re online, respond quickly
Maybe this goes without saying, but we’re saying it anyway! You don’t have to man your live chat 24/7.
But when you ARE live and active, you should respond to customers as quickly as possible. You don’t need to be logged into your live chat platform all day however, you can set up Slack notifications so you get pinged when it’s time to respond to someone. Once you respond, be ready to respond again until it’s clear that the person has left the chat conversation.
We hope these conversational selling techniques help you master the art of chatting with your customers online! Learn more about our Live Chat tool where you can get started for free!
