Secondly (and most importantly), live chat doesn\u2019t give sales reps much room for dwelling. Once you\u2019ve committed to it, walk the walk and talk the talk. Keep the conversation going, answer immediately, be fast and to the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, at the end of the day, there\u2019s nothing better than live chat for inbound lead generation<\/a>. I mean, those people are already on your website, they\u2019re already on the consideration or decision stage of their journey. Incorporate the following 8 techniques and live chat will become your top sales channel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n When having questions or facing difficulties, some people will immediately contact your sales team via live chat and get them answered. But, let\u2019s be honest, many website visitors need a little nudge to start a conversation. There\u2019s a solution, though, and it\u2019s called proactive chat messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Proactive chat messages are a great way to let everyone know that you have a live chat and it\u2019s available at the moment. If a person has a question, your team is ready to lend a helping hand right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use as many proactive chat messages as you wish. You can even go as far as setting separate messages for each page of your website for better targeting (just make sure you don\u2019t bombard every person with all of them). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Write contextual messages, choose corresponding chat triggers<\/a> and you\u2019re good to go. By engaging visitors proactively, your sales team will be able to capture more hesitating prospects on autopilot.<\/p>\n\n\n On top of automated chat messages, some live chat tools offer live visitor monitoring<\/a>. This way, your salespeople can monitor who\u2019s viewing your website at the moment and engage every likely prospect manually. It takes more work and the chances to miss on many lead opportunities are high, but visitors will appreciate your personalized approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask anyone \u2014 what is one single most important piece of information that every salesperson wants to know about their leads? Is it the size of their company? Their goals and pain points? Sure, those are all very important things for lead pre-qualifying and picking the ultimate solution for every lead. But, you won\u2019t get much use of them unless you have a prospect’s email address. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if you use live chat for sales, you need prospects\u2019 email addresses for following-up and keeping in touch. The longer your sales cycle is, the more important email addresses are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, live chat tools understand the importance perfectly and offer vast functionality for collecting leads\u2019 contact info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For instance, you can enhance your live chat with different chat forms. This way, every visitor who wants to start a conversation with your team will have to fill in their contact information before. You can choose which information you want to get \u2014 e.g. name, email address, phone number, company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, you can take your sales game to the next level and incorporate a chatbot into the lead pre-qualifying process. Basically, chatbots are doing the same thing as chat forms but in a more casual way. They imitate human conversations by asking all the pre-qualification questions about prospects\u2019 businesses, needs and goals right in a chat window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it more engaging and natural? Sure, but be careful with this. If someone wants to talk to a real person immediately, they can get easily frustrated with automated useless responses from a chatbot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which brings us to the golden rule of using live chat for sales\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n No matter the communication channel, the worst enemy of every salesperson is staying cold and indifferent. You won\u2019t be able to sell a thing unless you know your leads\u2019 pain points and genuinely want to help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People are more likely to trust<\/a> a salesperson if they feel the commitment. However, it\u2019s easy to sound robotic and untouched in a live chat conversation. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to add a few \u201chuman\u201d touches to your live chat persona. At the very least, you should upload real agent avatars and show who\u2019s currently online and available to chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, live chat representatives shouldn\u2019t be afraid to add their wonderful personalities to their work \u2014 use informal phrases, emojis, gifs. These things will help people feel that they\u2019re talking to a real person. Even typos can sometimes add a nice human touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another important factor in building emotional connections with prospects is personalization. From the first proactive chat message to the last email follow-up, everything should be personalized for each particular person. Use names, ask friendly questions, even switch to a person\u2019s native language if possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you get information like this? Well, it is easily accessible in almost any live chat tool<\/a>. Once a person initiates a conversation, you\u2019ll instantly have their data like a browser language, time zone, device and latest actions they\u2019ve performed on your website.<\/p>\n\n\n As I\u2019ve mentioned shortly before, live chat requires an immediate reaction from salespeople. So, if you want to use live chat for sales to its fullest potential, you should start with optimizing your first response time and the average resolution time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Live chat implies real-time communication just as much as good old phone calls. 79%<\/a> of those who prefer a live chat for getting in touch with businesses say that they love it so much because it\u2019s fast. Immediate, even.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, don\u2019t get intimidated by these high expectations. It\u2019s also in your best interest to react upon prospects\u2019 questions while they\u2019re still on your website actively looking for a solution. Once they leave, it will be way harder to prospect and sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moreover, one live chat representative can handle 4-5 chats simultaneously, unlike phone operators which have to concentrate on one person at a time. Numerous add-ons can help salespeople be more productive while chatting \u2014 e.g. canned responses, FAQ integration, customer data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And talking about those enhancements\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest advantage of using live chat for sales is that you have everything you need at your fingertips at any given moment. You can use any materials, pages, and tools like canned responses\/sales chat script<\/a> to provide a seamless experience to every visitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prospects want to read more about your features? Well, our knowledge base tells all about them and here\u2019s the corresponding landing page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re more interested in a live demo? Here\u2019s the link to our Calendly, just pick a date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not sure how our product will help you? We\u2019ve got you covered, just read a couple of our use cases and maybe a few more blog posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, make sure you prepare the following materials and tools if you want to use live chat for selling effectively. Just chatting is great, but not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Say what you will, but I believe that selling should be everybody\u2019s job. Even more so if you work in customer support and interact with customers directly every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the very least, customer support representatives are the best people to upsell or cross-sell to your existing customers. They talk to them every day and know their pains and goals more than anyone else at the company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if ALL your live chat agents are well trained in sales art, they can easily offer additional services and goods on the go. The best thing about this is that they\u2019re going to sell things that customers will benefit from \u2014 <\/strong>and you\u2019re going to get more upsells\/cross-sells without even trying. Everybody wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, how does one achieve the desired synergy between support and sales teams? Establishing seamless communication between all departments should be the first step. Additionally, you can arrange collaborative training for support and sales reps, where you set some roleplay scenario<\/a> and they resolve it together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All in all, live chat can be a powerful sales channel for initial lead pre-qualification. Sales representatives can answer customer questions about features, pricing tiers and define goals and challenges. But, it\u2019s only going to close you more deals if integrated well into the entire sales process, which should include other channels as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The golden rule of every live chat conversation should be collecting prospects\u2019 email addresses. No matter how you do it \u2014 via chatbots or by asking directly \u2014 you should end up with a database of high-quality prospects that you can send follow-ups to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Email follow-ups are where sales representatives close deals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can always find a reason to drop a message to your prospects. Just make it a point to ask if they won\u2019t mind receiving a quick follow-up. This way, you\u2019ll make sure you don\u2019t irritate them and follow all the privacy and GDPR rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n Utilizing live chat for sales brings endless benefits to any business. It shortens<\/a> a sales cycle, increases<\/a> sales and conversion rates, and improves<\/a> customer satisfaction. But all these wonderful things will only happen if you manage to answer fast, be proactive, and use a personalized approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An all-in-one customer communication tool also plays a crucial role in establishing an effective sales process and collaboration between departments. When all customer requests land into a unified dashboard, every team member can check any ticket, assign and re-assign it, tag other teammates, and leave private notes inside. Choose software like HelpCrunch<\/a> and you\u2019ll be able to automate numerous sales tasks right away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Generate prospects proactively<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"proactive](\"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/proactive-message-live-chat-landing-page.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n2. Pre-qualify prospects with chat forms and chatbots<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/HelpCrunch-pre-chat-form-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n3. Be human<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Shared](\"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Shared-inbox.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n4. Be short and fast <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
5. Have necessary materials at your fingertips <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"knowledge](\"https:\/\/helpcrunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/knowledge-base-landing-with-kb-widget.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n6. Train your customer support to sell<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. Use emails for following up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
Conclusion:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n