May 2, 2023

5 Ways to Cultivate Loyal Customers Through Live Chat

You’ve finalised the marketing campaign, the budgets, the strategies and even the Tiktok account that keeps you trendy while luring in new customers, but one thing remains the same, you’re competing with thousands of businesses for the attention of the same customers. 

How do you keep customers tuned in? How do you convert prospects that interact with your business into paying customers – and more importantly, customers that stick with you for a lifetime? While there are several channels and tools that you can use, we have just one recommendation – maximise your live chat app.

Live chat is a powerful tool that can help you transform your business and engage with customers in real-time. It can be a game changer by providing immediate assistance, improving customer satisfaction and building brand loyalty for your business.

It’s hard to keep up, especially with companies that have larger teams, a bigger marketing spend, or a huge fanbase on social media. Don’t throw in the towel just yet, let’s show you how you can maximise your business and cultivate loyal customers through live chat. 

Personalize, Personalize, Personalize. 

The market is saturated with marketing tools and channels that can help anyone drive retention for their business goals but in today’s world, that isn’t just enough. 

Customers have caught on to the many tactics that a lot of businesses use in marketing. Some of these tactics might be outdated or simply unsuitable for the current generation of purchasers.  

Your customers want to feel special when interacting with your business or service. They don’t want to receive unthoughtful, mundane marketing messages or promotions. They’re looking for helpful, well-thought-out assistance when interacting with your business on live chat. 

In fact, 60% of consumers say they’ll become repeat customers after a personalized shopping experience. This shows just how important personalization is, not only for them but also for your business.

According to McKinsey, companies that get personalization right have the potential to generate 40% more revenue…which is good news for marketers and business owners. 

Use your live chat interactions to personalize offers and target recommendations based on a customer’s existing profile. 

For example, if a customer has previously purchased a specific product, you can use that information to offer related products or promotions. Personalization helps to create a more positive customer experience and can ultimately lead to increased loyalty.

Resolve Issues Quickly

Nothing upsets a customer more and drives them farther away from a business than a negative experience. They are more likely to tweet, post or tell their friends and followers about it than if they had a positive experience. 

One such way to avoid this and create loyal customers is to provide excellent customer service in live chat. Hubspot research even shows that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service.

Use live chat as a channel for providing quick and effective resolutions to customers. Answer their questions and provide assistance with the issues that they’re experiencing. Handle frustrated customers carefully and professionally by providing useful, actionable solutions to their issues. 

Train your agents to be professional, empathetic, think quickly and provide assistance as quickly as possible.  By doing this, you can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty for your business.  

Train Chat Agents

Untrained or improperly trained chat agents can have a direct impact on your customer satisfaction and loyalty even if training them might not be considered as a direct customer retention move. 

Chat agents are responsible for communicating the purpose and essence of your brand with customers and prospects. Ensuring that they have the right information, attitude, language, and dedication to your prospects will go a long way in promoting customer satisfaction and ultimately, loyalty. 

Offer training sessions on best practices for customer service teams. These sessions should focus on the technical aspects of the job as well as the values that your business aims to deliver. 

Your agents should be professional yet empathetic towards the needs of their customers. Streamline the flow of accurate information to prevent mistakes that can cause customer dissatisfaction. Use FAQs, canned responses and a knowledge base as a repository for storing and updating relevant information. 

Be Proactive in Live Chat

A great benefit of live chat is that it promotes synchronous communication – a fancy word for describing the exchange of communication between two or more people in real-time. 

This means that customer service and sales teams can proactively reach out to customers to offer assistance or provide recommendations based on their browsing history and the different stages of their buyer’s journey.

Here are some use cases for being proactive with live chat:

• Use a chatbot to send welcome messages or discounts to new customers who may be browsing for the first time. 
• Send targeted messages to returning customers based on their browsing history. You can recommend products or grant special offers based on the frequency of their visits to pages that they have interacted with in the past. 

A great tip for being proactive in live chat is to consider the customer’s level of interest at the time. Are they simply interacting with your brand for the first time or have they reached a point of interest and decision in their customer’s journey? 

Your answers to these questions will determine your strategy for being proactive. As a pro tip, set up proactive messages with triggers that go off at the right time. Keep your messages short and simple. Use a chatbot to send automated messages and hand them over to a live chat agent if their issue is still unresolved. 

Use Customer Feedback

Companies that are focused on growing value customer feedback. It’s a telling that points to both the good and bad. It provides room for improvement and changes in different areas of business. It is so important that 98% of buyers read online reviews before making a purchase decision.

While feedback can be sourced from various channels, including social media and surveys, live chat provides an opportunity for businesses to collect valuable customer feedback. 

Customers are already interacting within the chat boxes, letting them know their frustrations, concerns, questions and issues. You can learn about a customer’s pain points, analyze the information and direct attention to problem areas that need improvement. This can positively improve your customer’s experience in the long term and also create a more positive relationship which leads to increased loyalty. 

Quick Response Time

Customers typically reach out to businesses when they have questions, and they want those questions answered quickly. People have grown more impatient and are less likely to wait around due to the ‘on-demand culture’ that technology has fostered in recent yeras.

71% of customers expect companies to communicate with them in real-time – meaning that the decision and purchase-making process is hinged on a company’s response time. Slower response times can cause customers to abandon a brand for a competitor or leave a scathing remark on social media. 

Customer loyalty is built on satisfaction and trust which are ultimately developed through customer interactions. The fastest way to kill a customer’s interest in by slow or inadequate response. On the other hand, if you want to boost customer loyalty, focus on attending to their needs and issues as quickly as possible.

Offering special promotions through live chat

Customers like to feel special and more importantly love a good deal. If you want to easily impress your customers in live chat, offer them exclusive deals and promotions during their interactions. 

For example, if you run a clothing store and a customer has purchased spring outfits in preparation for summer and has some questions, you can offer them exclusive deals on related items. This in turn improves your sales and revenue.

Conclusion

Live chat is indeed a powerful tool for communicating with customers, but when combined with the strategies mentioned above, it can be a great conversion tool for building relationships and creating customer loyalty. 

Don’t just read up, take action and implement these tips in your customer service growth strategy. Personalize customer interactions, offer special promotions, train your agents, be proactive and use customer feedback to improve your business.