When it comes to your website, accessibility and in intuitive navigation is key to a better user experience. Nowadays live chat is being considered part of the broader user experience (UX) plan meant to connect more closely with users on your website for better quality service.

User experience or UX has many different components and depths across different industries, but to put it simply: UX = how effectively a user interacts with a website when looking for information. The easier it is for users to navigate through your website the more satisfied they’ll be, leading to better converstions.

If we take a look at a recent survey from Statista Research Department covering global customer satisfaction with live chat from 2015 to 2019, 83% of respondents reported being satisfied with their experience. Knowing this and the potential return on success, a question you might be asking is: how can you leverage live chat and improve the overall experience of visitors and repeat customers on your website?

Make the Live Chat Convenient and Immediate

There are millions of websites online competing against each other for users making it that much more important to serve them efficiently. Customers’ expectations for quality service is rising with a recent survey from HubSpot Research reporting that 90% of customers expect an immediate response from a business and mark it as important or very important to them. Pair that with the 38% of users that will stop engaging with a website if they find it unappealing, and suddenly UX feels that much more important for your website especially if you want to maintain a good customer relationship.

Within a few seconds of landing on your website, most people will be forming opinions very quickly about the design, functionality, and value of the information. This is where live chat comes in as it is known to improve user’s opinion right away if implemented correctly. Several factors are considered to optimize live chat for speed and convenience on your website such as:

• Prompt response time for every visitor
• Simple chat box layout that is aesthetically pleasing and familiar to all users (similar colors or styles of favorite apps)
• Chat agents that are ready with answers to FAQS
• Making the chat box “call to action” button available on every page

It takes a bit of tweaking to find the right fit for your website, but convenience and speed are some of the most important factors when implementing a successful live chat.

Real, Live Humans, Ready to Help

Technology is continuing to advance and becoming more integral to our lives especially in the business, agricultural, and construction industries. Though bots can be extremely useful, users don’t always like them even if they have come to expect them on more and more websites.

For most websites, chat is an opportunity to bring a human touch to your visitors. Users who are less tech-savvy will be grateful for these live chat features especially when there are well-trained chat agents ready to improve UX by:

• Welcoming visitors soon after they’ve arrived on the website
• Using natural language customized for your business and customers
• Working from talking points, not scripts
• Sending personalized follow-up emails for better retention

The chances are that most people on your website won’t need a chat agent every time they land on your website. For the times that they do, especially new users, it’s important to provide the best quality customer service as a first-impression and no one does it better than a real live chat agent that knows your business and users.

Create Mutual Benefits with Live Chat Data

The best user experience is always data-driven. Examining customer feedback and webpage analytics should determine any changes you make, and ultimately be tied to results. Live chat offers a unique way to collect and employ data from customers landing and interacting with your website. And with more customers comes bigger expectations. In fact, according to the 2017 State of Global Customer Service Report, 2/3 of customers expect business to know about them and their purchase history when they reach out for customer support.

This may all sound like a lot, but live chat makes connecting with your customers easier by having agents at the helm, personalizing every interaction. This could be as small as knowing their time-zone or any neighboring cities. Chat transcripts also help gather data that can directly identify UX successes and challenges on your site directly from your users and visitors.

Different Needs for Different Users

Even some of the best websites that are perfectly designed with all the right features will work differently for every person who visits. Some will love it and others might struggle finding their way through.

According to UX Planet, different age groups have different UX expectations and challenges, such as visibility, simplicity, and directness. Live chat is an opportunity to show people what’s available on the website and help guide your users to the right information, especially if they’re struggling to find their way round your site.

Live chat is also a great opportunity to support diverse groups of customers and potential customers, by helping them as soon as they land on your site. Some effective forms of supporting customers include:

• Guiding users to low-tech, self-service solutions
• Offering to continue conversations in different formats (such as phone or email)
• Managing expectations for service and products
• Multilingual support.

The more prepared your live chat agents are for a variety of customers, the more capable they will be to handle any requests or issues that come up for your users. The right live chat can be the difference between more conversions and customers that end up leaving your website in frustration!

In a growing world where websites are just as important to your success as the front door to your business,

utilizing live chat can provide many benefits to user experience. From providing better service to visitors as soon as they land on the homepage for faster solutions and requested information. They can also be helpful in the mere fact that users want to be talking to a person that understands them and maybe knows the questions they’re going to ask before they ask them. This is often useful for returning customers or frequent users. This is where data can be gathered to begin making an online data profile that is personalized for every customer to ensure that every user on the site is getting all their needs met in an efficient time and manner. All in all, live chat has been shown to be very successful with a positive improvement in UX for customers and business as a mutually beneficial relationship.

To learn more about live chat and how you can better optimize your website, download our ebook: The Rise of Web Chat to get the full scoop.