Turning window shoppers into loyal customers is the e-commerce dream. To realize it, however, you’ll need to really put yourself out there. Usually, that means getting noticed through SEO or social media outreach. However, the need to communicate doesn’t stop once buyers find your website. That’s where live chat for WooCommerce comes in handy.
Like many other things, integrating live support and communication in WooCommerce is fairly straightforward. You’ll need the right plugin, as well as a plan for interacting with customers. Let’s start by discussing why this approach has remained a favourite for CRM-savvy businesses.
WordPress Live Chat: An Intuitive Solution
In many ways, online shopping has indeed simplified convenient buying. And yet, e-commerce websites enjoy still fewer conversions than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. That’s often because a virtual storefront lacks the all-important human element of interacting with a staff.
For many buyers, especially first-timers, a guiding presence can make for a reassuring shopping experience. Having someone offer guidance or assistance if you’re having any issues also proves useful.
Perhaps you need to ask for some product details. Or maybe you want someone to direct you to help or policy pages. If so, a WooCommerce live chat is a simple yet innovative and versatile solution.
For shoppers craving instant gratification and a frictionless buying experience, all it takes is one click. This feature offers a sense of connection and trust that the average online shopping experience fails to deliver.
How Live Chat Benefits WordPress Businesses
Aside from serving your audience, a live communication feature actively helps your business. The following are some key advantages highlighting this value proposition.
Improved Conversion Rates
A WordPress live chat function lets you address checkout roadblocks and other issues in real time. You can respond immediately to distressed buyers or offer tips for a better experience. This helps them complete their purchases faster, which benefits you in the long run as well.
Fighting Cart Abandonment
Buyers often feel unsure or overwhelmed at checkout, leading to abandoned purchases. Often, it stems from confusion regarding shipping or hidden costs. A brief chat with a staff member or outreach specialist can quickly alleviate these problems.
Superior Customer Experience
Sometimes, online buyers just prefer a sense that someone is out there looking for them. WooCommerce live chat offers a sense of tailored service that might be absent from email support. This helps fulfil requests and inquiries much more quickly. Thus, your buyers will be impressed enough to make return purchases and recommend your business to others.
Useful Insights
As it happens, a form isn’t as effective in getting information as talking to a real store worker. In getting to know your audience, you might find out pain points, product preferences, and feedback. This intel allows you to refine your offerings and leverage personalized marketing and outreach strategies.
Enabling Live Chat in WooCommerce: Step-by-Step
Using a WordPress live chat plugin is your best bet for being able to reach out to your customers. There are many excellent picks available.
One of them is HubSpot, which is a versatile, all-inclusive CRM solution for WooCommerce stores. Its live chat features include automated 24/7 support, Slack integration, various chatbots, and more. It also has a phone app which allows you to respond to chat requests on the go.
Plus, these features are available for free and are easy to avail. For now, we’ll be looking at enabling a basic live chatbot feature. Download and install the plugin before activating it. After that, just go as follows.
Step 1: Getting Started
- Navigate to the HubSpot CRM plugin through your WooCommerce admin panel.
- Through Hubspot > Live Chat, Enable the chatbot by clicking on Create chatflow.
Step 2: Set Up Chat
- In Display, set a preferred background colour for your chatbot pop up.
- After that, click Next. Under Chatflow, customize the name, team designation, and image for the chatbot.
- Add a custom welcome message for greeting your customers.
- Next, set chatbot availability. You can enable 24/7 availability or set it up during working hours for convenience.
Step 3: Finalize
- Finally, Preview your chatbot for device-wide availability.
- Click Publish to enable the live chat in WordPress.
Best Practices for WordPress Live Chat
Here are some tips that can help you make the most of live chat in WordPress.
Preemptive Chat Invitation
Feel free to initiate first contact through a personalized or automated chat pop-up. This way, sites with moderate or high traffic can reach out to newcomers or lingering site visitors. Just make sure that it’s easy to opt out of and doesn’t affect the browsing experience, especially on mobiles.
Set A Window Of Availability
24/7 chat isn’t always a practical option for business owners. So, consider allotting and displaying the hours where you’re available for contact. During unavailability, you can send a message saying “We’ll be with you shortly” or something similar.
If you’re going forward with the 24/7 option, consider a chatbot or AI assistant for basic help. This helps address customer concerns while managing their expectations at the same time.
Don’t Keep Them Waiting
Try responding to live messages or chat requests as soon as possible. Ideally, the customer shouldn’t have to wait longer than 30 seconds. However, sometimes time constraints or the sheer volume or nature of requests might not make that possible.
In that case, add an expected response time to the pop-up. This can be up to a few minutes. Still, longer wait times up to half an hour can be common on high-traffic sites. In that case, add a thank you message for your customers’ cooperation.
Follow-Up Surveys
Asking chatters about their experience can offer useful insights for customizing user experience and other uses.
Reaching Out Made Easier
Effective CRM is a customer’s right, not a privilege. In that regard, enabling live chat in WordPress benefits both the seller and the buyers. With this guide, you’ll find that it’s fairly easy to activate and manage. Thus, your customers can enjoy the classic shopping experience that will keep them coming back.
