How to increase sales using pre-sale queries

In time, most people are changing their activities from a physical store to a digital one, and this process always implies the risk of a colder, more distant kind of relationship with customers, with less human touch.

This change has both benefits and risks, for instance: customers of a real life store who have doubts about a certain item can always ask local clerks for answers, online stores don’t offer this opportunity.

Recently, I had to give up on a purchase from an online store because I was having difficulties facing their checkout system. Surely I could have searched for a solution online and I would have probably found one in a few minutes, but I asked myself “Why should I waste time on this store, when I can find hundreds of better and less problematic ones?

Mine is a very typical case, considering that almost 70% of the customers leave online stores without buying, clearly we need to help them and stop this from happening.

My advice is you implement a live chat system to your store, in order to be there for your customers when they have doubts or uncertainties that would prevent them from buying.

Would you like a reason why you need a live chat system? I’m going do give you 3!

1) It increases your sales.

The chance to talk to a real person allows indecisive customers to clear their doubts and become motivated to buy your products.

According to a survey made by Forrester Research, 44% of customers thinks that having an answer from an actual live person, especially before buying, is a must-have function for online stores.

Consider this: 55% of customers spends less then 15 seconds on a website . Live chat is a service that provides an immediate response: better treasure those few seconds.

2) It increases the average purchase value

Think about this eventuality: you trust a seller enough to buy from his store but not enough to invest too much money in it. Or maybe you wish to buy three items but you have doubts about two of them. You don’t want to run risk,s so better not buy anything you are not sure of.

That’s why a live chat system will increase the average purchase on your store, since reassured customers will feel encouraged to buy more.

3) It keeps your customers faithful to your store

A live chat system makes your website more welcoming and warmed up by that kind of human touch that got lost once the internet came around. It’s a comforting place for customers, which will be encouraged to come again, rewarding your activity with more purchases, reviews and spreading the word.

It’s rather essential for your store to offer this kind of service, and you can do so by using the Live Chat plugin.

Its use is simple: the plugin will work as a bridge by implementing the Firebase functions directly onto your store.

After linking your account to your store, you can check the live chat status and open up to two simultaneous conversations (this is the limit of the free version of the plugin).

I suggest that, if you can, you devote part of your staff to live chat only, in order to make this service always active and efficient. You can create as many operators as you want, just set up their role in your store as a YITH Live Chat Operator.

Now you can add this interesting function on your store as well.

Before concluding, I suggest you make your store as user friendly as possible.

Remember, the more time a customer spends dealing with the mechanics of your website, the more likely they are to leave without buying.