A question that frequently arises in businesses, particularly when it comes to customer assistance, is whether to use a chatbot or live chat. Before making any decisions about shifting from one approach to another, it’s crucial to know which is ideal for your business needs because each has its own benefits, which we discuss further in this article.
Here, we will share the benefits of both live chat and chatbot. With that, we will also highlight some important factors you should consider when choosing between live chat and chatbot.
So without further ado, let’s get started.
Why is Live Chat important?
There are many reasons and benefits why live chat is important and why you should integrate them on your website.
Here we are sharing some highlighted ones:
1. Boost sales
Gaining the trust and loyalty of your website visitors is essential for a successful transaction. This is done by having a real human with whom a shopper can speak during their purchase process, especially when they’re doubtful or unwilling.
Moreover, the live chat functionality has increased 62% of customers’ likelihood of returning and making another purchase.
In addition, 38% of customers said the live chat session contributed to their successful purchases. When a buyer asks a question, a sales agent who can quickly respond and understand their needs may guide them through the buying process and suggest the best products considering their requirements, ensuring that their shopping cart will reach the checkout page and complete the transaction. This lowers the cart abandonment rate by up to 30%.
So, integrating live chat software like SmatBot into your business also proves to be a wise business decision with a 300% ROI rate by boosting sales conversions by a minimum of 20%.
2. Cost-effective
Live chat is significantly less expensive than phone support. In fact, according to Forrester’s research, live chat customer support is 17% – 30% less expensive than a phone call.
Since live chat agents can multitask and serve multiple visitors simultaneously, it is far less expensive than phone assistance. Moreover, with the right training, most live chat operators can manage three or more chats at once.
This saves businesses a significant amount of money on staffing costs since it allows a small team of live chat agents to handle the same number of consumers as a larger team of phone support representatives.
3. Superior problem solving
Help articles and knowledge bases are great ways to support and assist customers with their queries. However, they might need help to easily access them if you have many helpful resources on your website.
With live chat enabled on your website, agents can quickly share links to these resources and articles. As a result, rather than guiding users through lengthy troubleshooting and resolution procedures, agents can direct visitors to the right document or resources.
Furthermore, co-browsing and screen-sharing features allow even the most challenging problems to be resolved quickly and efficiently, which is impossible with phone support.
These live chat tools can save agents and businesses up to 50% or more time handling queries, enhancing team productivity and customer satisfaction with quick resolution times.
4. Keep in touch with site visitors
Frankly speaking, not every website visitor will purchase from you immediately.
So what occurs when a user exits the website? Do you take action, or just wait for them to return to your site in the future?
Well, if you want to take the necessary action, then by implementing a live chat feature on your website, you can capture details about every visitor and convert them into customers.
Before starting a live chat session, you can request the user to enter their contact information. This not only benefits in recognising an existing client but also allows you to deliver a more personalized experience by asking for their name.
Take advantage of this by asking them whether they would be interested in receiving news and promotional materials as part of your email marketing campaign. Even though they may not purchase from you right away, having their contact details will allow you to encourage them later that your product is the best match for them by providing some offers and discounts.
Why is Chatbot important?
There are a number of reasons why chatbot is important for any online business. Here we are highlighting some of the essential benefits below:
1. Multilingual support
One of the most important benefits of chatbots is providing multilingual assistance. According to some reports, only 25% of online users communicate in English, meaning 75% prefer different languages.
Therefore, with many languages accessible for your visitors to connect with your brand, you are expanding your customer and market reach. As a result, no matter what language your client prefers, they can receive the proper assistance in their own language.
2. Improved personalisation
Customers value personalized service. In fact, after having a tailored experience, about 44% of shoppers become repeat customers. Therefore, customizing your client communications and delivering more personalized customer service plays a vital role.
One of the advantages of chatbots is their ability to personalize the conversation. They can converse with clients in a natural manner, providing an engaging one-on-one experience. Additionally, based on the visitor’s responses and past purchases, they can make personalized product and service recommendations.
3. Provide omnichannel support
Wherever your clients need you, you can be there. For example, 74% of customers initiate and complete transactions across various channels. So, aim to integrate your chatbot into various platforms, including social media channels where your clients may come to you for assistance.
Chatbots allow you to be active on social media and messaging services like WhatsApp. For example, many individuals use chat apps like Instagram or WhatsApp for customer care queries. When compared to checking email, it is far more convenient and faster.
4. Saves money
According to IBM research, chatbots with AI capabilities can cut the cost of customer care by 30%. The same study also claimed that chatbots could take care of 80% of everyday tasks.
This proves that chatbots are not only cost-effective but can also perform practically all the activities that a human agent can. Furthermore, it can handle repetitive client queries, freeing your human agents to focus on more challenging tasks and queries.
5. Manage the sales funnel
Chatbots can also help you successfully manage your sales funnel. It lets you qualify leads, convert them, and close deals. According to research, 41% of companies use chatbots for sales, and 37% use them for customer service.
Chatbots also help to simplify the sales process. Businesses often use chatbots for upselling, marketing, and cart recovery alerts. For example, if a customer abandons their shopping cart, you may get a notification so that you can take the necessary action to encourage your shopper to complete the transaction.
6. Provide 24/7 availability
Customers today seek immediate assistance at any time. 90% of customers consider prompt responses crucial in customer service.
One of the most transparent advantages of chatbots is their ability to provide constant assistance 24/7.
A well-programmed bot can manage up to 91% of interactions without human input. Organizations that provide overnight service not only satisfy their current customers but also open the door to emerging markets in different time zones.
Things to consider to decide between live chat & chatbot
When you’re deciding between live chat and chatbot, it’s important to consider the following factors:
1. Purpose: When deciding between live chat and chatbots, you need to consider your purpose and business objectives. For example, you should consider an AI chatbot if you want to automate your repetitive tasks, such as answering frequently asked queries, scheduling appointment bookings, greeting new visitors, etc.
But, if you want to provide one-on-one human support and assist users with human support representatives on their complex problems, you can consider live chat software.
2. Response time: A chatbot is a prominent platform because it gives visitors prompt responses. Whereas with live chat, customers might have to wait a few minutes to connect with the appropriate agent.
Compared to live chat agents, chatbots have shorter hold times and quicker response times.
Approximately 59% of shoppers will buy from firms that respond to their questions within a minute. With their “trigger phrases,” chatbots are always ready to start a discussion.
3. User experience: Depending on what the customer requires from their live agent or chatbot, the user experience for both options differs. For instance, live chat representatives would be more appropriate if clients needed assistance with their account details or any complex problem. On the other hand, a chatbot would be the best option if a customer or visitor wants to learn about your products or services.
4. Cost-effectiveness: Chatbots are more cost-effective than live chat. Managing a staff of 20–25 live agents is a costly process. However, chatbots just require a one-time investment.
5. Availability: Another thing to consider is Availability. Chatbots are considerably more likely to be accessible 24/7 than live chats; therefore, this may be a significant factor to consider when deciding between the two.
Live chat agents can only be available during business hours. Hiring live chat agents for the day and night shifts can be expensive. While integrating chatbots won’t cost you much and will work single-handedly around the clock.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, live chat and chatbots are both valuable and useful tools in the customer support market.
They enable companies to provide their clients with a more personalized experience and may also help you save a lot of time and money.
We hope you found this comparison of chatbots versus live chats useful. We’ve tried our best to give you a proper understanding of both and how they differ.
If you’re still unsure which is best for your company, we recommend trying both chat approaches before adopting one or the other. That way, you’ll be able to evaluate which offers the best ROI for your company.
Now the million-dollar question is, “Which platform offers both services?”
The answer is ‘SmartBot.’ Yes, you heard it right! This is the platform you need to meet your customer’s needs.”
SmatBot provides both live chat and AI chatbot functionalities, allowing you to establish a successful customer support strategy. And the best part is, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to use SmatBot as it is a no-code and fully customizable chatbot building platform.
Moreover, SmatBot is the perfect combination of live chat and chatbots since it allows you to automate and personalize simultaneously using a perfect blend of human live agents and bots
So, what are you waiting for? Try SmatBot now.