What are the advantages or disadvantages of having live chat on a website?

PositionMARKETERS' FORUM

Below are excerpts from a recent online question-and-answer session conducted by marketers who participate in the ABA Marketing Network's Online Community.

QUESTION:

Could anyone share pro's and con's concerning live chat--if you have any experience utilizing it or have decided against it for certain reasons? We are considering adding a live chat service as part of a new website redesign. The thought would be to have this service available during business hours.

Kristin Wiersma

First National Bank of River Falls | River Falls, Wis.

RESPONSE:

We Use It to Track Our Lead-Generation Efforts

We use live chat on our website for lead generation, so it's only on our loan Web pages. I can tell you it was a bear to get approved through compliance, since it's managed by a third-party vendor (i.e., our employees are not doing the chatting).

We wanted the live chat for the opposite reason, to have a mechanism available 24/7 on our landing pages as we drive a lot of traffic to our site through search engine optimization. We purposefully didn't put it on the homepage or any service-related pages as our intent wasn't to use it for client questions.

So if you're looking at it as a way to decrease call volumes to your call center for example, clearly I can't help you there. But it is fantastic for tracking our lead-generation efforts, so definitely worth the minimal costs.

Diana La Point

American River Bank | Racho Cordova, Calif

RESPONSE:

We Use Live Chat for General Customer Service

We have two chat systems. One within our online banking system--it is a secure chat so specific account questions can be asked and answered. We are converting online systems next week, and will launch without a chat feature for now.

We also have a non-secure live chat (during business hours) that we have had for years. People like it. It is used for general customer service versus sales-type efforts. It is integrated with our phone system so the chats get routed into a queue.

We maybe receive five per day so it is not a huge volume by any means.

David Kreiman

Glenview State Bank | Glenview, Ill.

RESPONSE:

We Average about 500 Live Chats a Month

We use LivePerson for our online chat--very satisfied.

Our average wait time is 9.78 seconds. The chat is always covered, so the wait time does not exceed 30 seconds. Our average chat length is 9.68 minutes and average chats per month in 2014 has been 516. Our ultimate goal with chat is the same as with the phone, service the customer...

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