Quick Tip Tuesday Video – How To Optimize Live Chat

Today’s Quick Tip for Online Sales Programs in the Building Industry is about Live Chat.

If you are going to have your OSC utilize Live Chat you need to make sure these 3 things are happening.

I’ve always been on the fence about live chat because all too often I’ve seen this become a band-aid for a true online sales counselor program. If you only tend to your live chat leads you spend most of your time skimming the 10% of people who would buy no matter what, and are ready to set an appointment right now. If your OSC is too busy answering chat to ever work on true long term follow up, they are missing the point of their position.

So don’t let Live Chat become your online sales counselor solution. There’s so much more depth to the position and a lot of times Live Chat is more about reaction then relationship building.

If you do have live chat, you need to make sure you have someone who can actually man it. Often and especially now as the world is changing, OSCs have so many leads coming in, they can’t just stop and chat. If they can’t get to that live chat in 15 seconds, you shouldn’t have it on your website.

When you are utilizing live chat, there still needs to be information collected on the lead BEFORE the chat begins. When an OSC spends 30 minutes of their time on the chat only to have someone give push back on providing a name or contact information that has just been a waste of time, energy and effort. All engagements need to be a fair exchange.

Live chat needs to feed into your CRM system. If you are going to take the time to generate a lead, you also need to cut down on needless manual entry. Manual entry is a recipe for lost leads.

If you have more questions about Live Chat or implementing a proper online sales counselor program, feel free to reach out. I’m here to help!