Every business is always in search of the quickest and most efficient way to reach a potential customer. Live chat for lead generation is one of the most useful tools for generating leads. Live chat in its essence is simply when a website greets you with an offer for help in the form of a pop-up.
However, what you may not know is that live chat isn’t just for customer support. It is also a great way to create leads and sales.
In this article, we will explore how to use live chat for lead generation and what makes it a powerful tool in the modern business environment.
What is Live Chat for Lead Generation?
Live chat is, at its most basic level, a feature you see on websites that enable instant communication between website visitors and a business agent. Chatbots are popularly regarded as a customer support component but, if you learn the ropes of how to use live chat software for lead generation, it could be an extremely efficient lead generation tool.
Live chat helps your potential customer to interact with your team at the moment they visit your website. This back-and-forth can also provide an opportunity to generate leads, address FAQs, and establish relations that help drive conversions.
Why Use Live Chat for Lead Generation?
So, you will be thinking, “why do I need live chat on my website?” There are multiple factors that offer it as a game-changer for your lead generation efforts:
- Instant Communication: Customers love fast responses. If a potential lead has any question or concern, with live chat you can answer instantly to keep them engaged and progressing in the sales cycle.
- Real-Time Engagement: In comparison to forms or email, businesses can increase customer engagement through live chat.
- Increased Conversion Rates: Live chat lead generation can increase the conversion rate by as much as 20 percent for businesses. The reason for doing so is that it eliminates friction from the purchase process and keeps the customer oriented around their needs.
- Better Customer Insights: Using live chat gives you the opportunity to ask probing, insightful questions that will help you scale your ability to identify customer pain points. This helps you to customize your offering and it increases the chance of making a sale.
- 24/7 Availability: Some website chat tools for generating leads offer automated chats, such as chatbots, to provide 24/7 customer support even after business hours. This allows your business to engage with potential leads at any time of the day, regardless of whether your team is available or not.
How to Use Live Chat for Lead Generation
Live chat is one of the website chat widget for generating leads that you should incorporate-free lead generation tool. Now that you know the purpose of live chat, let us understand the facts about how to use live chat for lead generation to fill your pockets with more leads.
1. Personalize the Chat Experience
Nobody will pick up a generic chat message. Instead, tailor your touchpoint based on where the visitor browsed on your website.
If a person has been viewing product pages for quite some time, your live chat message could reach out to them with, “Hey, we saw you looking at our XYZ product. Is there any question you need my help answering?
By helping the customer individually, you make the customer know that they are important, and there are higher chances of them taking notice of you.
2. Use Proactive Chat Invitations
Proactive chat invitations are one of the most useful ways to utilize live chat for lead generation. Instead of waiting for the visitor to take the first step, you can configure your live chat software to actively the chat with its the recommendation after some time on your site, or before they decide to exit.
For instance, if a user was about to leave your page (tracked by mouse moments or inactivity) you can offer a chat with something like, “Before you leave, can I assist you with anything”
This encourages visitors to spend more time within your spaces and allows you to generate leads that may have otherwise escaped your landing pages.
3. Ask the Right Questions
Don’t jump straight in there with your product pitch, though, when someone starts a chat. Understand their needs by asking them the right questions first. An even better way to continue the chat is by asking open-ended follow ups that qualify leads based on your target market, i.e.
- “What brought you to our site today?”
- “How can we assist you with your project?”
- “Are you looking for information on a specific product or service?”
This is where you find their pain points and start steering them towards the right solution. This allows you to categorize your leads and reach out to them with more contextual information in the future.
4. Use Chatbots to Automate Responses
Once you have a live chat tool with a chatbot feature, you can automate first conversations. An AI chatbot can gather intro stuff, name, email, interest, and then pass the chat over to an actual human being. This gives an opportunity to even qualify the leads at the outset so that your team does not have to get involved unless the leads are ready to move to the next step.
5. Collect Contact Information Early
Early in the chat is a golden opportunity to collect contact details via live chat. A chat may not always lead to an immediate sale, so asking for an email or phone number can help you follow up afterwards.
So, after an introductory call, you could say, “Would you like us to follow up with more information on our products? Enter your email and we will send a comprehensive brochure instantly.
In addition, you can easily connect your live chat to a CRM tool and have these details automatically recorded for future reference.
6. Integrate Chat with Lead Scoring
It is a mechanism of potential conversion of leads to a paying customer, so ranking them appropriately. With live chat, after the interaction, you can have lead scoring integrated to find out how likely a person can buy.
A hot lead is the one who will come in for a long bridge, provides contact details, even asks for a quote compared to product information. Which you can then use to prioritize your follow up efforts.
7. Offer Special Deals or Discounts
A great lead may just need a slight encouragement to be transformed into a paying customer. So offer a discount on the product or a free trial version who wants to become your potential lead but not ready to buy it.
For example: Hey, I noticed you checked out our service and… Sign-up now and we’ll offer you 10% off your first month!“ They are urgency-causing offers, making it more challenging for leads to walk away.
8. Follow Up After the Chat
If a conversation finishes, then be sure not to let the lead go cold. A follow-up via email or phone call can be performed in the days after you complete a professional chat to thank them for the conversation and to offer your help further. This is where you can add more resources, info about the product or even giveaway a free digital gift for them to keep solving along 🙌🏾.
9. Use Live Chat Analytics to Refine Your Strategy
The majority of live chat software will have inbuilt analytics that enable you to track metrics like response times, customer satisfaction, and leads captured. This will allow you to see how you can optimize your approach and use it to refine your strategy for generating leads.
You can try sending a variety of messages, proactive chats at different times, or even alter the way you discuss.
Read More: Live Chat Best Practices to Improve Customer Support Efficiency
Best Live Chat Tools for Lead Generation
You can find lots of live chat tools to start generating leads. Here are a few of the best how to use live chat software for lead generation:
- QuickConnect: Easily connects with all your communication channels and gives you live chat, a unified inbox, and Instagram automation in one place for smoother customer support.
- Drift: Ideal for B2B companies that want high-level leads.
- LiveChat: A basic and straightforward solution, with an impressive and robust reporting tool.
- Zendesk Chat: Very easily adds to your current suite of Zendesk support products to create a seamless experience for your customers.
- Tidio Isolation Tidio: Quite the affordable chatbot solution with a solid chatbot back-end.
Getting Started with Live Chat for Lead Generation
Your website is never too late to add live chat to it. Your visitors have different interests, so you should engage them accordingly. Keep all this in mind, live chat is literally all about personalized and quick assistance and follow-up.
Good use of live chat provides a smooth, enticing experience for potential leads, and ultimately improves your chances of converting them into paying customers.
Live chat is not just a support feature, but an agent to land your leads. Drive valuable leads through web visitors by interacting with them in real-time in a personalized manner and guiding them when they have a doubt. For those that have never used live chat, get started today and see your leads skyrocket.
