Business VoIP

Wichita-based BoldChat has announced the release of their research on the effectiveness of live chat technology, saying they've found "a direct correlation between live chat and a growth in sales for online retailers."

 

Company officials says that "once a shopper has used live chat, more than two-thirds will actively look for Web sites that provide it as an option."

Bravestorm (News - Alert) President and CEO Steve Castro-Miller said the goal of the project was to "quantitatively examine the efficacy of live chat through the filter of prospective buyer behavior. We were interested to know, for instance, how much of a role it plays in boosting conversions. We also wanted to understand whether live chat could be tied to brand loyalty."

 

To this end, Castro-Miller says, the survey was structured to get "honest feedback straight from online consumers, and we believe the results provide insight into the positive impact that live chat software can deliver for online retailers."

Here's how it was done: In January 2009, Bravestorm funded a blind survey of more than 250 regular Internet shoppers using an opt-in, third party panel. Out of this live chat research, the firm drew five conclusions.

Live chat is influential during the sales cycle. Respondents indicated that live chat positively impacts their likelihood to purchase. "In fact," study officials said, "58 percent of the entire sample said that if a site offered live chat, that fact alone would positively influence their decision to make a purchase."

Online merchants not offering live chat are missing desirable opportunities. Those that shop more frequently online and those that spend more -- measured either by the average amount they spend when shopping, or the greatest amount they've ever transacted in a single purchase -- are more likely to choose live chat in sales interactions and they rank its positive influence much higher than other groups, study officials said.

Live chat has a loyalty effect, particularly with desirable shoppers. In general, say study officials, "chatters choose the technology over other methods during the sales cycle."

Live chat may be even more critical to service companies than it is to e-tailers. Study officials contend that many site features which respondents indicated would influence their decision to buy are "not relevant to service-only companies, such as product images or product catalogue searching. They found live chat's importance to be "greater for service organizations such as law firms, accountants, and others."

 

In March TMC reported that Bravestorm announced the launch of BoldChat 5.0, with "a full-featured enterprise edition that integrates live chat, e-mail and click-to-call solutions into one application."