On Cyber Monday, live chat and consumer engagement technology vendor LivePerson Inc. hosted 860,000 live chats on behalf of its more than 8,500 retail clients. That’s a record number of chats for the company and 30% more interactions than it engaged in on the same day in 2011, it says.
The growth in chats is partially due to retailers offering more ways to chat, such as when a consumer is viewing the retailer’s mobile commerce site, says Jeremy Sokolic, the vendor’s senior vice president and head of marketing. “Retailers are expanding their engagement to all digital properties, including mobile and social,” he says.
Those change stems from a shift in consumer expectations, evident in a recent survey conducted by LivePerson. The vendor surveyed 500 U.S. online consumers last month about how they anticipated online tools would impact their holiday shopping preferences.
40% of respondents said they were likely to engage in live chat from a mobile device if the option was offered when they are doing their holiday shopping. 40% of consumers also said they planned to use Facebook or Twitter to interact with companies over the holidays—to tweet a question, post a comment on a brand’s Facebook page or request customer service.
70% of those shoppers said they would use Twitter to read comments and reviews, and 75% said they would use Facebook to find discounts, LivePerson reports. 73% of respondents said they would peruse Pinterest to find gift ideas.
The survey also found that 63% of the respondents plan to do the majority of their holiday shopping online. And 25% of those shoppers said they would likely make a purchase using a mobile device.
65 merchants in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide report using LivePerson for live chat or click-to-call technology.
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