Personal Creations introduces live chat with a twist

Personal Creations is implementing live chat with a twist. On many web sites, the live chat button sits passively on a home, product or customer service page waiting for a customer with a question to click on the icon and begin a dialogue.

But as part of a stepped up marketing effort to reach its core customers, women 25 to 49 with annual household income of about $78,000, Personal Creations is running a float box across the home page that invites customers to engage in a dialogue.

The idea of using a different approach to live chat is helping Personal Creations personalize a customer’s shopping experience and react more quickly to changing behavior, says director of e-commerce Tom Denison. By engaging customers in a dialogue through live chat, Personal Creations is gathering instant feedback on current promotions and merchandising-related content running on the site.

“We can quickly and easily switch out our creative and any current offers,” he says. “This way we can A/B test new offers and creative content to optimize against our customers.”

Personal Creations, No. 147 in the Internet Retailer Top 400 Guide to Retail Web Sites, introduced a live chat application from ProactiveCommerce in late September and the early results shows that the use of live chat has helped to increase web sales by about 3% since the launch, Denison says.

As the live chat tool becomes more widely used, Denison says Personal Creations may make some adjustments to how customers will see the new site feature. “The floating banner was decided upon because it was not intrusive, yet captured the user’s attention,” he says. “That being said we are looking at different options such as an appearing then dissolving banner.”