Text chat: not just a communications tool, it’s a strategy

Text chat has been offered on web sites for at least five years, but more recently, it’s started to prove its worth when used strategically as part of an online marketer’s CRM line-up rather across the board. Talisma Inc., which provides a software suite that integrates text chat, phone and e-mail communication capacity at the call center, has seen some retailers boost conversion rates by a factor of three to four times the phone-supported conversion rate when they ad live text chat – even more when chat includes co-browsing capacity, says Daniel Sears, director of product management and strategic alliances.

That lift depends not just on making live chat available, but on using it where and how it delivers the best results, Spear adds. For example, the ability to use chat is beneficial in pre-sale activities, he says. "If customers have a question about the product, e-mail is a non real-time medium. If customers call, the agent may not be able to help because he isn’t where the customer is on the site," he says.

Supporting live chat with co-browsing capacity puts the customer and the agent at the same place online, and it can raise conversion rates by a factor of seven to eight times that seen with phone support only, he adds. "A customer can get into text chat; say he wants this bike, these tires, these brakes, this wheel set," Sears says. "The agent can walk him through a co-browsing session, put it all in the cart, and push it out to the customer. It becomes very powerful because that is very similar to a store experience."