Role of live chat in ecommerce

Presence of live chat on an ecommerce websites works like a welcoming receptionist at a corporate office or a welcoming salesman of a shop. If there is live chat option on your website, it should be visible only when there is someone available to chat with the website visitors else it becomes as bad as a deserted reception of a corporate office or a sales counter without a salesman. The agents interacting on live chat should be well trained about the services/products being sold/offered through the website. Live chat plays a major role in hand holding the visitors while he/she navigates across the website trying to find products of interests. While live chat is a great enabler of sales, it also plays a phenomenal role in reputation building. For the visitor whatever the agent behind the live chat says becomes the voice of the company. Your company is as good or as bad in the eyes of the visitor, as the proficiency of the live chat agent. Hence, selection and training of agents is a matter of most importance when it comes to setting up live chat on your website. The live chat agent’s job is to guide the visitor properly and to be inviting at making right sales pictures to visitors. He should however not be a sticky salesman who gets down to aggressive selling irrespective of the needs of the visitors as this will repel visitors away from the website and they will not feel like coming back as returning visitors.