How Important are Chat Tools for Small Businesses?

Small business owners are often faced with a host of problems that they may or may have not foreseen during the planning phase of their businesses. For instance, quite a number of small- and medium- sized businesses simply fail to comprehend the importance of having chat tools fully embedded into their organisational websites. If you are one of them, here are some of the reasons why chat tools are very important for small businesses.

Provides convenience for customers in real time. 

Your customers don’t have the luxury of time to visit your store or shop just so their questions can be answered. Many folks today want their answers right from their mobile devices. If seeking answers to their questions is already tedious, what more if there will be issues in the product that they will eventually buy from your company? The point is that chat tools provide a very practical and convenient avenue for customers to seek clarifications for any issues that they may have.

Saves the business money. 

If customers were to come to your shop you will have to employ a one-on-one company representative-to-customer ratio. In a chat conversation, a single chat operator can actually be chatting with 3 to 5 different customers at the same time.  This alone already saves you money since you only need to employ one to perform the task of 5 people facing different customers all at the same time. And you know what? The faster the customers’ questions are answered, the faster is their decision to buy from you.

Gives the business a competitive advantage. 

Large corporations dedicate an entire department just handling chat services in real time fashion. Small- and medium- sized businesses are also quick to follow. If you want to maintain that edge from the competition, then you must engage in more proactive real time customer service. That means as soon as someone logs into your website, your chat tools should already be ready to entertain your most valuable customer.

Increases the likelihood of conversions and sales. 

We mentioned above that the faster you’re able to answer your customers’ queries the faster will they be able to make decisions to buy. What we forgot to mention is that it doesn’t necessarily have to end always in a sale. The mere fact that you have entertained their questions and provided answers to all of their issues, this already shows that you are very interested in helping them out. They may not buy your product now but the interaction will give you quite a lot of details about them which you can use for marketing purposes.

Helps build long-term relationships. 

Customers that have very positive experiences in their chat with your customer representatives tend to value such experiences a lot more than those who feel like having robots answer their questions. Positive experiences beget positive relationships which can spell longer-term business relationships for your company.

Chat tools are important for small businesses because they are more convenient for customers and are more practical solutions for companies. Chat tools are also important because of their ability to provide the business a competitive advantage and increased conversions and sales. Moreover chat tools are essential in building long-term relationships.