With the emergence of online shopping options, more businesses are implementing live chat as their primary method of interacting with their consumers. Our company specializes in telemarketing and customer service, so live chat has become an integral part of our daily operations. In fact, we have observed that many customers prefer live chat over as a way for them to communicate with businesses and raise important concerns.
Besides employing competent live chat agents to handle chat inquiries from local and international clients, we also make sure to use the best live chat tools and software that will improve the live chat experience. We’ve already shared with you the 16 Key Benefits of Live Chat for Ecommerce Websites, and now, we are happy to share with you 23 Key Live Chat Statistics and Trends that every business owner should know to elevate the quality of every service this 2024.
These statistics include valuable data like the average chat duration, expected chat volume of businesses, common questions answered by a live chat, advantages of adding live chat to customer service strategies, and more. Continue reading.
What is a Live Chat?
Live chat is a form of customer support that businesses use to resolve customer service and product-related concerns quickly. Live chat is an ideal platform that eCommerce business owners recommend due to its simple, convenient, and effective interface. Aside from quick resolution and increased rapport and trust between customer support representatives and clients, live chat offers more benefits including minimized costs, increased efficiency and productivity, and the opportunity to promote self-service support.
Besides eCommerce businesses, there are many types of businesses that offer live chat support to provide quick and efficient responses to common inquiries, extend assistance, and fully improve the quality of customer experiences.
25 Important Live Chat Statistics to Increase Customer Satisfaction
From its effect on customer preferences, satisfaction, and loyalty, to the many ways it benefits businesses and consumers, we are sharing with you the most important live chat statistics and trends that every business should know in 2024.
Live chat statistics on customer preferences and customer satisfaction
A pleasant customer support experience has a crucial impact on customer preferences and satisfaction. For example, a consumer who prefers receiving support via email may find the quicker response times via online chats ultimately game-changing. Chat interactions initiated by a live person (live chat agent) can encourage a consumer to switch to live chats and skip long hours in the queue. Want to know how live chat support influences consumer preferences and satisfaction rates? Read more.
1. 63% of customers prefer live chat as their primary channel of support communication.
Customers prefer to use live chat in hopes of receiving real-time responses to their queries. Email support still tops the list at 77%, but the difference isn’t too far, considering that live chat support is the “newer” approach between the two.
2. Live chat overtakes email support in terms of customer satisfaction, with a whopping 82% of consumers being satisfied with their live chat experience.
While email support remains on top of the most preferred support channels for customers, people who contact businesses via live chat recorded higher satisfaction rates.
3. 1 out of 5 customers will drop a product or service with slow online chat support.
Quick responses are a must! Customers expect live chats to be fast and efficient, so it’s not surprising to know that they could easily drop and replace a company with a slow live chat performance.
4. Live chat support doesn’t only improve customer experience. It also leads to a 48% boost in revenue per chat hour.
A company that offers live chat support to its consumers can expect a significant improvement in revenue, according to a study. The same study also stated that live chat can help companies achieve conversion rates as high as 40%.
5. Over 30% of customers expect live chat functionality on a website.
Are you familiar with those tiny and, oftentimes, colorful live chat widgets on websites? If you’re a business owner who is still adamant to adding a live chat option on your website, you might want to hop into the trend. A website that offers live chat to customers could easily provide product and service insights which are highly essential to new customers.
6. Approximately 73% of consumers from 18 to 49 years old prefer the convenience of live chat in communicating with businesses.
The younger ones know what’s good, especially in terms of technology. A huge portion of consumers prefer live chat support over other means to communicate with businesses and relay their concerns. Convenience is a major factor that contributes to this.
Impacts of live chat on customer loyalty and experience
7. 60% of customers are likely to repeat their purchase from a website that offers live chat support.
Loyalty is the result of repeat business, and most consumers agree that they are more than willing to come back to a company that offers live chat support in its customer service arsenal.
8. Research found that live chats with canned and impersonal responses are the most frustrating.
Live chat conversations are expected to be carried out excellently and quickly by competent chat agents. However, to expedite chats and resolve multiple problems as quickly as possible, businesses resort to canned responses.
These canned responses can be helpful in answering basic questions but can also be unreliable when handling serious concerns. Thus, a considerably high percentage of consumers express their frustration in using a live chat with generic, and canned responses.
9. Businesses with websites that use live chat widgets are more likely to enjoy higher visiting and purchasing rates, according to 63% of consumers.
Consumers prefer live chat support services, which can be accessed as early as their first interaction with a business. Most businesses have their own websites to display and promote their products. So, implementing live chat widgets that customers can utilize to ask common questions is an effective way to attract new customers and encourage repeat business.
10. With this, 38% of customers also claim that live chat can help them complete their website orders without hassle.
Live chats don’t just assist customers who have product and service-related concerns. 38% of consumers claim that live chats do have a hand on their purchases and ordering process.
Adding live chat to your website can serve as a guide to your customer’s decision-making process. In fact, some live chat software provides start-to-end assistance to customers in order to avoid cart abandonment which results in lost sales.
How adding live chat options affects the efficiency of business operations (and customers as well)
11. Businesses can enjoy a high customer satisfaction rate (84.7%) with a quick live chat response time of 5 to 10 seconds.
Let’s face it: customers are impatient. Live chat allows customers to receive the best and most accurate responses to their concerns as quickly as possible, and we’re talking about seconds. Yes, not hours or minutes, but seconds.
Research shows that businesses that implement online chat services are more likely to enjoy high customer satisfaction rates with a response time of 5 to 10 seconds. Customer service through live chat is expected to be real-time, and businesses should adjust to this demand. While this is far from a magic trick, you can always rely on advanced chat software and apps to improve your live chat support services.
12. Around 69% of companies use live chat with canned responses for quicker answers to common inquiries.
Sure, canned responses are frustrating for customers who have more complex concerns about a certain product or service. But for others using canned responses on live chat is an important way to save time and help agents focus on issues that need better attention.
These types of responses are saved and sent to customers asking related questions, and for anyone who doesn’t have enough time for long chat conversations, they are pretty effective.
13. Live chat customer support offers the fastest response time in 2 minutes.
Compared to other industry-preferred channels of communication (email and phone), live chat provides the fastest response to key customer inquiries.
For as fast as two minutes, most businesses can resolve usual product and service issues without any need for escalation or third-party intervention.
14. Quick answers to queries and multitasking are two of the major reasons why customers prefer live chat customer service over other channels.
Research shows that customers prefer using live chat when communicating with businesses because it gives them the opportunity to multitask. With canned responses being effective, and knowledge bases always accessible, people opt for live chat to continue with their mundane duties while inquiring for a specific product or service. It’s also the same case with agents, who can easily resolve basic to moderate issues in a few clicks and handle multiple inquiries at a time.
15. 53% of businesses say offering live chat services can resolve multiple concerns in a single interaction.
In connection with the earlier data, live chat usage also offers advanced functionality that enables businesses to extend effective assistance to multiple concerns in a single interaction. These concerns may range from usual corrections and follow-up requests to more complex inquiries that might require escalation.
Furthermore, the emergence of conversational chatbots provides a more natural, personalized approach to customer support. And who doesn’t want a personalized experience?
The most important live chat features and metrics and their effect on live chat quality
16. Advanced live chat features have positively impacted customer experiences. Minimizing message latency should be the top priority.
If you’ve used live chat as a customer, you might have observed the waiting time that goes between sending and receiving messages. Advanced live chat features include low message latency as one of the most important factors that affect a company’s live chat support effectiveness.
Customers will no longer have to wait in long queues to have messages delivered, and the customized auto-responses make the whole interface a lot better.
17. The average handle time (AHT) of chats in a call center is 10 minutes.
Interacting with a company via live chat is perhaps the most innovative channel that customers can try. While 10 minutes of live chat might seem “too lengthy” for some, this average handle time in a call center includes all the crucial steps in working on customer concerns.
Longer live chat durations can be expected for more complicated issues, but because questions are answered by a live person, responses are more accurate and helpful.
18. Along with AHT, the total number of live chats is essential.
This list of live chat statistics is not complete without the top metrics that businesses should consider before implementing live chat services on their support channels. Along with average handle time (AHT), the total number of love chats is necessary to evaluate the platforms’ efficiency as well as the performance of agents.
Live chat trends that will help shape the global live chat software market
19. Self-service customer support will see further improvements. And nearly 67% of consumers already prefer this now.
Sure, complete assistance is crucial for a successful customer support journey. But did you know that one reason consumers prefer live chat to phone support is its self-service features?
Surprisingly, there are plenty of consumers who want to resolve the usual issues by themselves. In fact, a study found that around 67% of consumers prefer a self-service approach over speaking to a customer representative. In this blog, we’ve briefly discussed the importance of self-service knowledge bases in 24/7 customer support. Convenience and the empowering sense of figuring this out on their own are just two of the major reasons why this type of customer support is preferred by many consumers.
20. Automated chatbots will initiate a live chat better than ever.
Beside sending those friendly and gentle chats before making a purchase, automated chatbots are expected to have an exciting revamp this 2024. In addition to quicker response times and more personalized responses, customers can anticipate a huge improvement specifically for online payment services.
An great example of this is PayPal’s chatbots that allow their agents to chat with customers about certain products and services while giving instant and direct access to payment on the same chat window.
21. The global live chat market is projected to hit an all-time high of $1.7 billion by 2030.
With the number of advancements in features and benefits that live chat support offers to both businesses and consumers, the global live chat software market is expected to grow tremendously. And when we talk about growth, we mean it in all aspects.
From an increase in revenue per chat to higher demands for live chat apps and software, this growth will motivate businesses and customers to use live chat as their number one support channel. We’re looking forward to this.
22. LiveChat remains the most used live chat app for customer support.
There are so many web chat apps and software that businesses can use to take their support channels to the next level. But LiveChat still takes the cake as the most used live chat app that businesses swear by. Renowned for its overall functionality and excellent integration, LiveChat offers a user-friendly interface that new and established businesses would love.
23. Data security will continue to have a strong impact on live chat satisfaction rates.
Live chat is fast and reliable, but data security remains one of the most debatable aspects of online chat support services. For complex issues, live chat requests personal data that are crucial for both the customer and business in terms of sensitivity and management.
While businesses ensure that no data leak is possible after every live chat session, there are still inevitable cases of customers complaining about important data getting compromised.
Implementing live chat support might be the future of the eCommerce industry and more.
These live chat statistics prove that adding live chat support to your range of communication channels is an excellent way to boost your revenue and further improve your digital presence. Over the years, the use of live chat has had a positive effect on businesses and consumers as well. It provided significant assistance in streamlining business processes and helped customers make excellent purchasing decisions.
You may use live chat for sales or an efficient tool to monitor agent performance, maintain productive relationships with your consumers, or set an interactive channel to promote and sell your products and services. With this, it’s also crucial to know that live chat, just like other technological innovations, constantly evolves. Thus, being updated with live chat conversion statistics and other valuable trends is vital for business growth.
Planning to take your customer support to the next level? Digital Minds BPO can help you build productive relationships with your customers by outsourcing your live chat support to us. We’ve got the best people and technology to assist you in connecting with your clients and becoming more globally competitive. We look forward to helping you build your dreams. Contact us now!