Losing Business To Other Sites? Try Using Live Chat Software

| Saturday, May 21, 2011
By Jeff Robinson


Your website is slowly but surely losing ground to its competitors. If things keep up the way they've been going you might be losing money by year's end. It is irritating; you were one of the very first sites offering the kind of services you offer and now you are losing ground to these new kids on the block. You're still ranking high for the essential keywords that you've identified and your traffic hasn't dropped anywhere near as dramatically as your sales have. Your competition only bothered to crawl into the market after you demonstrated how it could be done profitably and now they are stealing bread from your table. But how is it that they are doing it? There's not a single one of them that has the experience that you do and none of them offer services that measure up to what you're providing. Possibly it is time you considered setting up live chat software on your site and supplying live customer support.

## The most bothersome of these recent competitors has something of that nature on his site. The simple truth is he isn't selling anything that I don't sell and honestly he's nowhere near as credible.

That just goes to demonstrate the power of live chat. What his site has over yours is that his visitors are able to chat live with an operator and have his questions answered. The problem is that his visitors were likely also your visitors. People who are ready to buy want to have any question answered immediately so they can move on with their purchase. It's not enough to have an email address if your competitor has a chat option.

## But I provide a better service, with superior options. I've got three times the experience ,an extensive FAQ page, and a boatload of testimonials. Surely that must count for something.

Of course it does. It counts for a lot as a matter of fact. It likely makes all the difference for every single visitor of yours that goes on to buy your service; but those aren't the individuals you're concerned with. You are primarily concerned with the growing number of visitors who are surfing over to your competitors and getting their questions answered there.

## I don't know if I can afford to renovate my entire site to accommodate a chat system and even if I could I definitely can't afford to hire people to sit on chat all day.

First of all there are several live chat software solutions on the market (Alive Chat is a popular one) that are simple to install without the need for any major site programming. Also, many of the sites that offer live chat packages can also provide operators who can man the chats. The rates are flexible and affordable and designed to cater to businesses of all sizes. Consider this, if your competitor can afford it on what he is stealing from your table, surely you can afford it on what's left.

## But how can hired chat operators possibly be expected to handle my customers effectively?

They are trained chat operators. You admitted it yourself, your site has a comprehensive FAQ list. They can be furnished with that as well as whatever extra information you choose to supply. Live chat is not primarily about giving your customers additional information it's more about the way your information is presented. A visitor who becomes involved in a sales discussion online is a lot more likely to commit and convert.

If you are losing business to competitors whose only apparent edge is that they have live chat software that allows them to better seal the deal with their customers, then the solution is pretty straight forward; simply take away that edge by following suit.




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