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Lindsay Bayuk, Product, Pure Chat[/caption]

Lemme tell you a little about my friend Lindsay Bayuk. She does product at PureChat where they empower small businesses to engage website visitors and generate leads with live chat. She was previously the Director of Product at Infusionsoft where she led a team of product managers and product marketers. (PureChat and Infusionsoft are two of my favorite tools.)

And, to add to her ever-growing list of accomplishments, she has now been published on the Monkeypod Blog. I'm seeing chat options popping up on sites all over the place, so, let's do this.

Improve Website Conversion with Live Chat

Have a website? Of course you do! Do you have an effective website? Uh, maybe?

For many small business owners, your website is core to driving new business. A website is a representation of your company, your accomplishments and more than anything else it should explain why visitors should do business with you.

You're already investing in your web presence. Social media and blogging drives visitors to your website. You might spend on advertising with Google and Facebook. All of this drives traffic, but what are you doing to ensure that traffic turns into sales? Phone and email are slow and time-consuming, so live chat is the best way to engage those visitors.

Live chat is one of the best ways to engage those visitors. Adding a live chat box to your website empowers your visitors to reach out to you in a non-threatening way. We all use texting and messaging on our phones. Offering live chat provides the same familiar experience for your shoppers (especially for visitors on mobile devices).

In a recent survey by the customer service technology qualification company Software Advice, over 56% of respondents said they had used live chat on a website at least once. One of our customers, Patrick Henshaw of ETI Limousine and Charter in Austin, Texas recently shared, “With texting and social media, people are more comfortable sending messages. Live chat is just another way of texting with businesses.”

Here are four tips to optimize your website with live chat:

1. Maximize your availability. The more time that you're available for visitors to engage, the more potential you'll have for conversations. Not at your desk all day? Make sure you use a live chat software that includes a mobile app. Mobile apps give you the ability to chat with your website visitors even when you’re away from your desk!
2. Designate the right person. The summer intern may not be the best person to respond to leads on your website. It's important to have a friendly, knowledgeable team member available to help!
3. Remove friction. Making live chat available on your website is the first step. To maximize the number of conversations, don't ask for name, phone and email up front. Gather those details later in the conversation when it's more natural.
4. Add at point of purchase. In the survey mentioned above, over 40% of respondents use live chat to answer pricing and purchase questions before they buy. Adding live chat on your shopping cart or checkout page is a great place to improve conversions! Earlier this year, Business Insider reported that consumers left $4 trillion worth of merchandise in their shopping carts. Yikes! Interacting with a person might just help with those final purchase questions.

Here at Pure Chat we're very excited about helping small businesses capture more leads and convert sales. It's all about improving the effectiveness of your existing marketing.

How are you optimizing conversion on your website?

We'd love to hear what tips and tricks are working for you!

PS: And, yes, we integrate with Infusionsoft. So, if you’re an Infusionsoft user you can send your live chat leads over to Infusionsoft with tags automatically!

You like tools, eh?

PureChat is one of my favorites, but if you'd like to see the complete list of tools that have earned my trust, check out the Monkeypod Toolbox Ebook:

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