Initiative One: Enhance marketing capabilities (Live Chat)

The importance of having a live chat on websites can be beneficial for businesses that want to retain customer relationships, which is why this could be an effective initiative to impose on businesses. It can be seen that “75% of internet users are adopting one or more messenger platforms” (Chatbots Magazine, 2018) like Facebook, with this initiative available it can cater to customers wants and need. And clearly, it shows that 44% of customers online have asked questions through the live chat which have been answered by a live person during an online purchase, it is one of the most significant features a website can offer (Inc.com, 2018).

This initiative allows individuals to interact more quickly with employees. By having this online chat it will increase customer’s loyalty and help maintain long-term relationships instead of short-term relationships. Businesses can “improve their website’s design, and can see where visitors are going and which pages are holding their attention-and which ones are not” (Ieeexplore.brighton.ac.uk, 2011).

It can achieve better results in terms of communication and quality of conversation. Whereas services like chatbots cannot solve problems that are unique, which give this specific feature an advantage. “Capabilities are unique combinations of the knowledge-based, tangible or intangible resources of a firm, and indicate what a firm can achieve by having teams of resources working together” (proquest.com, 2004).

Live chats can be very successful as statistics show that 92% of customers feel satisfied when they use the live chat feature. And according to reports by Zendesk, customers feel most satisfied during their buyer’s journey when using this feature, compared to options such as voice (88%), email (85%), and social media messaging (Facebook 84%, Twitter 77%) (Inc.com, 2018). This could help improve the services provided and ensure instant solutions to problems that could occur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another way to improve this initiative is by measuring the effect of the live chat with this model, “it measures the gap between customer expectations and experience” (Ieeexplore.brighton.ac.uk, 2011).For more information check out: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/document/6147697/

 

 

Tips and advice on how to create an effective initiative with live chats

• Response Time Low – it is important to keep response time low because with a high response time it can cause issues, like customers abandoning issues or “waiting for service in a retail store, can often lead to dissatisfied customers” (ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk, 2017), so to avoid this from happening they could avoid repetitive questions and greeting the customer by the individual names.

 

• Multiple Tasks– Employee could hold more than one conversation which can help reduce idle time. And they can cater to more than one problem and if similar issues occur then they could use the data to improve future products or services.

 

• Shortcuts – This helps speed up the process by storing information that is frequently asked by customers. As you can see from the example Nordstrom is a website that provides easy shortcuts to questions that have been inquired before so it is more concise and gets straight to the point. They also advertise their services in a clear format which would be more effective. 

 

• It is also a good idea to take into consideration that “Marketing capabilities have direct and complementary effects on both revenue and margin growth rates” (Morgan, Slotegraaf and Vorhies, 2018).

 

 

 

 

 

Below is an example of a live chat used on this website Nikon However they could improve this by increasing their hours as they close at 5:00 pm. This could minimise sales because most people are off work during weekends and customers are more likely to engage with their services, during the weekends.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disadvantages/Risks

However, this can have some disadvantage that can occur while trying to apply this to businesses, for instance:

• Live chats do not last 24/7 so people would not be able to interact with an employee at late hours.
• Another barrier could be that the certain employees might not able to speak a different language so they cannot communicate as much as they would like to. These would be important to take into consideration because companies would need to hire employees that are bilingual to help improve the overall performance so they can maximise customer relations.
• Another disadvantage is that customers tend to have short attention spans so their level of patience can be difficult to handle, and with live chat, it can sometimes frustrate customer especially if they are being put on hold and waiting around for responses. So this could be a risk that should be acknowledged to help reduce these issues in the future.
• Another risk is that it may not meet the expectations of customers and could infect have a negative effect on businesses creating customer dissatisfaction and could drive customers away.
• High Response time

Conclusion:

With all these tips and advice and risks taken into consideration, it would be effective to create an online live chat to help the customer navigate their way through the website and ask for more information about the products and services. It is also important to acknowledge that 92% of customers feel satisfied with a live chat feature, it can also be redesign if it is not working efficiently or not meeting customer’s expectation. However, it is essential that the live chat is concise and clear to see because risks such as high response time could create issues.

 

References

nc.com. (2018). The Power Of Live Chat: 5 Surprising Statistics That Show How Consumers Want Their Questions Answered. [online] Available at: https://www.inc.com/nicolas-cole/the-power-of-live-chat-5-surprising-statistics-that-show-how-consumers-want-thei.html [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].

Chatbots Magazine. (2018). Top 5 Benefits Of Using Chatbots For Your Business – Chatbots Magazine. [online] Available at: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/top-5-benefits-with-using-chatbots-for-your-business-159a0cee7d8a [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].

Top 10 Marketing Software Comparison & Reviews. (2018). Top 10 Marketing Software Comparison & Reviews. [online] Available at: https://www.top10marketingsoftware.com/popular-websites-live-chat-software [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018]

Morgan, N., Slotegraaf, R. and Vorhies, D. (2018). Linking marketing capabilities with profit growth. [online] Sciencedirect. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167811609000664 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].

proquest.com. (2004). The Impact of Marketing Knowledge among Managers on Marketing Capabilities and Business Performance. [online] Available at: https://search.proquest.com/docview/233230257?pq-origsite=gscholar [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].

ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk. (2017). Examining satisfaction with the experience during a live chat service encounter-implications for website providers. [online] Available at: https://ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/S0747563217304727/1-s2.0-S0747563217304727-main.pdf?_tid=298d29d9-6f9b-4f34-8de5-a289588da3c8&acdnat=1522971565_2b11982d0b94558ee59f2c7e81d509b4 [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].

Ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk. (2011). Benefits Analysis of Live Customer Support Chat in E-commerce Websites: Dimensions of a New Success Model for Live Customer Support Chat. [online] Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/document/6147697/ [Accessed 5 Apr. 2018].