Last year I purchased access to a VPS from a small, relatively unknown hosting provider for one simple reason.

It wasn’t because of the price, it wasn’t because of the features, it wasn’t because of the brand’s reputation, it wasn’t because of reviews, it wasn’t because of sales copy, it wasn’t because of a really well designed site, it wasn’t because of a guarantee or witty social posts or clever ads or awesome videos.

It was because they had live chat on their website. Seriously, it was that simple.

Confidence
The first reason is because live chat gave me confidence in two things.

First, it gave me confidence that there would be someone there to help if I needed it. Not when they get around to it or “usually within 24 hours,” but right then.

Second, it gave me confidence that I was getting something that would match my needs. Why? Because I asked someone and they said so. Copy can’t address every question, but a human can.

So even though I had no knowledge or relationship with this company, I chose them over a half dozen with whom I did.

A Quick Story & Math
Last year, when researching a different purchase, I live-chatted with a rep who did an awesome job. My curiosity got the better of me and before wrapping things up I asked, “how many other people are you chatting with right now?”

His answer: six.

But I had already read from a few sources that live chats can last up to 50% longer than phone calls. So if an agent has an hour and typical calls last 10 minutes, in one hour on the phone he could help six customers while on live-chat that number grows to 24. Even an agent that can only handle 3 concurrently would help 12 – double the phone agent.

Not Either/Or
In the quest to push their live-chat agenda, I’ve seen this stat shared more than one. When looking at satisfaction levels, the three of the most-common channels were:

• Live-chat: 73%
• Email: 61%
• Phone: 44%

And when asked why people like it, they say:

Source: econsultancy.com

But I don’t think it’s either/or. The call center job I had during college turned all phone agents into phone/live-chat agents to fill times where call volume was low (which, interestingly enough, happened immediately after then launched live-chat).

Try
It’s an efficient way to increase confidence in customers, people prefer it, and customer satisfaction is extremely high.

For all the effort we put into making comprehensive websites to address an infinite combination of needs, maybe the real answer is just an efficient way to connect visitors to humans.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.