Chances are, you had an AOL instant messenger screen name in the early 2000s.
Even better chances are that you watched the concept of a chat box move into MySpace and Facebook — and now, chatting with friends and family is a normal everyday occurrence. Why? Because it’s easy to communicate and get to the point quickly.
This is why chat boxes and messaging apps have even made their way to business. Businesses are now using their websites as their most productive salesperson — and should be doing the same with customer service.
A chat box allows for your business to be ready quickly and efficiently so you are making the best use of your visitors' time.
The majority (66%) of adults feel that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online customer experience.
While Facebook owns the world's two most popular messaging apps, Facebook and WhatsApp, HubSpot isn’t willing to miss a beat here. HubSpot’s new tool, Conversations, includes a built-in chat function, chat bot, and more.
The chat function addresses a few problems that are all too common, including:
Problem 1: Your website has a huge navigation (or a confusing one) and users simply cannot find what they are looking for.
The even bigger problem: Visitors get frustrated and leave.
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Even if your navigation isn’t huge or confusing, attention spans have become almost non-existent, and spending hours – or even minutes – searching for something just doesn’t cut it.
Problem 2: Your internal team doesn’t have the bandwidth to answer the phone constantly.
The Solution: A chat function allows your prospects to quickly and easily ask a question – and receive an answer.
Your internal team is able to find the product that was being searched for, or a helpful resource is made available with more information. At this point, you’re providing the instant customer service online visitors are looking for.
The Conversations tool gives your internal team the ability to preset answers to frequently asked questions, quickly copy and paste website pages for easy access, or leave an ‘away message’ in order to answer when they can.
So, how does the tool work? Here’s a quick tour.
Under the Conversations tab in your HubSpot dashboard, select Inbox. From there, simply press Connect Chat to get started on creating your custom chat box for your website!
In fewer words: Conversations > Inbox > Connect Chat.
Appearance is important – and so is your brand. HubSpot's Chat tool makes it easy to select a chat box accent color, or you can add the Hex value for one of your own brand's colors.
Let visitors know when you're available. Conversations allows you to choose how your team is seen. You can appear "available" during business hours, based on team member status, or always.
You have the power: Determine which audience can see your chat message. Everyone? Customers only? Exclude a certain list? Depending on what you select, you will limit the number of people who will be able to view your chat box.
Select specific pages or subdomains for your chat, or have the chat display on your entire website.
Get personal (well, not too personal). Craft your prompt message – this is the first thing visitors will see when a chat has begun.
If you're talking to customers, you could say something like "Welcome back, looking for our product page?"
If you're talking to brand new visitors, maybe something along the lines of "Hi, Can I help you find what you're looking for?"
If your team is at any time unavailable, an email address can be left right in the chat. It's a win-win.
Visitor Win: You answer and reply without them having to seek further help.
Internal Win: Your business will receive a new contact.
Depending on what tier of HubSpot you have, you can route messages to specific teams or team members.
Don't worry: If you don't have Sales Pro, you can:
Once you have made it through all of the steps, you're ready to go live. If the HubSpot tracking code is already embedded on your company website, simply publish and you're off!
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If you don't already have a chat function on your website, consider adding one right away. Having an immediate customer service chat tool like HubSpot Conversations makes answering questions and building new relationships that much easier.