Live chat for leads

While many brands focus on using landing pages to capture leads, using website chat for leads is an emerging trend. In fact, online live chat tools and video live chat tools are among the top 10 preferred customer experience and engagement channels, alongside other popular channels such as email, phone, mobile apps, text/SMS and social media.

Local service providers, ecommerce websites and small businesses can use live chat tools to engage with website visitors in real time. Businesses can also collect user contact information for future CRM follow up via email marketing and other channels, as well as answer any frequently asked questions (FAQs) customers have to help improve conversion rates, customer satisfaction rates and the overall customer experience.

With the average website landing page conversion rate coming in at 4%, most companies are missing out on being able to capture leads and generate website conversions from a whopping 96% of potential customers. That means any tool you can add to your lead nurturing and lead generation process to help move the needle is one worth looking into. 

So let’s dive into what the lead generation process is and whether it makes sense to consider live chat for leads for your company. 

What is the lead generation process?

At the very top of the sales funnel, the lead generation process starts the very moment new website visitors engage with your website for the very first time. With the right tools in place to capture leads, all of your website visitors have the chance to become new leads.

By using effective lead nurturing strategies, these leads have the chance to move through the sales funnel process and become qualified leads, that is potential customers, and ultimately successful conversions.

While there are many different sales funnel models and visuals available from brands like Hubspot and Shopify, each sales funnel should be tailored to an individual business’s unique needs and workflows. Here’s a quick overview of the most common stages of the typical sales funnel, encompassing each step of the lead generation process:

1. Awareness

Potential customers find out about a product, service or brand via channels such as social media, advertising, word of mouth or search engines.

2. Interest

Interested potential customers engage with a given company’s website, social media, ads or other presence.

3. Capture leads

Potential customers signal intent by filling out a webpage form, providing their phone numbers and other contact information and opting into receiving email marketing campaigns or by contacting the sales team for more information.

4. Follow up with qualified leads

The company follows up with new leads from their CRM using a combination of marketing automation tactics, such as email marketing and retargeting, and live outreach via sales reps. At this point, the goal is to further qualify leads and encourage potential customers to take the next step in the lead generation process, whether that’s booking a free consultation, getting a demo or creating an account.

5. Conversions/sales

Qualified leads take the final step in becoming first-time customers when they book a paid service or purchase a product. Read more about using live chat for sales.

How businesses use live chat for leads

In addition to the common use case of using chat widgets for customer support routing, sales teams use live chat sessions to engage with website visitors to answer questions potential customers and leads may have.

Companies may use templates and chatbots powered by artificial intelligence to automate some of the lead generation process and capture leads visiting a website for the first time. These live chat conversations may also be powered by live sales reps.

Live chat lead generation offers companies the chance to:

• Communicate with potential leads quickly and efficiently. They may even gather enough information to convert them to qualified leads.
• Answer any FAQs that may be holding up a purchase decision.
• Reduce response times by providing sales reps real-time notifications when potential leads initiate a chat session.

Live chat improves the overall user experience and drives outcomes. McKinsey Digital found that using digital communication tools helps increase customer satisfaction rates by 15-20% and improve conversion rates by 20%. Further research indicates that using live chat tools can increase lead capture by 4-8X.

Depending on what insights you uncover from looking at your Google Analytics, you may want to add website chat functionality to your pricing page, FAQs page and contact information page. It’s also possible to add a pop-up to every single page, so you never miss an opportunity to engage with new leads and convert them into qualified leads.

If you’re finding your website experience needs an update, Broadly can help with that too. Find out more about our website design services for small businesses and get in touch so we can discuss your needs. 

Use Broadly’s live chat for leads

Looking for a web chat lead generation solution for your website? Broadly provides web chat services to help customers start more customer conversions from their websites and respond automatically and quickly to potential customers.