The most effective and easiest ideas on how to make visitors feel more confident about you is through online website chat.

If customers want to learn more about your product or service in your online store, real-time chat is one of the most effective ways to do so. We've already talked about the benefits of online chat for e-shops, but it's also important to direct your customers to chat with you more.

This is especially true if you want to make online chat your main customer support channel and reduce communication by email and phone.

1. Add an invitation in the email footer and newsletter

E-mail has so far been the most common channel for customers to contact customer support.

You can add a small notification or invitation to the end of each email, indicating that you can also communicate conveniently and quickly through the website chat. The more customers see a call to chat, the more aware they are of the new chat feature.

If you send monthly or weekly e-mails to your customers, you can also use it as news, for example, that you are now available to customers in an even more convenient and faster way – through online chat.

To get the most out of your email and newsletters, it\s always a good idea to include a small reminder to chat.

Example 1: Find the fastest support in our e-shop through our new online chat.

Example 2: Visit our e-shop and communicate with us through online chat

2. Make a blog post about your new chat

Create a separate news / blog post for your website from the new live chat service.

In addition to explaining why you have introduced chat, talk about its benefits to the customer and what it offers them. Encourage your customers to try the chat and ask them for feedback.

After publishing a new article, be sure to share it on your social media channels and newsletter.

3. Share information on your social media channels

Obviously, if you use social media channels to spread the word about your products, services, new offers, and exciting news, it\s a good idea to include links to interact with you via live chat.

Randomly share posts about your chat hours, let them know you\re there right now, and more.

It is also a good reason to invite people to your website.

To keep your chat service customers fresh, keep positive reminders of your online chat features on your social media pages from time to time. It also sends a clear signal that customers and communicating with them are important to you.

4. Be available for chat conversations

If you have decided to use the chat solution, be prepared to respond to customers from there ☺. Define and clearly display your chat time slots so customers know when they can chat with you.

Unlike e-mail, chat allows the client to communicate faster and resolve their concerns. In addition, this experience is often a determining factor in making purchasing decisions and maintaining loyalty.

If by chance the customer service representative is not currently at the computer, but the customer wants to communicate, you can also conveniently answer on your mobile phone. This way, the customer understands that someone is dealing with his or her question and when to expect an answer.

One good comparison illustrates customer service chat well:

Imagine you are in a physical store and contact the first available customer service representative to find a solution quickly or get an answer. Online chat works exactly the same way on your website. To assist, advise, give recommendations and lead customers in the e-shop. Apparently, many people have felt that if the waiter doesn\t have time to deal with them in the physical store and you don\t feel welcome there, you would rather go elsewhere. It is quite similar in e-shop shopping and customer service.

5. Make using the chat as comfortable as possible

The ease of use of the chat for the customer is very important. It is best to start the conversation without taking any extra steps. For example, a story is often added to a chat in various forms that the customer must fill out before, if at all, they can start asking their question. However, this is not a quick online chat idea. It is important to offer the client direct, fast, personal communication, directly and with a real person.

The fewer form fields, the more visitors will want to chat with you because there is no cumbersome step before they reach you.

You can use the form fields, for example, if you are really offline or outside of business hours.

If you also show the working hours in the chat, make sure that it is as quick and convenient as possible to start communicating with you.

6. Mention support via chat in your phone's queue notification

If a telephone system has also been set up to serve customers, it is a very good opportunity to add the possibility of communicating in chat to the messages customers hear when in the queue, in case the customer does not want to stay on hold.

Customers in the call queue are quite receptive to the information you provide and alternative offers on how to contact you. Obviously, the customer is also happier if you offer him a faster solution to get his questions answered.

For example: Thanks for the call! Our lines are currently all busy, we will reply to you as soon as possible. You can also try using the online chat on our website to get your question answered.

To wrap up… There are many different ways to increase customer awareness of the online chat service on your website. Feel free to use different options, find suitable solutions and be consistent in them.

If your goal is to get your visitors to practice communicating with you through online chat, you can do a lot yourself. Sometimes it may seem obvious that customers will immediately feel that you can also communicate with you in online chat. However, this may not be clear to the customer right away. This is good if you are active, smart and consistent in introducing the possibilities of using chat.

If you do not have a live chat on your website or want to try the latest chat solution on the market, we invite you to try Askly\s new multilingual chat. You can use the new chat for free for 30 days and feel free to try using its features.