Epidemic of online consultants

In RuNet, the craze for online consultants is gaining momentum. If earlier with active surfing they came across on 1-2 sites, now almost every site selling goods or services greets you with a heartless “Good afternoon. How can I help?"

I tried to analyze this phenomenon based on the feedback from site owners, their visitors and my personal feelings. First of all, I considered the use of online consultants in the online shopping environment. At the end of the article are brief recommendations for those who are going or have already installed a consultant on their site.

')

pros

Increased loyalty to the store or site
Quick and sensible response received, significantly increases the credibility of this store. This does not mean that the purchase will take place right now, but the positive experience will be remembered and the visitor will return to you again.


Positive experience of use. The answer was received within a minute, although the dialogue could have been avoided if the information were on the site.

Tool impact on the buyer
The human factor works here. If the dialogue is still started, then the talkative consultant will be able to sell not only the goods for which the buyer came, but also a number of related products in the load.

Additional interactive communication channel
An important feature of this channel is the absence of a change in communication medium, i.e. it continues on the Internet, and is not transferred to the telephone environment. There are people who are just too lazy to break away from the computer and go to pick up the phone or it’s inconvenient / impossible to use it, for example, in the workplace.


Unsuccessful experience. No answer even in half an hour.

Coverage of rare cases
Answers to typical questions can be at the planning stage of the store, the FAQ section will help with frequent questions, but questions from the series “you have the same, but with pearl buttons” can be resolved only through direct communication.

Increase conversion
According to the statements of the owners of some stores, the conversion after the installation of a consultant increases by 10-30%

Depends on the specifics of the store.
Hemorrhoids, of course large, but the conversion increases significantly.

Detailed portrait of the visitor
Some services provide information about the user's route on the site, the search query for which he came and also know how to store the history of correspondence with him. This gives more "leads" to the manager to make a successful transaction.

Characteristically, none of the above advantages relate directly to usability, but rather lies in the field of marketing. However, this is not surprising, because all the useful results are achieved due to a strong impact on the usability of the site.

Minuses

Not from this design
Despite the fact that most of them have rich opportunities to customize the style, 90% of the consultants I have met are significantly out of the overall design of the site. A thoroughly calculated layout of blocks and page accents can easily be crossed out by the annoying rectangle below.


Typical locations for the location of the invitation online consultant. The most undesirable option is marked in red because it overlaps the page content and eats up the useful height.

Too annoying
Many actively use the auto-invite feature, which itself starts a dialogue. This is very bad, because it knocks the user out of his current task and distracts from achieving the goal. It's funny, but some users still believe that the dialogue with him begins a living person. I think this is a temporary novelty effect.


Automatic start of dialogue distracts the user from the current task

Download slowdown
The additional amount of the consultant’s code adversely affects the overall page load. This is especially important for the product card, which is usually always overloaded with information.

Available only during business hours.
Your manager works on weekdays from 9 to 18 with a lunch break, the online consultant will be offline the rest of the time. However, your site is available to visitors 24 hours a day all year round. Many services in this case automatically switch to the feedback form. However, in my opinion, in this matter they lose the form set on the site, which can be supplied with links to frequent questions, a set of standard solutions and other useful information. Yes, and typing in a small window consultant is extremely inconvenient.


The consultant first pretends to be online, and after asking the question, he tries to get my data and phone number. Trust in the site instantly falls below zero.

Potential Security Issues
Data is stored and processed on servers of a third-party company. This question may be critical for banks and financial organizations. However, nowadays, the use of cloud technologies is everywhere, little attention is paid to this. There are consultant versions with installation on your server

The real experience of the owner:

Experimented on one large online store selling furniture. They came to the conclusion that the time that the operator spends on correspondence with the visitor, goes less for sales than for the same time to take a couple of calls, which more guarantee the purchase. unlike the online consultant.

Recommendations for use

The consultant is not a panacea and will not replace a well-developed site. If the information on the delivery of goods is hidden in the basement of the page, and to find out its cost, you have to go to chat, then this is a bad site and it is better to spend efforts to modernize it.


Unsuccessful experience. There was no answer after 10 minutes or after 30 minutes.

The need for installation itself is highly dependent on the audience and the subject of the store. A male audience would rather prefer to sort out the question herself, while women would like to discuss the choice of cosmetics or clothing with a consultant. Do not do it just because the store X, I saw something like that.

The real need for consultants, on the recall of owners, arises when the traffic of the store reaches 1500-2000 visitors per day.

Requires a special person in the state, whose main duties will include communication with visitors. This is a required item. Otherwise, the consultant is just dead weight on your site and annoyed users.

In the case when the consultant is offline, it is better not to indicate his presence on the page at all. This will reduce the number of distracting elements on the page, and users will try to resort to other ways of communicating with you: feedback, phone call.

Free versions can advertise to your customers. Think about whether you need such a dubious model of communication?

Alternative solutions

Do not get hung up on installing an online consultant. Perhaps you can use other ways to interact with your visitors:

• Feedback form. The form can be quite effective if you do not slow down with the answer and immediately respond to user emails.
• Call from the site. A good way for lazy visitors, but keep in mind who will call first, order and order.
• Phone call. And it is not necessary to organize it through the phone, and Skype will do the job.
• Profiles in social networks. The social network interface is familiar to the user, he uses it every day and, if the question is not urgent, then he will most likely ask it there. In addition, this is a good advertising channel.