Offline chat mode - conversion killer. And an easy way to avoid this.

If you want a great conversion and loyal customers, then you have 2 options:
1 - sit in chat around the clock or
2 - adopt a new approach while your operators are resting

Many companies use standard chat rooms, but do not even realize that their solutions are already outdated and have a bad effect on conversion. In a number of companies, chat provides 38% of all sales , that is, the tool is important, but some approaches are already worth changing. If large companies can afford a large staff of operators and round the clock support, the rest work differently.

If round-the-clock chat support is not about you, then the article will be useful to you. We will talk about the main problems of offline mode and our solution using the Carrot Quest service - a service that combines knowledge about each visitor to your site with online chat, email newsletters and pop-up windows.
')
In the article we will actively talk about your service and how it solves this problem. If this task (how not to lose clients when you are not in the chat) is relevant for you, then the article will be useful to you.



Let's consider the situation with the usual chat: employees work in the chat during the working day, and during the night and the weekend, the offline mode starts (the operators do not enter the chat). At this time, all visitors see that there are no operators in the chat. The user is asked to leave contacts before he can ask a question. There are 3 big system problems here:

• When there are no operators in the chat, visitors do not write, because they see that chat is offline. Will you knock on the door if you see that it is locked outside?
• If the user still decided to write to the chat, then he is asked to fill out information about himself, even before he asks a question. Do you think many people decide to leave their contacts in this case? No, because they did not even have time to ask the question, why should they leave an email.
• Usually, offline forms request more information than is required. Why is it necessary when all the information about him can be found by his mail (his name, social network profiles, etc.)? A bunch of fields kills motivation to write.

All these problems are a consequence of the fact that the solutions of classic chat rooms are already outdated. As a result, some companies lose their potential customers, while others are forced to keep operators around the clock.

Such a model has taught users that the response must be expected instantly, and if you leave the mail, then nothing good will come of it (if the operator answers the user to the mail, the client will not be able to continue the dialogue without losing the context of the correspondence).



The pattern of communication on the Internet has changed globally in the last couple of years. There is no need to keep operators in the chat around the clock, users get used to that, they can ask their question in the chat, get an answer later in the mail and continue to communicate from the mail. We wrote a detailed article about this: "The global problems of online chat "

We made a new decision, which took into account the main problems of the chat (which we have already mentioned above). We took into account the different models of communication of users on the Internet and the work of operators. We got a really cool feature.

I'll start in order. We went from such tasks:

• People do not write to the chat if they see that there are no operators. How to avoid it?
• We can not deceive the expectations of the visitor, so we must inform you when the operator can respond.
• Chat should effectively perform its 2nd function - lead collection.

Prior to this, there was no holistic solution that performed these 3 tasks.

How we solved these problems in the Carrot Quest :

1. The visitor does not see the difference.

For the average visitor there is no division into online offline. The user sees the chat around the clock and if he wants, simply asks a question. In this case, the number of requests to the chat is not reduced, and you do not lose customers.

Here is what the minimized chat state on the site looks like.



2. Auto Answer

If the operator is not in place, the visitor will see the automatic message only after asking a question. When a user has already asked a question, he has more motivation to leave his contact information, especially if you only need to fill in one field - email, and you can continue the correspondence from the mail.



3. The service itself will find all the information.

In addition to the mailing address (or phone, if you “close” sales by phone), no further data is required, the service reads the user profile by email (name, social network, etc.); In addition, the service knows everything that the user did on your site, what he already wrote to the chat and where it came from.

Here is how this information looks in each user's card:



4. Service remembers everything about the visitor

If the service already knows the email of this user, another message will be sent - without requesting an email. You yourself can write and adjust the text of each auto message.



5. Convenient time setting of all modes

You set the time for different auto answers. For example, lunch time, working time, night, etc.



In each type of auto answer (general, working, etc.) you set up the time of this auto answer, days of the week, timeout (after what time after the operator does not answer, an auto answer will appear).

6. Multiple response types for different segments.

Choose the type of answer (there are several). If necessary, adjust the text, depending on your target audience and you can rest easy. Most of the users, after their question, will leave an email and receive your reply to the mail (we have already successfully tested the function on our users).

Sample lunchtime auto-replies:



Our customers are already actively using the new solution, and visitors are well converted. We are happy to improve communication on the Internet and often write articles on this topic. Here are a number of useful articles that will benefit you.

• Global problems online chat ;
• 38% of sales through online chat. How to achieve such an indicator ;
• Communication 3.0 or New Sex Chat

With pleasure, the Carrot Quest team is a service where eCRM, online chat, email newsletters and pop-up windows are integrated with each other.