Introduction
When users are browsing online looking to make a purchase, they might have questions that they want answering before they make a purchase. They could use your website's contact form, but more than likely, they won't get an instant answer to their question. The longer that a user doesn't get an answer, the more likely the are to search elsewhere on your competitors' sites.
So what can we do to give them a near-instant answer?
Add Facebook Messenger Customer Chat to your website
You can integrate a chat bot in to your website! A chat bot can provide your user with instant feedback and keep the users on your website to increase the sales. If you are looking for a simple-to-add, free option, you can use the Facebook Messenger Customer Chat plugin.
The Facebook Messenger Customer Chat plugin lets you have live chats with your customers while they are on your website. But you can also set it up to ask and answer specific questions that will help your customer.
According to Web Hosting Media (link no longer available), 92% of website visitors feel more satisfied using a live chat or chat bot than any other form of communication!
Here you can see the Facebook Messenger Custom Chat plugin being used on the Ash Allen Design website.
What are the benefits?
- It's free!
- No need to start setting up accounts. Sometimes it can seem a bit tedious setting up accounts all over the internet for different services. It's one more thing to think about and more thing to pay for. But by using the Facebook Messenger chat plugin for your site, there's no need to start setting up any new accounts. Just grab the little code snippet that Facebook provides and drop it on your site.
- It increases the amount of interactions a user makes with you. Your website visitors can start a conversation with you in seconds. This is a great way to start building relationships with them and gaining trust.
- It reduces the chance of a customer going to a competitor. It's psychologically proven that the longer that a user takes to make a decision regarding a sale, the more likely they are to not go ahead with buying something. We, as humans, get excited when we see a new product! If we have the money in the bank, we try and buy it as soon as possible. But if we don't make the purchase right away, the longer we wait, the less likely we are to go back and actually make the purchase. This is usually because the impulse we get starts to die down a little bit. So don't give your user an excuse to think about the sale while they wait for your response from a contact form or email.
- Quick and easy to integrate! This bit might be a little bit tricky for some. But if you have a little bit of web development/design experience you should easily be able to get it working. Facebook basically provides a snippet of code which you basically copy and paste onto your web page. There's no need for any programming or coding, just a simple copy and paste.
- It can give you an SEO boost by keeping your users on your site. One of the factors that Google ranks your site against is the amount of time that visitors stay on your website. The longer that a visitor stays on your page, the better! So by keeping them in a conversation on your page, you can contribute towards your SEO ranking to try and get a little bit of a boost to drive even more traffic!
How do I add it?
- Go to Facebook and login (on the desktop version of the site).
- Go to your business page.
- Click 'Settings' in the top right corner.
- Now, click 'Messenger Platform' on the menu on the left of the screen.
- Now scroll down the page to the 'Customer chat plugin' section and click 'Set Up'.
- Follow the step by step instructions on the page. Once you get to the end of this, you'll be given a code snippet.
- Add the code to your web page! (You might need a web developer to help you with this bit if you're not too sure where to put it).
- Done!
Conclusion
So to quickly run down, remember the following. You can add a chat bot or live chat feature to increase the customer engagement and reduce the chance of them leaving while waiting for a response from the contact form. By reducing the chance of them leaving and providing them with near-instant answers to their questions on the live chat, they will be more likely to buy from you rather than your competition.