We’re excited to feature the following guest blog by Gareth Tait, a Web Coordinator at TourismTiger. For a website built to sell tours, contact TourismTiger.
If you’re a tour operator, you’ve probably felt the pain of sifting through email after email and fielding call after call from potential tour-goers. In most cases, the answers to their questions are quite short. The maximum group size is 12; no, food is not included in this tour; yes, the guide is bilingual. The introduction of a live chat integration can be very beneficial to you and your overall tour business and it’s becoming increasingly popular throughout tour sites. Today, we have four reasons why you should consider having a live chat feature on your tourism website.
1. Increase sales
The first major attraction of implementing live chat on your site is increasing your sales. Having the benefit of being able to talk to a customer while they’re on your site is magnificent. During their stay on the site, they may have questions, concerns, or doubts about an experience — with the live capability, you can hold their hand through the process and help push the sale over the line. Also, with the live chat’s incredible capability of an instant response, the sale may not be completed that day, but it will add the potential for more leads.
Being able to address concerns and offer solutions on the spot is what makes this tool so powerful. It’s like having a sales assistant in the room with your potential customers. With the correct guidance, any doubts or anxieties surrounding a purchase are much more likely to disappear.
2. Gain an advantage over your rivals
So far, there are very few companies using live chat, even though live chat capabilities result in higher customer satisfaction levels than the traditional email or phone method. Use this to your advantage. An Insidesales survey found that companies that responded in ten minutes compared to five minutes saw a 400% decrease in the odds of qualifying that lead, and only 7% of the companies surveyed responded within those five precious minutes. The majority (over 50% of the companies surveyed) took more than five days to respond or didn’t respond at all. The question is: why would someone with an array of other companies to choose from wait? Refreshing their email inbox for days as they await a reply is a complete waste of their time when they can hop back onto Google and scroll down to the next choice. Customers like to chat too, and it’s off-putting when you have burning questions but have to wait days for a response.
This is the difference you should be advertising. People don’t want to wait for responses nowadays. It’s the age of technology, and instant responses have proven more effective than traditional email or call methods. Some queries are best dealt with a phone call, but with the quick, easy answer questions or concerns, live chat is the way forward and helps to increases sales from your website.
3. Reduce your bounce rate
A website with a high bounce rate could indicate the page is confusing. Customers are forever full of questions and concerns, and the smallest thing may put people off. With the quick response time of a live chat, you can calm those reluctant fence-sitters concerns and offer guidance.
It’s also a great way to build trust with your customer. Different clients prefer different contact methods, and by having a wider variety of options, customers will feel you’re more available, responsive and interested in their needs.
Live chat services offer longer service hours, another important quality to consider when looking to build trust and/or reduce your bounce rate. ”But what happens when no one is available?” You can outsource to trained chat agents for a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house and never have to worry about something like business hours again. The internet doesn’t close when the sun goes down so why should you stop speaking to potential customers? This way, live chat covers evenings and weekends when call centers may be closed. In today’s fast-paced world, people don’t want to wait for a response. If they arrive on your site and have an immediate question or even just want to the product now, live chat is there to assist and improve the customer’s experience.
Fitting your customer service around your customers’ lives can only be a good thing.
4. Spend less time answering repeat questions and more developing your business
This should be a no brainer. Answering repeat questions that are clearly visible throughout your site will gradually wear away at you. Even if the question is answered on your FAQ page, you can’t guarantee that everyone thinks to either look for the page or read the questions. Every single day, the tour business industry deals with clients filled with alarming anxieties about giving their time and money to someone who may not deliver what they need. As tour operators though, a lot of these doubts are not genuine causes for concern and can be dispelled in moments. This is because the questions being asked likely have simple, straightforward answers than anyone can easily learn.
These questions are undoubtedly going to be asked, so what do you prefer: spending your time sifting through emails and voicemails or doing something that will improve your business? With a live chat integration being managed by a third party, your agent can clear up those concerns instantly and guide the client in the right direction while you and your team focus on the daily tasks of running a tour business.
What’s the take-away?
The benefits of having live chat are huge. You can effectively increase your sales while simultaneously creating more leads. You can advertise that your site offers live chat which, to a customer, translates to quicker response times and personal care for your client’s needs, unlike some competitors. Also, spending less time answering questions via email and phone and focusing more valuable time on the other aspects of the business is always a plus. Integrate your live chat today and transform your site into a customer service machine. If you’re looking for a website that will help you sell more tours, consider TourismTiger.
