De Laadkabel Shop Case Study: "80% of those who chat, end up buying."

Some businesses just seem destined for success, businesses that grow together with seemingly unstoppable trends. De Laadkabel Shop is one of them, an online shop surfing the wave of electrical cars that is swarming Europe.

The number of electrical car sales has doubled every year over the past 4 years. Every respectable brand has at least a couple of electrical models on offer and electrical car sales are expected to keep growing exponentially.

De Laadkabel Shop, built on SEOshop and since a couple of months delivering online service through Userlike Live Chat , offers the cables that charge these electrical cars, with the widest product offering and lowest prices in Europe.

We sit down with Joury de Reuver, Founder and CEO. Although De Laadkabel Shop is only 1,5 years old, Joury has been involved in the electrical car industry for over 7 years. He was involved in the the development of ‘Energy Spots’ by Eneco, R&D manager at at E-laad.nl, and as Product Manager Europe in Navteq. Next to his work for De Laadkabel Shop he is currently product director at ChargePoint, the world's largest network operator of electric vehicle charging stations. We talk about the service needs and processes of De Laadkabel Shop and his experiences with Userlike.

How did the idea of De LaadKabel Shop come up?

Somewhere along the way in the industry I got my own electrical car. I loved it. I was however shocked by the prices of the charging cables, so I set out to research whether I could get things cheaper. Through my network I realised that things could indeed be cheaper, but I also realised that this difference was so big that it could be interesting for people besides me. Through my contacts we started selling over Marktplaats, but things went so fast that we soon started our own online store on SEOshop.

We are now selling in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, and Swiss, and will soon expand to France. We have country-specific setups for this expansion, with separate German and French domains.

What is your key to success?

It's a combination. One ingredient is our low prices (we have a lowest price guarantee), but our wide offer of products is also important. Unlike most other shops, we also offer customised sizes next to the standard ones. And our service is crucial as well, to help our customers make sense out of all this variety.

In general we have a philosophy of staying close to the customer. That's why we have the setup with localised domains, an internationally divided team in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Userlike Live Chat fits in that philosophy.

We're selling an innovative product with a huge amount of variation, due to the fact that not all cars have converged to the same standard. Cables differ in sizes, use cases and per car type. This huge variety makes people uncertain about what to buy, which is why personal contact with a knowledgeable person is necessary.

How did you get to Userlike?

I was on the lookout for ways to improve the direct communication with customers and webvisitors. I knew that people have a lot of questions when they are on our website, and from myself I know that when I cannot find the answer to a question when I'm on a website, I am more likely to continue searching on another site than to take the effort of sending an email or making a call.

I didn't like the idea that this scenario was taking place on my own site. When I ran into Userlike Live Chat through the SEOshop app I was eager to try it out.

How does Live Chat help your business?

We basically use Userlike in 2 ways:
Firstly, to be available for questions from Webvisitors and reap the direct benefits of extra sales that are generated through that. Secondly, Userlike is a very useful tool to get insights about the factors on which customers base their buying decision. We then use these insights to optimise the communication of the website itself. It's great to help a customer, but it's even better when he helps himself.

What I like about Live Chat is that it is a much more direct and personal way of interacting with your website visitors. With email there is always a time delay, and when you answer the question it is still very much the question whether they come back. With Live Chat you answer questions directly on the website, and you are able to guide them directly to the right information.

What has been your most positive experience using Userlike Live Chat?

More in a general sense, I've been very impressed by the sheer conversion power of Live Chat. 80% of the people that chat with us, end up buying.

It’s also great to see that people are enthusiastic about our service. In Germany we use the review tools from Trustedshop and in Netherlands from KiyOh, and we often see people thanking us in the review for the great service they received over the chat.

Do you also want to share the story about how you do service? Just send a short email to pascal@userlike.com