Servershop24 Measures Value of Live Chat
Sebastian Poll is an online entrepreneur pur sang. He runs the online shop Servershop24.de , selling second hand servers. Half a year ago he started experimenting with the implementation of Userlike . We sit with him as he explains how Userlike influenced the performance of his online shop.
Initially, his team thought the integration of live chat would be a waste of time. Six months later the value of the chat is no longer under discussion.
What convinced you and your team of the value of live chat?
“The initial scepticism was unfounded. Everyone soon noticed that the requests over the email and ticket system went down, reducing the support pressures. The ones that benefited most from the chat though were Customer service and sales support. Through the short response time on questions and wishes from the customers we are able to bind them to the shop at their first request. The team also enjoys chatting with the visitors, they get more positive feedback than ever before.”
“Although our feeling was good from the start, nothing is as convincing as hard numbers. I ran a statistical analysis of our chat system with Google Analytics to test its true value. At the moment our count stands at around 2.000 chats, over 10.000 messages, and 200 goals (goals reflect the effectiveness of the chat, for example a sales closure).
“The average conversion rate of our site lies around 6,5%. When we take a look at all the visitors that had a chat, we see that their conversion rate ranges between 15% and 30% (!). To me this means that people who engage in a chat are my most important visitors, worthy of some extra attention.
“Google analytics also shows some interesting metrics about our new and returning visitors: new visitors stay for 4 minutes on average, and returning visitors for 6 minutes. However, visitors with chat contact stay for an average of 17 minutes! Almost 3 times as long. We see something similar for the average number of pages that these people visited: 7.25 for first visitors; 9.25 for returning; and 14.35 pages for visitors with chat.
“When looking at the probability of a visitor returning, the stats show us that a visitor that chatted is 25% more likely to return. Together, these numbers made it super easy to decide to continue with Userlike.”
Do you have some tips for other shops that want to replicate your success with the live chat?
“We’ve integrated Userlike at three places inside our online shop. Firstly, we have the chat widget integrated at the left top of our product page, when we are online. Through this chat window we mostly receive product related questions that couldn’t be found in the descriptions. Short answers are generally enough here for the visitor to continue his shopping experience.
“Secondly, we offer the chat on our contact page as an alternative to the ticket system. Thanks to the Userlike API we can show the online status of the different departments. We divided our chat departments into technical support and invoicing.
This way we manage an efficient canalization of the incoming requests. Our departments can be relatively sure that the chat was correctly directed to them, saving time and annoyances for both sides compared to phone support. In case a customer accidentally started a chat with the wrong department, he can easily be redirected to the right colleague.
“At the checkout area we have a relatively prominent contact offer with the option for the hotline and the online status of the live chat. Live chat support in this section gave a great boost to our conversion rate. Our shopping cart abandonments noticeably went down, because simple questions, such as ‘how do I have to enter my UstID’, can be answered quickly.”
Why do you think Userlike worked out so well for Servershop24.de?
“Our products are relatively complicated and often differ from one another in sublime ways. A quick and easy support option here is simply very valuable. In the end we can explain almost everything quickly over the chat, what used to be done through email or phone before. A wrong address takes 1 minute to solve over the chat; over the phone this takes much longer.”
The Userlike Team
