And that\u2019s what we\u2019ll focus on – how a live chat sales funnel works, how it\u2019s different from the traditional ones, and how to optimize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Live Chat Sales Funnel: How it Works<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nYou\u2019ve all seen lead forms, they pop up as you\u2019re leaving a site, or when signing up for a webinar for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lead forms just capture leads, they don\u2019t result in any engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now keep in mind that the lack of engagement leaves you guessing which leads are high-value and which are not. What\u2019s worse, you work towards nurturing those leads even when they do not respond to your freebies or offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, that\u2019s not getting you anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But things can be different with a live chat sales funnel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nAfter the visitor fills in the pre-chat form<\/a>, you capture details such as the department they\u2019d like to connect with, their name, and email address. And unlike other forms, it helps you connect and engage with those visitors instantly. Thanks to these customer engagements, your operators can see whether they have qualified leads for the business or not. They even get answers to questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- Is the visitor interested in our solution?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- How did the visitor solve this problem so far?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- What are their goals and objectives?<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- What concerns or questions do they have about our solution?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Such an in-depth interaction helps you improve the live chat sales funnel because you get to actively engage with the visitor and understand their visit intent.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"live](\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Visitors.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAs you can see in the image above, engagement with visitors helps you move faster through the qualification process. If anything, a live chat-enabled sales funnel helps you identify prospects and market qualified leads (MQL) in the first stage itself. That\u2019s the impact your active engagement can have on your sales funnel process<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis also leads to another question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What else separates the traditional sales funnel from this one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll find the answer in the section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>How is the Traditional Sales Funnel Different?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nUnlike a live chat-enabled funnel, the traditional sales funnel process has more layers to it. That\u2019s why it takes more time to close a deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After submitting a query form, prospects experience a communication delay. And it\u2019s one of the reasons why the traditional sales funnel<\/a> ends up looking like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Traditional](\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Traditional.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nBut understand that if your business doesn\u2019t reach out to the lead, you\u2019re likely to miss out on the sales opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Harvard Business Review<\/a>, firms who tried to contact a lead within an hour of receiving a query were almost seven times more likely to close the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile live chat enables you to connect with a prospect and understand if it is a potential market-qualified lead for your business or not, the traditional sales funnel does the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will first attract the visitors on your website. Based on their browsing patterns (tracked on analytics tool) you\u2019ll identify if they are potential prospects for your business. Then you will store their data as leads based on how specific their search was on the website. Once you gather lead data, you\u2019ll see which of them are market-qualified leads. This helps you nurture leads as you finally know where their interest lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here we do not imply that those working through live chat funnel successfully acquire sales whenever they connect with a lead in real-time. But they definitely cut the time between initial contact and sale by a few days, if not weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that doesn\u2019t widen the gap between the two approaches, then what you\u2019ll read next will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike live chat sales funnel, the traditional funnel doesn\u2019t offer you the following options:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- The ability to loop in another knowledgeable member from your sales team in real-time to make sure the session leads to a sale.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The ability to answer customer\u2019s questions in one go and help them arrive at a decision faster.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The ability to gather more information on your prospects while they explore your services and disqualify or qualify them based on their purchase intent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
All this sets the live chat enabled sales funnel apart from the traditional sales funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, adopting and managing a live chat sales funnel isn\u2019t enough. You\u2019ve got to understand the techniques of building a sales funnel for live chat too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>How Live Chat Optimizes Your Sales Funnel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIf your biggest challenge at the moment is not having enough sales operators to manage all your leads, there is a possibility that sales operators may miss out on a few while having a conversation with other potential customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And honestly, this may repeatedly happen if the right measures aren\u2019t taken to improve your sales efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question is, what can you do to curb this situation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Route Visitors to Right Department<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"live](\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Chat-Routing.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThe first step towards improving your sales efficiency is to route visitors to the right department<\/a>. This will help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- Visitors get instant answers to their query<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Visitors arrive at a decision faster<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Operator avoid burnout due to uneven chat distribution<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Operators free up their bandwidth to manage relevant chats faster<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Learn: How to Route Chats to an Operator\/Department<\/a><\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\n2. Monitor Timesheets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n![\"Live](\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Operator.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAnother way to improve the sales efficiency of your team is to monitor their timesheet<\/a>. You can monitor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n- The number of days they\u2019ve been active in a month<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The number of hours they\u2019ve logged in<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The efficiency percentage (percent of the active time out of total login time) of every operator<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
These numbers will help you learn which sales operator is performing well and which one needs to go under training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Offer Solutions Anytime, Anywhere<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\nYour efforts to increase online sales<\/a> efficiency shouldn\u2019t be restricted to monitoring your operators\u2019 performance or by connecting them to the right visitor. Let\u2019s go one step ahead to ensure that your sales operators never miss out on sales qualified leads for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Live](\"https:\/\/www.proprofs.com\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/canned-responses.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWith the use of a responsive live chat app, your sales operators can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- Reach visitors and even initiate a conversation instantly<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Monitor visitors browsing behavior<\/a> and offer solutions<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Manage multiple visitors and use canned responses<\/a> to speed up the response time<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Supervise and intervene a chat to help visitors make a decision faster<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
After the visitor fills in the pre-chat form<\/a>, you capture details such as the department they\u2019d like to connect with, their name, and email address. And unlike other forms, it helps you connect and engage with those visitors instantly. Thanks to these customer engagements, your operators can see whether they have qualified leads for the business or not. They even get answers to questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such an in-depth interaction helps you improve the live chat sales funnel because you get to actively engage with the visitor and understand their visit intent.<\/p>\n\n\n As you can see in the image above, engagement with visitors helps you move faster through the qualification process. If anything, a live chat-enabled sales funnel helps you identify prospects and market qualified leads (MQL) in the first stage itself. That\u2019s the impact your active engagement can have on your sales funnel process<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This also leads to another question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What else separates the traditional sales funnel from this one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ll find the answer in the section below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike a live chat-enabled funnel, the traditional sales funnel process has more layers to it. That\u2019s why it takes more time to close a deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After submitting a query form, prospects experience a communication delay. And it\u2019s one of the reasons why the traditional sales funnel<\/a> ends up looking like this:<\/p>\n\n\n But understand that if your business doesn\u2019t reach out to the lead, you\u2019re likely to miss out on the sales opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Harvard Business Review<\/a>, firms who tried to contact a lead within an hour of receiving a query were almost seven times more likely to close the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While live chat enables you to connect with a prospect and understand if it is a potential market-qualified lead for your business or not, the traditional sales funnel does the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will first attract the visitors on your website. Based on their browsing patterns (tracked on analytics tool) you\u2019ll identify if they are potential prospects for your business. Then you will store their data as leads based on how specific their search was on the website. Once you gather lead data, you\u2019ll see which of them are market-qualified leads. This helps you nurture leads as you finally know where their interest lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here we do not imply that those working through live chat funnel successfully acquire sales whenever they connect with a lead in real-time. But they definitely cut the time between initial contact and sale by a few days, if not weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If that doesn\u2019t widen the gap between the two approaches, then what you\u2019ll read next will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike live chat sales funnel, the traditional funnel doesn\u2019t offer you the following options:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All this sets the live chat enabled sales funnel apart from the traditional sales funnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, adopting and managing a live chat sales funnel isn\u2019t enough. You\u2019ve got to understand the techniques of building a sales funnel for live chat too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your biggest challenge at the moment is not having enough sales operators to manage all your leads, there is a possibility that sales operators may miss out on a few while having a conversation with other potential customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And honestly, this may repeatedly happen if the right measures aren\u2019t taken to improve your sales efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The question is, what can you do to curb this situation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first step towards improving your sales efficiency is to route visitors to the right department<\/a>. This will help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another way to improve the sales efficiency of your team is to monitor their timesheet<\/a>. You can monitor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These numbers will help you learn which sales operator is performing well and which one needs to go under training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your efforts to increase online sales<\/a> efficiency shouldn\u2019t be restricted to monitoring your operators\u2019 performance or by connecting them to the right visitor. Let\u2019s go one step ahead to ensure that your sales operators never miss out on sales qualified leads for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the use of a responsive live chat app, your sales operators can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/span>How is the Traditional Sales Funnel Different?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>How Live Chat Optimizes Your Sales Funnel<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Route Visitors to Right Department<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Learn: How to Route Chats to an Operator\/Department<\/a><\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
2. Monitor Timesheets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
3. Offer Solutions Anytime, Anywhere<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n