What You Need To Know About Using Live Chat On Your Website To Engage And Convert Customers

What You Need To Know About Using Live Chat On Your Website To Engage And Convert Customers

Tim Fitzpatrick
Are you ready to have your business take off today? We're going to talk about how you can use real-time personal response on your website to engage and convert customers. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. I am a thank you so much for tuning in. I'm really excited to have with me today Beth Bogon from Ace Chat. Beth, welcome and thanks for taking the time.

Beth Bogan
Thanks for having you, Tim. I'm really excited to be here. This is a real pleasure for inviting me.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes, absolutely. I've been looking forward to this conversation because we've been hearing about chat, but not a lot of people are using it, I think. And so I think we're really going to get into the nitty-gritty and demystify it a bit. So I am looking forward to it. Before we get into it, let's look, we're both entrepreneurs. A lot of the people that are listening to this are business owners, entrepreneurs. What do you love most about being an entrepreneur and business owner?

Beth Bogan
That is the easiest question for me, because my team, that is my answer, they are amazing. Without them, I can't do what I do. I'm completely reliant on them and they are making a point. And they are so compassionate and kind and dedicated not only to each other but to me. And they are just they love what they do. And it really shines through what they do and how they do it. They're just a wonderful, supportive group of women who I simply couldn't do this without. So that's an easy one, obviously. But my team is really is what it is where it's at.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's awesome. You just touched on mine. Mine it's the freedom. It's making your own way. Yes. There are always things that are beyond your control. I don't care what you're doing, but there is so much freedom in being an entrepreneur. And for me, once I got a taste of that, I couldn't do anything else. So and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are that way. So tell us a little bit more about you personally and Ace Chat and what you're doing to help business owners.

Beth Bogan
So I started this as a way to help my family and I never thought I'm actually entering my tenth year of business this August this year, and I feel like this is huge milestone literally dawned on me early November, 10 years. And it feels so good. And everyone who's an entrepreneur gets to struggle. The blood, sweat and tears know in the beginning it owes you way more than you own it. And just that the scratching and clawing and scraping for every little place that you've gotten and just the honor it is to provide excellent service for your clients is amazing.

Beth Bogan
So I love what I do. And really, I worked with a lot of dental practices as well and kind of helping people change their lives with smiles. But just that element of really genuine personalized care that has not been outsourced in any way, shape or form and getting people the kindness that we sometimes miss in this day and age and just being genuine and thoughtful is really kind of what we love about what we do.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, and with so with chat or most of your customers service-based or?

Beth Bogan
Yes. And we work with a lot of malpractices, mostly dental. And so our goal is to basically just kind of be an extension of the online team. I tell people it's almost like we're an online receptionist or a concierge for your business when somebody comes to your site and acts like part of your team. And we know a lot about your business because we work to get to know you and that's how we're able to really convert and even help generate a much higher line.

Tim Fitzpatrick
OK, just to make sure everybody's on the same page when we're talking about live chat, it's the little thing that pops up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, usually when I visit a website. Right. Does it come in any other forms?

Beth Bogan
So that's a great question and we've kind of seen the evolution of chat over the last 10 years when we very first started, very few people had chat. Now it's becoming more of an expectation that actually is showing a form of communication. There are certain parameters in place, but it is when you go to the website, you can do it on phone, you can do it on a tablet, you can do it on laptop and you go to the site and a little widget pops up.

What Makes Chat Stand Out from Other Tactics

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yup. Ok. Got it. So when we look at marketing, there's all kinds. There's a number of different channels. There's tons of different tactics. What makes chat stand out from some of the other tactics and channels that people may be using?

Beth Bogan
So I tell people all the time, and this is a totally gross example, but it makes people giggle. Tim, as a marketing expert, you are the Nike shoe and you help get them where they need to be. I am with the chat awesome Kushi Sweat wicking stock, so I work perfectly and it really helps to maximize whatever marketing investment that you have. You're sending people to your site and were there to interact with them. So we seamlessly interface with all websites. We look good actually as a team, check every single chat site or every single day to make sure the site is up and running and that we have an immediate response time and personal experience. I think I can speak for most people as well when I say being on hold stinks and there's no.

Beth Bogan
We really noticed this past year, which was so cool during the pandemic, we were really able to help our clients because when they were unable to open any kind of stable hours, in fact, the dental industry was shut down. We were there. We were there to answer their questions. We were there to serve their patients, whether pandemic holidays, as far as I'm taking a week off to be with my kids in the summer, that's when we're there to help patients. So you name it, we're here. And that really kind of makes a huge difference, especially for small business owners when they really need an extra person on board.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's so it seems like chat addresses that immediate need. You can engage with the customer when the irons when the fire is hot, right? They're ready to go. And none of us, like you said, like to get voicemail or wait for a response. And chat enables us to respond immediately when the need is right there.

Beth Bogan
That's exactly right, and I think one of the ways that we kind of really help our customers is by filling that gap that they have, they have a gap between their website and there and then and we're able to fill that gap and really answer those immediate questions, get them the help they need so that they're much more likely to convert customer.

Does Chat Really Help Customers and Iin-office Team?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Got it. So so that kind of leads into our next question here, which is, is chat really going to help my customers and my in-office team? How how does this end up unfolding?

Beth Bogan
OK, so I'm going to circle this one back around to my team, because my team's a cohesive team, they worry about who they ask for, your services, the same across the board. So we kind of provide that stability as far as quality customer service goes, number one. Number two is listening is something that sets us apart. So we're really trying to hear what the customer wants and be able to answer the question as quickly as possible. And then, of course, small businesses especially need probably extra hands and can't necessarily afford to employ a full-time person. You are employing us for way more than full time, for way less than the cost of a part-time person. So it's really, really beneficial to the team because we can kind of help alleviate the work.

Beth Bogan
I tell people all the time. It's like we're your marionettes. You tell us what to do for you so that we can help. You told your customers have really dried up. And I think the personalization that we offer is unique to every client we have, like the marionette example. It's an opportunity for us to get to know them and then we can kind of help differentiate them and set them apart even in their own community, like, oh, these people have chat and they're very helpful. And you want to be that warm, welcoming, right out of the gate kind invitation to do business as that we care about you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. So how do you so one of the things that's setting you apart is you're using, you have real people that are responding to these inquiries that come off the website. How do you get up to speed on how to answer these questions that are coming up and come across like you are part of that organization and that culture?

Beth Bogan
Well, for our dental clients, we have a checklist because there are so many we do this, we don't we do that. I actually have one of my clients in Michigan tell me I would rather running on the Iron Man than fill out your checklist because it is so intense. So I want to know if they're possible. I want to know if somebody whose mobility will they be able to get in. I want to know who the people on the team are going to be following up with them. I want to know what the most often asked kind of their FAQs. What are the most questions you're going to be most frequently asked so I can answer them in advance of them even getting on the phone to you. We want to help with scheduling. If they have online scheduling software, we can get somebody scheduled right away during the chat. So it really, really is a great opportunity to serve not only to the site visitors or customers or patients, but also your team as well, because we can really help them promote special.

Tim Fitzpatrick
How much with your clients, what do you find is the breakdown between prospect interactions and current customer interactions? Do you have any idea?

Beth Bogan
You know, that's a great question, and I would say and you would probably be able to verify this kind of depends on their marketing and where they're spending their marketing dollars, how hard they pushing for new patients or customers. If they call the office and they're not available, they say, hey, our office team's helping another customer right now. Go to our website and chat with us or you can get an instant response. Kind of on some level the under the choices of the business owner.

Beth Bogan
How hard are you going to make me work for you? Because we're here and we want to work for you. But how clever are you going to be and making sure that you drive people to the sites that we can help? That's your initial question. It really depends on the marketing. Some people have repeat customers or patients. They know that we're there. So they go straight to the site as their questions get it. Try to answer it as quickly as possible if you can't answer it. We did this research for you. So we always do our best to make sure that they know that you're part of the team. We never want them to know that we're outsourced.

Chat Bots Versus Live

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, got it. Yeah. So it's the interaction is seamless for the customer or the prospect. So this leads into this last question that I think this is a great question. One of the things that for me personally that bugs me about chat and we were talking we were chatting about this before, is that so many people that use chat, it's automated and it pops up and it's like, hey, let us answer your question now. And you start typing it in and it says, our response is going to be typical of response time is by tomorrow or within three hours.

Tim Fitzpatrick
And to me, that's just, it's not setting a really good expectation or experience for the client. It's like, well, gosh, I might as well just emailed you to get my answer. And it bugs me, too, when I know that I'm interacting with a bot and most of the time bots have not gotten good enough where you don't know, I think most of us know. So how much of chat, how much of the chat options that are out there are automated or a bot versus live, which obviously in Ace Chat you guys are doing live? How much of it out there is automated?

Beth Bogan
So that's a really great question, and I can kind of, again, looping back to my almost ten years now of experience. There were very few bots back in the day. It was really like people, it was more human-driven. Now, there are so many bodies and yes, the bodies have gotten better than they used to be, but it's basically an Internet phone tree and nobody likes the phone tree. So it just happens. Or you can tell it is very much to outsource. No big, big companies. I get that. But small companies, they really need to be making sure that they're providing their customers with a chat that doesn't stink. Because let's face it, it has a reputation of being a not positive experience anymore. We are completely nobody at all completely US-based service.

Beth Bogan
Again, very kind and compassionate, willing to really generate relationships with our clients. There's no Internet phone tree. I would say that we're one of the very few services out there. I don't really know of anybody else who does what we do. In fact, I am really interested in building relationships with clients. Somebody called me yesterday and she's all stoked to get her dental practice in California back on board and start up with chat. And she was referred to somebody who's been a client of mine since two thousand and twelve.

Beth Bogan
And he actually emailed me shortly after Christmas and said, you know, I love working with you. I can't believe that we're working together so long. And when I see him, which isn't often enough, I hug him. I make relationships with the people I work with. And that is so not typical. And we love that about our company and what we do. We are not at all interested in anything other than forming personal relationships.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So if somebody is thinking about adding chat to their site. What recommendations or tips would you have? I mean, obviously, I'm going to tell them that they need to talk to you, but if they're just in the beginning stages and they want to do their research, what should they be looking for? I mean, are there specific questions that they should ask if they feel like they need to use an automated service because of whatever? Maybe it's less money. They think it's going to be more efficient. I don't know. What do they need to ask? What pitfalls should they be looking for?

Beth Bogan
I would say first thing is make sure you're not locked into a contract. If you're locked into a contract, it's because they can't provide you excellent service month to month. OK, so that would be a big red flag for me. Another thing would be outsourcing. Another thing would be the twenty four seven pitfall. It is that we have really gone down that road. We have done our research, we have done our due diligence. And the reality is it's very rare that somebody is chatting with you at two o'clock in the morning.

Beth Bogan
They're probably not a qualified. That is not the market that you're going for. Whatever business here and that is not your market. I would say, would be another red flag. It's really just not necessary. And I would say to that, you want to be asking specifically about what is your response time? What is your average response time? I can tell you the average in the industry, according to a study I read probably back in October or November of twenty twenty was a little over two minutes and get to be honest with you, I don't know where they got that from because I'm not buying that based on my personal research or personal experience with that. But our response time is 11 seconds.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Wow, that's fast, I can tell you, even automated, I am not used to, it's usually, it's at least a minute in my experience to get an answer or if I am getting an answer, the I'm getting an automated answer that's saying, did you check out these have you seen these three articles that might answer your question? It's not somebody that's starting to interact, so, wow, that's interesting. So what's response time? Don't fall into the twenty four seven trap. You know, people don't expect you to have awesome service at one o'clock in the morning. And I love what you said about. Those people probably aren't your best customers or prospects.

Tim Fitzpatrick
And then I'm missing something that you talked about in the beginning I think.

Beth Bogan
Contract. Please don't let anybody talk you into a contract because that to me says, I don't have best service for you and I'm just kind of I'm just going to take your money and then in a year, we won't still have a relationship anymore. So you want to work with somebody? I would also say especially for small business owners, which is who we're marketing to right now and who we're speaking to right now.

Beth Bogan
Make sure that the people that are chatting for you actually give a rip about who you are and what you do because they are the face of your company. That is the first interaction that they see. How is that chat team that you employ going to be treating your.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, you know, and I honestly, I would tell owners once you do have chat, go use it yourself and see what happens.

Beth Bogan
Oh, my gosh, absolutely. I'm shocked by the amount of people who don't we call it test chatting. Test chat us. Just chat us and give us the opportunity to make sure that we know all the information so that we can really best serve you treat us like part of your team. Give us the information that says, hey, we're closing early today. We got a team meeting you. Just it just with the team satisfaction, but also the satisfaction of the customers as well. And that is what this is what chat is supposed to do, improve the perception and help people.

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, awesome. I love it. So, Beth, where you've shared some awesome information, where can people learn more about you if they're interested in looking at chat and how they can integrate that into their business?

Beth Bogan
So our website is acechatservice.com. You can go there, you can, of course, chat with our team. You can also call me, you can text me. I tell people, Skype me, WhatsApp me, whatever it is the easiest way for you to communicate is how I'm going to communicate with you, back to you. My number 720 722 0223. It's a lot of twos, but it'll get me you can also just chat with our team on our site and then we'll be able to help you.

Beth Bogan
We're looking to grow in twenty twenty-one in our tenth year, which we're so excited about and we would be delighted to help answer questions on how we might be of assistance to you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Awesome. So I will say, if you guys want to engage customers, improve your customer service and you're thinking about chat, reach out to Beth over at Ace Chat. The thing that I love about what they're doing is they got actual people. Obviously, as you can tell by this conversation, I'm not a huge fan of bots at this point. So reach out to Beth. I know that they'll do great work for you. Beth, I want to thank you for taking the time.

Tim Fitzpatrick
You offered a ton of value here. And for those that are tuning in, listening, watching, I really appreciate you doing so again. I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing. If you want to gain clarity on where to focus your marketing efforts right now, hop on over to our website at rialtomarketing.com. That's R-I-A-L-T-O marketing.com. Click on the get a free consultation button. I guarantee you'll get a ton of value from the call and walk away knowing where you need to focus your marketing efforts right now. Thank you for tuning in. Till next time, take care.