Live Chat for Home Builders: Improve Online Engagement
Here at ReadyChat, we are often asked what is the average visitor interaction and conversion rate from live chat? In general, your website visitor to lead conversion rates will depend on several factors, such as, how trust worthy the site looks, human-touch, call-to-actions, video, images, content, etc., etc. Thankfully with live chat, there are far less factors involved.
Just like in real estate, location and timing are everything. Live Chat is no different. Let’s examine some of the common factors that influence visitor interaction rates with a live chat operator.
Chat Button Visibility: The placement of a live chat button on your homepage or webpages will significantly impact interaction rates with your website visitors. We generally advise our clients to place click-to-chat buttons above the page fold (where the page cuts off on the bottom of your computer screen). See example below.
Humanize Your Website. Having human images included in your chat button can dramatically increase click to chat and interaction rates. Studies show that the more human your website is, the more likely your visitors will be to convert (i.e. submit their contact information in the form of an inquiry). It’s important to include any human images you can to represent a live chat operator. This image can be either a commercial image or actual image of your staff member responsible for answering customer chat requests.
See below for some human chat button examples:
Click-to-Chat vs. Proactive Chat. Proactive chat invitations are key to see any real ROI from your home builder live chat service. Without proactively engaging your website’s visitors, your site remains reactive like every other home builder website out there. By reactive, I mean you are waiting for your online customers to take the initiative to contact you for your business, when it should be the other way around. Engaging visitors with a polite invite for online assistance through live chat is an excellent way to initiate sales related conversations and conversions.
Timing is everything! Effective live chat engagement for your home builder website will depend heavily on when you choose to engage your online customers. If you are engaging too soon, then your visitors will ignore your efforts and close any chat invite. To capitalize on proactive chat, you must identify the best time to send an invite. A chat invite is best received when the visitor has had a chance to view your website and likely has a question in which you can then interact by sending a chat invite. When this occurs on your site will vary. The best place to check when to engage your online customers with a chat invite can be found in your website analytics. See when the majority of your visitors are abandoning your website. Based on our experience, most website visitors will leave a home builders website after 30-60 seconds (if they don’t see what they like or get the help they need!). If your home builder marketing team doesn’t have analytics setup, you might want to get on top of that.
Many home builders from large to small have already deployed a live chat service on their website or are considering it. Unfortunately, live chat is not the same as setting up a phone line. There are best practices that should be followed for maximum ROI and ideal results. We will be posting more tips that will help you either fine-tune your existing home builder live chat service or consider the benefits of adding one to your home builder website.