Proactive Live Chat: Benefits, Use Cases, & Top 4 Platforms

A big portion of your website visitors leave without getting to know your product or solution. Have you ever considered this?

Sure, a small portion of them raise their hand and ask for help. But according to this Stanford article, “Asking for help is hard” and humans are generally not comfortable with it.

That’s why you need a system that supports your customers before they even ask for it.

Here’s where Proactive Live Chat comes in. It starts a conversation with a pop-up message and engages with your website visitors based on specific events.

Instead of waiting for your customers to ask for help, be proactive and reach out to them when they need it.

In this blog article, I will discuss the concept of proactive live chat. I will start by explaining its characteristics and how it differs from reactive communication. Then, I will clarify how it can benefit your customers. Finally, I will introduce the best companies that can help you launch your proactive live chat.

For those already familiar with Proactive Live Chat, now is the time to get started and enhance your customer experience.

Proactive live chat helps your customers to:

Find their preferred solution or product hassle-free

Receive support when they need it

Avoid confusion with many different solutions

Feel comfortable asking for help

Interact with a dynamic website that is intelligently helpful

Proactive Live Chat Explained: What It Is and How It Works

A proactive live chat is an automated pop-up message implemented by chatbots or live chat software on a website to welcome your visitors.

Your website visitors are your potential customers. And we all know how challenging it can be to attract visitors to your site in almost every niche. With competition getting higher, it’s essential to seize every opportunity to convert a visitor into a buying customer.

Proactive live chat can be activated based on different events. For example, imagine a website visitor spending a long time on a product page. A welcome message like “Hi there, is there anything I can help with?” could be the start of a conversation. This conversation could lead to a purchase.

Even if you’ve already implemented live chat and it’s easy to use, it may not engage your customers as much. This is because if it’s not proactive, it won’t be as effective. A proactive live chat is a predefined automated conversation based on rules and conditions that engage your customers. It leads to higher engagement rates, more leads, and brilliant customer support, all of which contribute to increased reliability and sales.

Get started with Proactive live chat: Apply rules and take action!

Proactive vs. Reactive Chat: What’s the Difference?

As we discussed earlier, proactive live chat is an automated pop-up message. It initiates a conversation with website visitors based on specific events and trigger messages. In contrast, reactive live chat is when your human agent or chatbot waits for a conversation. Your website visitor must start the conversation using the chat widget.

The main difference between proactive and reactive chat is whether the conversation is initiated before the website visitor asks for help. If the agent or chatbot waits for them to raise their hand and ask for help, it is reactive.

In the table below, I will compare these two types of chat in more detail:

Proactive Live Chat Reactive Live Chat
Customized message appears to users when needed
Visitor clicks on the chat box to initiate a conversation
Sales associate offers help before being asked The customer approaches the sales associate for help
105% ROI for companies investing in proactive chat
15% ROI for companies investing in reactive chat
Great for lead generation and sales conversion Great for customer service and technical queries
Engages visitors before they ask for assistance Can converse with up to 3 visitors simultaneously
Prevents visitors from leaving without engaging Visitor initiates conversation themselves

Having a live chat is certainly beneficial, but implementing a proactive chatbot can really make your business stand out. By engaging with customers before they even ask for help, proactive live chat can improve the customer experience. It can also increase engagement and ultimately drive sales.

Benefits of Proactive Live Chat

While I’ve already shared some benefits of having a proactive live chat, in this section I will delve deeper. Proactive live chat allows you to be there for your customers whenever they need you. It provides excellent customer support while boosting engagement.

Increase Leads and Sales

As competition increases, making decisions for customers is becoming more difficult. For example, in the conversation automation industry, you can find dozens of competitors, each with its own features and pricing plans. This is where having an AI assistant to guide your website visitors can be a valuable asset.

Proactive live chat engages with your customers and tries to obtain their contact information during the conversation. It can act as the first touchpoint with your customers. It can understand their interests and immediately share the most relevant options.

And that’s not all. After obtaining your customer’s contact information, proactive live chat can automatically send it to your CRM or sales team. This gives you the chance to follow up for further communication.

Cross-Selling

Another benefit of proactive live chat is the possibility of cross-selling. How amazing would it be if an automated message could offer relevant products? It could do this based on what your customer has chosen or added to their cart.

For example, imagine if you have a travel agency and your customer has bought a ticket to London. The proactive live chat could suggest “Top 10 activities in London,” “Rent a car in London,” or “Rent an apartment in London.” These options would automatically appear via proactive live chat, benefiting both your customer and business. Proactive live chat can increase the average order value by proposing relevant options.

Reduce Cart Abandonment Rate

One particularly troublesome issue for e-commerce businesses is the high volume of abandoned shopping carts. If you have the same problem, don’t worry. Proactive live chat can minimize your cart abandonment rate.

People leave products in their shopping carts for many reasons. In some cases, they add the product to their cart when they’re not entirely sure about purchasing it. Or it might happen when your customer has doubts or unanswered questions about the product.

There are many other reasons why people leave products in their shopping carts. But remember, once a product is added to the cart, there is absolutely a need or desire to buy that product. So there’s a good chance you can persuade your customer to complete their purchase.

The proactive chatbot is one of the most effective methods to remind your customer about the products in their cart. Once your customer lands on your website again, the proactive chatbot can send a message.

The purpose of this message is to reactivate their willingness to have that product again. For example, “Hey John, did you need any help with product X in your cart?” This message will remind the customer about their product while showing that you’re ready to support them.

Another effective way is sending a WhatsApp template message. I strongly recommend reading that article as well:

Unleash the Potential of WhatsApp Chatbot

Increase Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Undoubtedly, one of the most important factors for long-term success is making your customers satisfied and loyal. Many studies have shown that having a proactive live chat sharply increases customer satisfaction.

One of the main reasons people like proactive live chat is that they feel valued. A welcome message on your homepage can warm their hearts and show that you’re there to help. But keep in mind not to put pressure on customers by sending too many messages.

This generally increases customer loyalty.

Help Your Customers Before They Ask

For businesses with many products or different services, customer support is one of the critical topics. People make purchases when they are absolutely sure about the product or service.

So being proactively supportive is key. It frequently happens that a customer gets confused by different similar products. They may also face difficulties in choosing the right service or plan that you provide. One of the places where proactive live chat can be very useful is on the pricing page.

The pricing page is absolutely one of your most important pages and requires special attention. When your customer spends a long time on your pricing page, your proactive chat trigger can be activated. It can propose talking with the sales team. If they click the button, the online agent would be notified to help the customer.

By implementing a proactive live chat on your website, you can significantly improve the user experience for your visitors. A well-timed chat invitation can initiate a live chat conversation, reducing the bounce rate and increasing the amount of time visitors spend on your site. Proactive chat messages can help guide visitors through your site, answer their questions, and ultimately increase conversions.

Start using Tiledesk today and see the benefits for yourself!

Proactive Live Chat Use Cases

Boost Sales with Special and Seasonal Deals

Businesses promote different offers for various occasions. It’s certainly well-deserved to share your deals with website visitors, as they are your potential customers. A pop-up message can appear and promote your deal. This message is effective and engages with your customers.

Then, based on your priorities, you can share the discount code via live chat or email. An email trigger can be activated right after obtaining the visitor’s email and immediately sharing the discount code. No human touch is required, and everything is done with Tiledesk automation.

This strategy sharply increases the number of leads. And you can automatically transfer the contact information of new leads to your CRM. Simple but truly effective.

Make a Great First Impression with Personalized Welcome Messages

Tiledesk can differentiate new visitors from returning ones using a specific code assigned to each new visitor. This allows you to send personalized messages to them. These messages should be friendly and helpful.

Try to welcome your new visitors with a short welcome message that shows you’re there in any case. This warms their hearts and helps them trust your business faster than before.

Lastly, don’t leave your new visitors alone among dozens of pages and articles or thousands of products. Remember to keep your message short and helpful. Also, try to send personalized messages based on the webpage the visitor is browsing.

Reduce Cart Abandonment by Reminding Visitors of Saved Products

Another use case of proactive live chat that can quickly boost your sales is reminding visitors about abandoned cart products. If you have an e-commerce site, you might be aware of the many products people add to their carts. However, they never complete their purchases. This is a common issue for e-commerce sites.

Here’s where proactive live chat can turn abandoned carts into fully purchased ones. As we discussed before, each visitor has a specific code. Using that code, Tiledesk helps you send personalized messages to returning visitors about their cart.

Increase Revenue with Cross-Selling Opportunities during Checkout

Once your customer has chosen a product or service, the checkout process is an excellent time for cross-selling. But you can’t always be ready to offer relevant or complementary products or services. Having proactive live chat ensures that relevant products are offered every single time.

You just need to set a couple of rules. Then, rest assured that your average sales value will be much higher than before.

Enhance Customer Experience with Proactive Support for Engaged Visitors

A proactive live chat can act as an AI assistant that understands customer intent and provides the best possible solutions. It frequently happens that customers face challenges in making decisions. Here’s where proactive customer support can help your customer.

For example, if they face difficulties in choosing the right plan, a proactive live chat can answer their questions. It can also connect them to a live agent to fully convince them about their purchase.

Proactive live chat is one of the strongest strategies for engaging customers. Moreover, it absolutely excels at improving the customer experience.

Improve Customer Satisfaction with Quick Access to FAQs

Another important use case of proactive live chat is its strength in answering FAQs. Customers often ask repetitive questions. You can set up a couple of questions and answers and share them using the live chat widget with your customers.

Furthermore, proactive live chat is gaining the power of AI-powered chatbots. They can understand user intent using natural language processing and provide the best possible answer by leveraging your help center. They will find the best possible answer in your help center and reply to your customer’s inquiries.

Top Providers of Proactive Live Chat Solutions

In the last section of this blog article, I would like to share some of the best live chat tools that can support your business. Choosing the right tool is always one of the most important factors because each tool has its own strengths. So before making any decision, you should know your needs well. Let’s dive in and see the strengths of each tool.

Tiledesk

Tiledesk is one of the cutting-edge tools that is growing fast, leveraging its live chat, chatbot builder, community, and automation. Tiledesk is an all-in-one solution for customer interaction. It can absolutely save you time and money while generating more leads and eventually more sales.

Main features:

  • Maximize your support capacity by automating conversations with your website visitors or web apps
  • AI-powered chatbot that can automatically answer FAQs, provide 24/7 support in multiple languages
  • Triggers and automation that make your customer interaction excellent and sharply save your agent’s time
  • Live visitor list with information about each visitor, such as their contact info, location, etc.
  • Tiledesk supports many integrations with other tools, so there are no limitations.
  • Customized live chat that can fit with your brand identity and design

Get Started Now!

Zendesk

Another tool that can help you automate conversations is Zendesk. It provides different automation that could be helpful for convenient automation and optimized workflows. Zendesk helps you with ticketing and managing customer inquiries and reduces workflow using its AI chatbot.

Pros:

  • It is a customer service tool that helps users reach us, generates reports, and segregates users.
  • Zendesk is a great way to centralize all customer service experiences.
  • It helps you organize your ticketing system and is one of the best in the industry.

Cons:

  • There are issues at times with uploading and exporting data. Sometimes data is deleted or missing for no reason.
  • Based on some customer experiences, their support representative is not sufficient. If you need help, you have to wait a lot.
  • Poor integration with the knowledge base.

HubSpot

Another great tool for proactive live chat is HubSpot. It’s a well-known product that supports businesses in sales, marketing, and CRM. HubSpot can seamlessly integrate with your website and CRM, saving all your customer conversations in an inbox and timeline.

Pros:

  • It is a user-friendly tool that makes it easier to analyze workflows.
  • A chatbot builder that enables you to automate conversations.
  • Allows your agents to define their available hours.

Cons:

  • Some users are really dissatisfied with their customer support.
  • Workflows are restrictive, and many key elements are in enterprise plans, which are truly expensive.
  • In some cases, it slowed down the opening of Outlook, and many times it would crash upon opening.

LiveChat

Another great tool that helps you create automated customer service using chatbots is LiveChat. It helps you design your own conversation flow and implement it easily. It also allows you to send targeted messages based on specific behavior. LiveChat can help you generate more leads and sales.

Pros:

  • Simple and easy to use, just like any other messenger would be. It is what you want and expect it to be.
  • Powerful integration with third-party apps.
  • Offers immediate assistance, allowing customers to have their questions answered or issues resolved quickly without having to wait.

Cons:

  • The mobile app could have smoother performance and more intuitive features
  • When monitoring a chat that someone else is taking, occasionally there is a delay.

Ready to revolutionize your customer communication with proactive live chat? Sign up now or request a demo to see the benefits for yourself!

Saeid Kajkolah
Saeid Kajkolah
I'm a digital professional with a technological and aesthetic background in structured content, SEO, and digital marketing. I am passionate about Conversational Al and the chatbot world as a way to connect people and machines.

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