More and more law firms are offering live chat. Live chat is an innovative feature that allows website visitors to speak with someone at your firm in real time. If nobody is available, you can opt to send automatically generated responses to users with questions. There are some clear advantages to using live chat, but with any new technology there are challenges you’ll need to overcome as well. Here are some pros and cons of using live chat on your website:
Pro: Great Service
People love live chat. eGigital’s customer service report found that live chat was the preferred method of communication with a 73% satisfaction rate among consumers. People love live chat because you usually get a response immediately. This is great for claimants who are seeking legal help online—if you’re able to get a response out quickly and win over the affection of a claimant, you’ll be more likely to sign the case than a competing firm.
Con: Time Commitment
You can’t have live chat if you’re not on the other end of the line. One of the top complaints with live chat is waiting for someone to reply to a question. If you implement live chat on your firm’s site but aren’t available to answer questions, your users will become frustrated and go elsewhere. The good news is you can always turn off live chat when you’re away from your desk.
Pro: It’s Personalized
Live chat lets you immediately assess whether a claimant has a pursuable case immediately. You may not have to hound claimants over the phone after they fill out a contact us form without many details. Consumers also love personalized responses too—they feel like their needs are important when you respond through live chat. To cut down on typing time, you can save a series of responses when claimants ask legal questions via live chat.
Con: Older Audiences May Not Enjoy It
While live chat seems second nature to millennials or Gen Z, older claimants may not be familiar with live chat platforms. They may just look like some kind of popup ad, which would lead to users leaving your firm’s website. Social Security disability representatives in particular may have difficulty speaking with claimants over live chat when compared to other areas of law, like personal injury.
Pro: Identify Top Performing Pages
Live chat can give you a lot of insight as to how you’re website is performing and what content seems to be the most beneficial to users. For example, if you seem to have a lot of live chat requests for more legal representation on a page, you know the content is inspiring users to reach out for legal help. On the other hand, if a specific page seems to be triggering a lot of clarifying questions, you’ll know it’s not written as clearly as it should.
So should you invest in live chat? If you have a platform that allows you to implement live chat at a low cost, it could be a great way to sign more clients via search. Just keep in mind that live chat will take a fair amount of effort on your end to use successfully.
Source: edigitalresearch.cowww.edigitalresearch.com/pdf/sample-benchmarks/Customer%20Service%20Benchmark%20March%202014.pdf