Posted by Elizabeth
Website technologies continue to expand and so do the features and capabilities of a website. Regardless of your industry there are some key features that you may want to think about adding to your site to better your customer experience and drive more results.
Live Chat
Live chat over the past few years has gained popularity and you are seeing more and more websites utilizing this feature. Live chat is especially helpful for customer support, but also sales as well. Having a chat feature on your website allows you to have another point of contact with your customer. Not every interested user will fill out a contact form or call, but with live chat they have the opportunity to talk with you live while they are browsing your website. This feature helps bring back that human interaction they would get entering a store and an employee coming over asking if they need any help. Now you can add that element within your website, which for most acts as a digital storefront.
There are many companies that provide a live chat software that easily integrate within your website, but a multi functioning live chat option would be Facebook’s messenger chat integration. If you already have someone to manage responses on your social media messenger this option is very convenient. This allows your customers to interact with your business anytime with the same personalized, rich-media experience they get in Messenger. This helps create a single experience for your customers, and enables you to continue the conversation even after they have left your webpage. No need to capture their information to follow up, just use the same conversation in Messenger.
Reviews
Whether you are a service or product based business, reviews are key in gaining the trust of new customers. When it comes to reviews on a website, there is a feature to let a user create a review of a product and there is the feature of displaying reviews that your business has received through other platforms, like Google and Yelp. For product based websites there should always be a review feature in place, and for service based websites I would opt for adding a web integration to show reviews from outside sources, that way instead of people leaving your site to find those reviews, they can find them on your site.
If you are afraid of having possible negative reviews on your site don’t be discouraged. Most web integrations allow you to customize what type of reviews you want to display. If you only want to show the positive ones, or the 4 stars and up reviews, you have that control.
Automated Emails
Automating tasks that you’d typically have to remember yourself is a necessity for any business. So whether it is sending an automated email reminder to a customer for a purchase or an automated welcome email or response from a subscription or contact form this feature comes in handy. By sending out these emails automatically, you’ll increase customer orders and sales without having to remember all the details.
Last Thoughts
Your website when executed properly can be the ultimate tool for your business to succeed, grow and thrive. Don’t let opportunity slip away by not incorporating at least one of these key features to your website and business process.