Five reasons not to use live chat on your estate agent website

May 12, 2017
I am sure that your website is highly valuable to your business growth and that all and any traffic it obtains you are after grabbing and growing your profits be it from new valuations or simply that next viewing being booked.
So, with the importance being high in the value of web traffic to website, are you fully prepared to take advantage? You shop on the internet is always open, by that I mean anyone can visit your website at any time, but is your shop managed, are you there to take the orders when someone is browsing?
A little bit of reverse thinking here, but I want to run through some key reasons why you would choose not to adopt live chat on your website:
  1. You want to ignore people.
  2. You don’t care.
  3. You believe having a website will generate all the leads itself.
  4. You think that live chat will put people off.
  5. You do not have the time nor finances to adopt live chat.

Well, you surely do not want to ignore anyone that maybe a new client I am sure, if this is indeed the case then I would question as to why you are in business, so surely we can strike off point one can’t we? Point two being that you do not care, well this is a little bit cold of me, but by not having your website managed correctly would surely fit in to the bracket of you not caring despite what these excuses you may give? There is no such thing in my mind as the perfect website that will grab each and every browsers attention and entice them in to subscribing / emailing / purchasing – We always those extra prompts / reminders to entice people to engage with you and certainly to buy from you.

Falsely believing that your website will generate its own leads is a dangerous thought process to adopt for point three. Yes, some websites will perform better over others, but no website will be guaranteed to register you details of each and every visitors so they become a new person on your database or a new client.

Live chat putting people off via point four is what I would say understandable a reservation to have, many people will not like to know that a member of staff in a small clothing boutique store is watching over them and persistent on asking if they want help. Though live chat is somewhat different, it is there though can be removed, can be ignored if preferred, but importantly an option if the browser wants to engage with a question or request by simply typing in the box provided. Imagine that clothing boutique you go in to had no staff yet just innovative tablets/ipads next to each item of clothing enabling you to type in or speak to it questions and it delivers immediate answers, ie sizes available, recommend garments to go with it, prices, returns and refunds etc… Less of an intrusion, more of a way to engage that potential new costumer.

Finally point five and I am pleased to say that both needn’t be an issue for your business. Live chat is now an easy to install feature on nearly all websites, works well on all browsers. Live chat can be both discreet and also attention grabbing – you decide the parameters.

Andy Soloman

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