Are you struggling to keep visitors engaged on your site?
This is a common problem that every business has to face. We all want our customers to have an amazing experience whenever they interact with our business, and this is especially true on a website.
That’s because we know that online engagement leads to a better customer experience and increased revenue.
As much as we all want to improve engagement, though, it’s hard to know what aspects of your site may be hindering the user experience (UX). Luckily, there are tools to help with this.
We’ve tested dozens of website engagement tools on the market and have narrowed it down to three that will improve your UX. Each tool is intended to either get you engaging with customers directly or give you insight on what your visitors need.
Tool #1: Live Chat
Jump on any modern website today, and most likely, they have some kind of function where you can chat with a representative in real time.
Chat isn’t a fad or the ‘trendy thing’ businesses are doing. It’s here to stay.
In fact, live chat is expected to grow by as much as 87% over the next year.
But why is everybody jumping on board?
Because it’s all about convenience! Customers want to engage with brands on their time. They want answers NOW.
One study actually found that 79% of customers prefer live chat over other types of engagement because of the immediacy it provides.
Think about it for a second. The faster a customer gets an answer, the more likely they are to make a purchase. The longer you wait, the more time they have to explore other options or second guess themselves.
But don’t just take my word for it. According to a study conducted by FurstPerson, 77% of customers said they wouldn’t purchase a product online without live support.
Nowadays, chat has clearly become a website engagement tool that customers not only appreciate but expect.
Hopefully, you’re already reaping the rewards of using a chat tool, but if not then here’s the solution we recommend.
Recommended Tool: Nextiva
Nextiva is perfect for small businesses that want to deliver amazing customer experiences. Not only is it designed with an easy-to-use interface, but it also can be customized to fit your business needs.
Consider just a few of the many features offered:
- Availability – You can designate business hours where customers can message you in real time. Then during your off hours, you can continue to capture leads with proactive contact forms.
- Proactive chat – Set specific rules on each page of your site that dictate when a chat pops up. For example, you can have a chat appear after a person has been looking at your prices for more than 30 seconds (indicating they have a hard time making a decision).
- Internal chat – Easily collaborate with teammates and managers while speaking with a customer.
- Chat logs – Keep a record of all chats with any customer. This feature is further enhanced with NextOS.
- Support case creation – Create and resolve support issues seamlessly through chat.
Tool #2: Visitor Recording Software
The secret to engaging with customers isn’t just talking to them. It’s also creating a positive experience that encourages them to engage with you.
After all, 94% of first impressions are design related.
We’ve all been to websites that have horrible user experiences. Just think of how Amazon looked when it first got started:
The challenge often isn’t knowing if a web page looks good, though. It’s knowing whether or not a page will be engaging enough for readers to take action (whether that be a chat, purchase, or phone call).
That’s why I love visitor recordings.
With recording tools you can actually watch what consumers are doing in real time on your site. Or you can even save these recordings in the cloud to be reviewed later.
From these recordings, you can learn many things:
- Where on the site customers are disengaging
- What pages/paragraphs do customers typically read before they buy
- What they do when your proactive chat appears on their screen
In order to survive, we as businesses need to foster engagement and build relationships with customers. With this data stack, we now know where we’re falling short of that mark and what we need to fix.
Recommended Tool: HotJar
I’ve used HotJar for years now and love how easy it is to set up.
Yes, you need to add a bit of code your website, but that’s almost expected with any tool.
Once the code is installed, you’re ready to start recording.
What really makes them shine, though, isn’t just their ability to record a visitor’s movements. It’s their recordings archive. Once you’ve collected a healthy amount of recordings (which shouldn’t take long if you have any traffic going to your site), you can go into the archive and filter the results.
For example, you could quickly find recordings of anyone who hit your pricing page and then figure out what on the page got them to abandon the transaction.
Tool #3: Website Builders
Creating attractive websites used to take literally months to accomplish. Not anymore. There are a number of website page builders to unleash your creativity. And you don’t have to venture far to create a slick, speedy website in a matter of minutes.
With a modern web builder, you can:
- Create pages and blog posts in minutes without any technical knowledge
- Upload images and videos and know that they will look great to visitors.
- Create landing pages to capture high-intent traffic effectively.
Recommended Tool: HubSpot Drag-and-Drop Website Builder
HubSpot now offers a free drag-and-drop website builder that lets you create a professional website in minutes. Just choose from their premade templates or start from scratch. Then add your content, images, and track your performance in the company’s CRM platform. Oh, and cloud-based hosting and website security? They have it covered for you at no charge.
Conclusion
Creating better engagement with customers is easy if you have the right tools in place.
While there are dozens of tools out there to help with this, these three will give you everything you need (and then some) to build truly engaging experiences online.
