Customer service is the backbone of any funeral home business, playing a crucial role in building a sustainable customer base and while allowing your funeral home business to flourish.
According to American Express, more than two-thirds of American consumers say they are even willing to spend more with businesses that provide a superior customer service.
In this digital age, live chat is an integral part of a successful customer service toolkit. You’ve seen that little chat box on websites you frequent. You may even have used the live chat function on a consumer or business site to answer questions about a product or service before you bought it.
Consumer interaction studies show that being able to communicate with customers in real-time generates satisfaction levels of 73 percent, compared to just 61 percent for email and 44 percent for phone.
A Little About Live Chat
Live chat is a web service that allows customers to communicate, or “chat”, in real-time with someone from the business whose website they are visiting. Live support applications are commonly used to provide immediate customer support, answer customer questions and guide customers through the sales process.
But it’s not only your customer satisfaction levels that stand to benefit; customer retention improves as well. In fact, over 63 percent of consumers reported that they are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.
Why Do Customers Love Live Chat?
Live chat is convenient. It connects customers instantly with an agent or business representative. No need to dial a number and press button after button before you even get to talk to someone.
The wait time is negligible, and conversations can be saved for later. Customer queries are promptly addressed with conversations tracked for future use. Since conversations can be saved, it’s easier to guide users through issues when their previous interactions can be referred back to for context.
And it’s quick. Customer queries are answered quickly with live chat. Traditional emails often require a lengthy back and forth, live chat can resolve issues in one session.
For the sustainability of your funeral home business, building long-term relationships with customers is an absolute necessity. Satisfied customers are less likely to switch to the competition. Stats show that 89 percent of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand after a poor customer support experience. Not only that, but 86 percent of customers will pay 25 percent more for a better customer experience.
Ready to explore adding live chat to your funeral home’s website? Get started by researching some of the top WordPress plugins to see which application best solves for your business need. Most live chat applications come with a monthly subscription which allows you use of their software. Costs average around $15/month per user so if you have two funeral care specialists answering website chats daily, you’re looking at a monthly live chat investment of $30/month.
Live chat’s ability to allow your visitors and customers to reach you instantly cannot be stressed enough. Customers appreciate live chat as it helps them through some of the initial buying decisions as they explore death care services for their loved one.
Since our inception, Osiris Software has been helping funeral homes, cemetery and crematory businesses prosper through innovative solutions and world class customer service.