Let’s Chat

The concept of online interactions on corporate web sites has evolved quickly over the past few years. Many web site visitors now expect to be able to “chat” with a live salesperson. Chat technology has evolved through three very distinct stages and many companies are still using first generation technology, offering “click to chat” buttons on their site, and missing the business benefits that can only be achieved at the third-generation level. Reviewing the evolution of chat technology makes it easy to see why simply offering a “click here to chat” button or implementing technology below the third generation level is just not enough to produce significant business results.

The First Generation: “Unintelligent Chat”

In the early days of e-commerce—as companies strove to make their online channel as friendly and effective as their traditional sales channels—offering a chat capability seemed the answer. What could be better than giving web site visitors the chance to converse with a salesperson or customer service representative in real time? To some degree, this was true; but companies soon discovered that simply implementing a chat button on their web site didn’t provide the benefits they were looking for.

For one thing, service providers charged on a per-chat basis, regardless of the purpose or outcome of the chat. This meant that all chats—whether instigated by someone merely doing research or by a loyal client ready to place an order—were essentially equal. More significantly, since the decision to instigate a chat was entirely up to the visitor, there was no way for the company to control the quality or volume of chat interactions. Given the significant cost associated with staffing human resources, this lack of control substantially decreased the effectiveness of the online channel.

The first generation of chat technology, then, was essentially “unintelligent;” no decision-making was brought to bear on which visitors the online sales agents were to chat with and the visitor, not the company, was in control of how and when precious company resources were deployed.

The Second Generation: “Rules-based Chat”

The second generation of chat technology attempted to remedy the unintelligent nature of the generic “click to chat” button. Instead of making the chat option available to all comers, companies wanted to offer it only to those customers believed to be ready to transact. To meet this need, chat service providers began marketing technologies that allowed companies to track visitors’ onsite activities. This ability made it possible to define rules that would govern which visitors would be invited to chat. Only those visitors whose site activity matched certain criteria would be presented with a pop-up dialogue box with the chat invitation.

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The Third Generation: Intelligence-driven Interactions

The problem with first-generation chat technology was that it made no attempt to qualify site visitors for a chat. The problem with second-generation chat technology was that it qualified visitors using untested assumptions. Third-generation chat technology resolves both these problems by qualifying site visitors using rules and ranking visitors based on statistically meaningful evidence.

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Third-generation chat technology has changed the landscape of online interactions in a fundamental way. With the e-commerce channel more important than ever, companies need to take full advantage of the benefits offered by the latest in interactive technology. When considering solutions for their online enterprises, companies should therefore look for one that includes regression-based propensity modeling and real-time scoring—and take the guesswork out of which visitors they should target for a chat to achieve optimal business results.

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