3 Examples of Shopify Stores That Increased Sales with Live Chat Campaigns

We all know that Shopify live chat is an exceptional channel to communicate with shoppers, to proactively generate sales in real-time is another story.

As an online store owner or decision-maker, you continually strive to generate more sales and scale your operations. And, while we all know that Shopify live chat is an exceptional channel to communicate with shoppers, to proactively generate sales in real-time is another story.

Yes, when a shopper is satisfied and has their questions answered, they are more likely to follow through with a purchase. But, what tactics are stores actually using to entice more eCommerce purchases?

Here, you’ll find the following:

• The general concept of live chat tactics for sales and not just support
• 3 Shopify stores and the tactics they used to increase profits via live chat
• Actionable takeaways you can apply to your operations today

Read on to spark ideas that will increase your Shopify revenue.

How to Use Shopify Live Chat as a Sales Channel

You probably think of live chat as a channel for customer support. And, satisfied shoppers usually buy more. However, online store owners and managers don’t usually consider particular live chat tactics when we think of how to increase eCommerce conversion rates. So, let’s look at how these concepts compare.

Customer Support as a Sales Strategy

It’s no secret that an excellent customer support strategy is the key to retention and revenue. So, we recommend a system to use customer support to increase sales.

1. Run periodic customer support audits
2. Determine how to continually improve the customer experience
3. Make sure it’s easy for shoppers to get in touch
4. Personalize your support interactions
5. Give your team the “Iron Man” suit
6. Maintain rich customer profiles
7. Encourage your agents to create coupons, replace and cancel orders, and perform other actions from their dashboard
8. Track progress and generate reports for support processes

And, when you follow a system like this, your sales organically increase because your shoppers are happy.

Dr. Graeme McLean, an academic at The University of Strathclyde, stated that live chat influences purchase intentions. His research looks at what drives chat, experience using it, and the impact of it.

Live chat services provide consumers synchronous communication with a service representative often replicating the service interaction in the ‘real world’. The empathy and assurance conveyed by a live chat assistant during a consumer’s decision-making process significantly influences consumers to make a purchase, including high-value purchases such as booking a holiday on a travel provider’s website.”
-Dr. Graeme McLean

A recent study published by the University of Strathclyde found that the perceived value from a human chat agent has a positive influence on shoppers’ attitudes and their trust toward the brand. It can also increase website visitors’ purchase intention. Furthermore, the role of social cues that live chat enables can enhance the sales effects.

So, live chat in an of itself is a sales-booster. Now, look at the flip side of the relationship between support and sales to take this a step further.

Sales Impleted via eCommerce Support Channels

Your eCommerce support channels like email, phone, social media messaging, and live chat provide you with the opportunity to upsell customers. And, this is where some teams might miss the mark. Your sales team is not trained in support and vise versa.  

While it’s not for everyone, an “all-hands support” strategy (everyone on support or EOS) provides powerful insights about how crossing department lines can boost revenue and company growth for online stores. One Gorgias team, the customer support team at Nomad, experienced a 78% decrease in first-response time after implementing EOS.

I’m not saying you need to make your sales team hold the support team’s hands, but do empower your CS agents to learn sales and marketing tactics. Now, find out how other Shopify stores have done this with live chat.

3 Revenue-Boosting Shopify Live Chat Examples

Are you ready to dig into the meat and potatoes? Take a look at live chat tactics that three companies with Shopify stores have successfully implemented to increase online sales and create thriving businesses.

1. MNML Boosted Sales by Integrating Social Media Messages with Live Chat and Retargeting Shoppers

MNML is an online-only clothing retail store. They believe in low markups and fair prices. Their product offering is made up of casual men’s denim, bottoms, tops, and accessories like shoes, hats, and chains.

The store launched in 2016 and has since been featured in GQ and Hypebeast. Currently, MNML has nearly 650K followers on Instagram. Since a large portion of their customers were using the social media platform, they sought a way to combine their social media and live chat efforts.

The brand had the idea to retarget social media messages to shoppers who had added an item to their shopping bag and abandoned it. Using ShopMessage and Gorgias, they were able to accomplish their goal.

Shoppers now experience a unified experience across the brand’s website, Instagram, and Facebook. And, they receive abandoned cart notifications across all channels. And, the macros are configured via one dashboard by the support team. Furthermore, just three support agents were able to process 5,000+ tickets per month.

For MNML, sales increased when the company was able to boost profits with streamlined communications. Social media integrations and automated messaging created via full-featured macros helped to give them the kickstart they needed to reach their growth goals.  

Actionable Takeaway: Make Sure Your Live Chat Platform Enables Integrations With the Social Media Platforms Your Shoppers Prefer

As you implement live chat on your Shopify store, you will naturally begin to leverage automations until you’ve optimized your communications for efficiency. But, if you don’t know what to look for, you could miss out on the opportunity to keep your social media communications in the hands of the support team. You would be surprised how many eCommerce companies leave this task to the social media admins.

In this case, many shoppers never receive a response to their queries placed on social media. And, these potential sales are lost. If you choose a live chat service that can integrate easily with your eCommerce platform and your social media channels, you get to access everything in one place. This will save you a ton of time and alleviate the risk of leaving your shoppers dissatisfied on social media.

If you are using a live chat platform that doesn’t integrate with your other sales and communication channels, start shopping for a new one. At Gorgias, the average decrease in first-response time for customer tickets is 30% because our integrations and features streamline so many processes.

2. Campus Protein Leveraged Rich Customer Profiles to Increase Omnichannel Revenue with Live Chat

Campus Protein is an online supplement store who targets college students. They aim to deliver competitive online pricing with the convenience of shopping in a local market. 1,500+ sales reps at 300 college campuses spread the word about the brand offline.

When the brand first implemented its offering in 2010 (from a dorm room), sales reps had no way to make sure that customers experienced a streamlined brand experience. The bulk of the brand’s appeal was the human interaction that reps had with prospects and customers. So, the online experience needed to mimic the personal vibe that had been established.  

The founders wanted to find a solution for live chat communication with the ability to create rich profiles for shoppers before they ever landed on the website. Eventually, they discovered “rich profiles.” Sales reps could input prospect information into their database. Then, when the shoppers arrived at the website, their queries would be met with a personalized message.

Hyper-targeting led to precisely the user-experience company leaders were after. A team of five support agents was able to handle a tremendous workload easily. In the CS dashboard, the ability to display “rich” customer data leads to a customized experience for each shopper. Campus protein soon became a multi-million dollar business with the help of live chat tactics to drive success.  

Actionable Takeaway: Use a Live Chat Platform that Allows You to Create and Access Robust Customer Profiles for Optimized Support

Not all Shopify live chat platforms are the same. While some brands offer platform features that can be more of a time-suck than the value they provide, make sure you can keep detailed info about your shoppers. The more your agents know about a person, the better equipped they are to provide excellent service.

Encourage CS agents to take note of details like the shopper’s birthday and product preferences. Do they prefer black or white? What’s their dog’s name? Personal details can help you build a lasting and meaningful relationship with shoppers via live chat. And, when agents can see all of these details in one dashboard, your shoppers reap the intrinsic benefits.

3. Ellana Cosmetics Used a Facebook Shopify Integration to Auto-Match Shoppers Using Live Chat to their Social Media Profiles and Boosted Profits

Ellana Cosmetics is a mineral cosmetics brand that does about 40% of its business through Shopify sales. The other 60% of sales happen offline in department stores.

In 2007, the company launched when the loose-powder mineral foundation launched. Right away, orders poured in from multiple sources. Eventually, the product line and sales channels expanded. Eventually, Ellana Cosmetics became one of the most popular makeup brands in the Philippines.

Now, 90% of customer queries come in through Facebook Messenger. The brand has a tremendous social media following. But, they needed a way to streamline their communication. In addition, they needed to store all of their customer information in one place with easy access for their agents.

Fortunately, Ellana found the solution they needed to help them match Facebook profiles with Shopify customer data. Support agents were then able to provide seamless communication across all channels. In addition, they redirect and funnel prospects back to their online store at every turn.

Those who reach out on Facebook messenger have quick access to a pop-up shopping link. Plus, the first automated message tells shoppers exactly how to find their products. With only four support agents, Ellana Cosmetics powers 600+ support tickets and receives a sale for every 3.9 tickets processed.

Actionable Takeaway: Use Your Live Chat Messaging to Turn Your Shoppers Toward the Next Stage in Your Funnel

Your customer support efforts will go a lot further when you actively leverage it to increase sales. There are simple steps you can take to make sure your live chat processes are optimized to move people through your sales funnel.

1. Collect email addresses from users at the beginning of every conversation. If you do this, you can follow up with shoppers even when they move away from your site.
2. Ask shoppers if they are interested in joining a mailing list before you sign off. You may be able to nurture or upsell customers if you get them to sign up to receive a newsletter.
3. Include links to relevant shopping pages in automated communications across all channels. Make it easy and straightforward for anyone communicating via live chat to make a purchase their next step.
4. Send shoppers to your latest promotional offer. If you’re running a sale, a contest, or anything else, include a link to an information page about your promotion so that everyone who reaches out knows about it.

And, as long as you’re working from a platform that enables these actions, you can implement the above in under an hour or after just one team meeting.

Conclusion

In these three examples, the power of live chat is apparent. MNML, Campus Protein, and Ellana Cosmetics use live chat to power their customer support operations in a way that nurtures sales. And, if you integrate live chat with Shopify and your other communication channels, create robust customer profiles, and actively move live chat conversations in the direction of a sale, you are sure to see an increase in eCommerce revenue.

If you haven’t already, sign up for your free trial today and discover the valuable features Gorgias has to offer.

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