Introduction to the 2012 Edition: In its fourth and penultimate year, the Effectiveness of Live Chat Technology set out to deepen the knowledge we’ve been building since 2009 with regard to online shopper’s attitudes, opinions, and behaviors towards live chat. We also wanted to directly address many of the recommendations from the 2011 edition which included the desire to discover what leads someone to choose live chat as their communication method of preference, the satisfaction level of chats resultant from both opt-in scenarios and proactive invitations, along with a continued focus on monitoring chat adoption and usage outside of the United States, specifically in the UK.
We take a new approach with this report in our presentation of findings which aims to shorten the overall length of the document while simultaneously highlighting the most important, intriguing, salient, and actionable data from the project. Rather than following the basic structure of our survey instrument and presenting all its data, as we’ve done in the past, we instead present the 5 key findings the data suggests and then investigate each one in some detail, using particular survey statistics to illustrate salient points. This method, made possible because of our partnership with the e-tailing group, puts the most interesting findings at the fore.
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Research/Analyst Reports
Live Chat Effectivness 2012: The gold standard for research on the efficacy of live chat technology. In it's fourth year, we once again explore the attitudes that regular internet shoppers have toward live chat. Again, we find that 1 in 5 shoppers prefers to contact online merchants through live chat above all other methods. Preview Research Report
Email Management: Nurturing or Blowing Up Your Brand [Hornstein & Associates]: Every year since 2001, Hornstein & Associates has conducted an email responsiveness survey. The results as of 2011 were an abysmal 34%. We asked Hornstein & Associates to challenge our customers and their competitors to an even more challenging task. Find out what happens when small- to medium-sized etailers are put to this task during the busiest time of year. Preview Research Report
Ante-Up: Live Chat a 'Must-Have' for Retailers [the etailing group]: Based on intensive one-on-one interviews with 20 online merchants, Lauren Freedman (President of the etailing group) discusses the hurdles to live chat deployment and the best reasons that firms should work to overcome them. Preview Research Report
Live Chat Effectiveness 2011: There are two results in this research report to which retailers should pay careful attention, particularly if they haven't yet deployed chat for their business. Adoption is on the rise generally, and there is a significant population of website visitors who prefer live chat above any other contact method. Preview Research Report
Forrester: Taking Chat International: While the experience of a successful chat implementation at home will provide valuable insight, the biggest risk to a successful international chat deployment is making assumptions that what is true in one market will hold true in another. Preview Research Report
6 Live Chat Facts You Can No Longer Ignore [Recorded Webinar w/ the etailing group]: This webinar highlights Lauren Freedman's in-the-trenches interviews with 20 merchants currently leveraging live and proactive chat while Ross Haskell will interject findings from our 2011 Annual Effectiveness of Live Chat Technology Survey. *Note: The iPad drawing associated with this webinar is over and the winner was already selected. Watch Webinar
Live Chat Effectiveness 2010: The second year for our comprehensive study with regular Internet shoppers reveals surprising findings about proactive chat, and the demographics of chatters. Preview Research Report
Live Chat Effectiveness Supplement: The Bad Chat Effect: This sub analysis was conducted in order to answer a simple question: "Is having live chat - regardless of the quality of its implementation - simply better than not having it at all?" Preview Research Report
Live Chat Effectiveness 2009: The inaugural research study means to understand the true efficacy of live chat. Does it drive sales? Does it help retain customers? Preview Research Report
Live Chat Performance Benchmarks: Because our products are provided through a software-as-a-service model, our infrastructure includes aggregated data from thousands and thousands of live chat customers. This massive base of real-world data has enabled us to extract the findings presented in this document. Preview Research Report
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