Live chat services predicted to grow by 87% in next 12-18 months

Moneypenny predicts that small businesses will increase their use of live chat by 87% in the next 12-18 months.

The communication tool is growing in popularity as companies continue to be ‘always on’ for their customers. Our research shows that 37% of live chat takes place out of office hours and 16% takes place at weekends. However, it is clearly beneficial to business as more than 35% of chats bring in new business enquiries and it has the highest satisfaction levels of any customer service channel at 74%, compared to 61% for email and 44% for phone.

Our dedicated Live Chat team are able to offer businesses a complete service or simply manage overflow or out of hours enquiries. We combine gold-standard software with the support of real people in the background to ensure no chat goes unanswered and that each visitor receives exceptional service.

Our Live Chat case studies

White Oak, the UK’s leading non-bank business finance provider started using our Live Chat service so that visitors to their website could communicate with someone, giving them confidence that their enquiry is important and also to offer more flexibility to customers who find the regular 9-5 restrictive. The company has since experienced a 30% increase in new business opportunities.

Urban & Rural, award winning estate agents, launched their own live chat service but were receiving very few chats. With the introduction of our proactive Live Chat service managed by professional receptionists, Urban & Rural saw a 98% increase in live chat leads.

To help businesses decide on whether live chat is for them, we've launched a new Live Chat calculator tool to show how it could help.

Joanna Swash, CEO comments: "Our clients are finding it’s no longer enough to have just a website, they need to provide a means of immediate communication for their customers, so live chat is proving an increasingly important part of their communications armoury. Our new Live Chat calculator can give a business reassurance that it will be worth using this flexible communication tool."