DDBDM or data driven business decision making is becoming a standard approach when it comes to choosing between different solutions that will impact how you do things in your premise; for example live chat solutions vs. phone calls in customer service.
DDBDM is about making business decisions based on statistics; for instance, a recent study found that millennials favor live chat over email and phone communications. That means implementing live chat is a wiser move when targeting this demographic than the other two avenues.
Young Customers Prefer Newer Interaction Methods
The study, posted in Professionaljeweller.com found that 29 percent of young customers would rather contact businesses through live chat (at 26%) or texting apps (at 3%) during product search and inquiry.
This increased live chat preference is associated to the fact that most millenarians have accepted new innovations and inventions like chat robots and texting apps. Once again, the younger and futuristic generation has held the fort for new innovations in the battle between old-school and new tech.
At the moment, these live chat and texting apps are more admired than email or phone communication. Many online shoppers will search for a live chat feature when browsing a business site.
The poll interviewed more than 1K shoppers and sheds light on the critical role of millenarians in the transformation to live chat.
Millennials, in this study, were represented by buyer between ages 18 to 34. Of all interviewees, an entire 37 percent picked live chat as their preferred point of interaction with brands, compared to the less-than-25% from the same group who chose email and phone.
This means that more and more online shoppers hate strange phone calls and dislike the slow to-and-fro emailing process.
And as young shoppers adopt the use of texting apps in their social lives, the research found chat as a critical tool in merchant-customer interaction.
Customers want immediate solutions to their problems instead of platforms like email where you have to wait for hours to receive a response.
Live chat solutions help retailers to be proactive; when a customer reaches out, someone should always be there to respond. Set your live chat expectations right if 24 hours is not feasible for your business.
The Massive shift to Live Chat & Texting apps
Maybe someday emails and phone contacts will take a back banner when it comes to customer-business interactions.
Tech-savvy and forward-looking online businesses may pace the transformation to texting apps and live chat.
An entire 26 percent of the shoppers interviewed said they are okay contacting, or being contacted, with companies through texting apps like WhatsApp, Facebook’s Messenger or website live chat solutions.
This figure increases to nearly 40 percent for young customers aged 18 to 24 years and it is expected to increase further as the older generation goes and we usher in a new era.
Why this Massive Shift to Live Chat & Texting Apps?
These tools are particularly important in improving business-customer relationships. It helps business owners engage customers in real-time, which is not possible when interacting via email or phone.
The researchers found that;
“The advantages the young demographic enjoys from texting app and live chat solutions are user-friendliness and convenience.”
Furthermore, these platforms allow shoppers to store and review records of past conversations.
Interviewed customers also thought that it would be convenient recieve product order updates through a messaging app. Who knows? Maybe live chat solutions and texting apps will be the new face of customer care.
Humans vs. Bots
In other findings, 1 in 10 millenarians said they’d love to always interact with a chatbot instead of a human agent.
It seems like bot acceptance remains low; an entire 62 percent—almost 2/3 of interviewed shoppers— said they prefer interacting with a service agent or salesperson.
While tech experts are working to make robots mimic human better, it seems like human touch is still critical in doing business.
Final Words
Phone and email are equally effective interaction channels but you want to concentrate on live chat because many customers want to contact through this platform.
Train your customers on how to use your live chat feature and set expectations right to get the most out of your live chat efforts.
