Three Easy Steps for Improving Success Rate with Hesitant Mobile Customers
by Ross A. Haskell, Sr. Director of Products, BoldChat, LogMeIn

For consumers, mobile phones and tablet devices have become a quick and accessible means of researching, querying and purchasing products. Figures drawn out by BoldChat’s latest Effective Mobile Engagement Survey indicate that for nearly two thirds of people, the mobile phone has become their primary device on a day-to-day basis, with over half of respondents regularly using them to research products.

But a significant disjuncture has emerged between this rise in mobile use and the amount of money actually being spent through the devices. In the last year, fewer than 1 in 10 people spent more than £1,000 via their tablet or phone. This figure dips in the case of mobiles, where as few as 5 per cent of consumers went over the £1000 line.

Put simply, the interaction with mobile devices continues to grow year on year, but the enthusiasm for completing purchases, particularly at the premium end, is not keeping pace. It’s not hard to see how the rise in recent iOS and Android security headlines, such as the recent Stagefright vulnerabilities, may be partly responsible for this hesitancy to go through with transactions.

However all is not lost. The research also uncovered how developments being made in mobile customer engagement can significantly improve sales success. Whether via live chat, e-mail or an old fashioned voice call, a quarter of recent online transactions happened after the customer was engaged by the seller via their mobile. If you apply this to the mCommerce market – an estimated £200bn this year globally – then it’s not hard to see the potential for companies not yet employing these tools.

For businesses looking to turn the tide and re-kindle consumer trust in their mobile devices then, effective mobile engagement holds the key. With that in mind, here are three immediate ways you can improve your interactions with hesitant customers.

Understand the customer

Proactive chat success requires paying close attention to customer identification and then creating personalised, relevant engagement that shows customers that they are valued.

Map out the most prevalent customer journeys by customer group. Journey maps reveal detail about the tasks customers perform, the relevant available data, as well as the communication channels and touch points requested.

The research demonstrates that traditional channels of communication are still the preferred method for mobile customers. Over half of respondents listed voice call or email as their primary means of seeking support.

Proactive engagement

Use your high-value journey maps to identify the point in time where a proactive engagement would have the highest worth.

Early proactive chat implementations used crude rules to target customers, and optimising this was a challenging process without any analytics. Chat invitations can now be fuelled by predictive analytic models, which input customer journey information and optimise trigger conditions for the best outcomes.

Not every proactive engagement needs to be a chat invitation though. A product video, additional content about a product of interest, or targeted offers and coupons are often far more enticing to the customer and can lead to an increase in completed purchases.

Speak their language

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills estimates that small businesses in the UK are losing out on £48 billion annually due to poor language skills. More agile businesses recognise the need to effectively communicate with customers regardless of language and are therefore hiring multi-lingual candidates.

Fortunately, there are now sophisticated automated translation platforms that enable businesses to effectively engage with their customers using mobile devices, whatever language they speak. They provide instant, real-time translations of text to reduce the costs and time involved in helping customers whose language is different to those working in a contact centre. Such tools can be pre-programmed to identify and translate branded terms, industry vocabulary, slang, typos and shortcuts common in mobile device interactions, resulting in a higher quality conversation.

Throughout the process, consumer confidence in the mobile platform is being reinforced as well as trust in the customer service and support representatives. By investing these digital experiences, one of the most rapidly expanding product research platforms begins to provide real sales opportunity.

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