Live Website Chat, Using It?

Would love your feedback/ideas…

Are you using live-chat at your property management website? Is it working?

Are you increasing your sales/leasing success?

What company/service are you using?

What do you like best about live website chat? What do you like least?

When using live chat…is this handled by your internal sales/leasing team or a third-party/outside provider?

The Coach,

Ernest

PowerHour

We use live chat here at Maryland Management (about 9300 units). We have an internal person use it. It doesn't destroy for leads but the conversion rate is quite nice. One move-in a month pays for its low fees. We use LivePerson and it works quite nice.

We use ContactatOnce here at Treehouse Apartments in Schaumburg, IL. ContactAtOnce has greatly increased the amount of traffic that walks in our door. After having spoken to us on IM people walk in WANTING to rent an apartment. They are impressed by the staff, responses, and information. They also like how tech savvy we are. I would recommend anyone use this program!

I am using the live chat feature at 4 properties in Houston. Nothing is more important than being able to communicate to our customers and to capture more leads that turn to leases. Our live chat feature has received rave reviews from our customers, both current and new, who are more easily able to communicate to us during the day using this feature. We have also closed a lot of leases from it, which may have been lost using only phone or email communication. There can be challenges to using live chat as the agents using the feature can often be interrupted with a face to face customer or phone call. We are still working through our "best practices" to balance the needs of all of our customer communications, but overall I love the feature and feel that the benefits far outweigh the downsides.

I also have Live Chat on my web site. However as a "consultant" to the multifamily industry, I really don't get the type of web site traffic an apartment community typically gets. However, that being said, it is very useful and has provided some great leads.

BUT please take note of Shelley's comments. Live Chat is only as useful as you make it -- if no one is responding immediately to the web site visitors request for information -- you will lose them quickly, i.e. about 60 seconds. So make sure you have this covered. I would assume most services that provide Live Chat functionality (like mine) have an "escalation" response if the initial chat request isn't picked up within a set time frame. I use ProVista.com.

I'd like to add another question to the mix:
What kind of device are you using to reply to inquiries?
Smart Phone; Slate; Laptop; Desktop; or other

Since I only have sporadic requests via Live Chat, the only current device I use to converse with visitors to my web site is through my desktop.

Our traffic has increased since using Contact@Once. It has been a great way to provide information about our beautiful residences and entice the prospect to visit via direct contact with someone. Our leasing agents race to see who can get the chat first, we are huge fans! I highly recommend this to anyone that hasn't yet tried this, it works!

The Park Kiely Apartments started using Live Chat through Contact@once and we love it. At first we were very hesitate on the availability of the staff and being able to respond. The set up is really cool because whom ever is available will be the one to respond.

Our team has gotten a little competitive with who can respond the fastest. So how it works is from our website a little icon appears asking if the resident or prospect would like to chat. From the office stand point once they select the option to chat every active computer (you can change the settings) will ring once to alert you someone is requesting to chat.

The first employee to accept the request can now chat, and everyone in the office will hear one more ring that notifies that the prospect/resident is in conversation.

It's quick simple and with todays "I want service quick and right away," its the perfect way to provide fast response time which leads to great customer service!

A sister property ask a great question before purchasing for their property,"Well, what about if someone just walks in and sits and your desk? You don't want to be rude and continue typing right?"

My reply was simple. Contact@once has quick reply options that you can click and send (really cool it your not a fast typer). One of which asks for contact information or to bear with you for one momment that you are assisting someone at your desk.

I would seriously recommend this

Lots of very good information being shared in this conversation. For live chat to be most effective you have to make sure to respond under 15s (under 10s is ideal). After 15s about 30% of the people will drop off.
I also would make sure that the live chat only shows if you are available to chat. When you are online I also would have a proactive invitation (Hello, how can I be off assistance?). With a invitation we see a significant pick up in the chat engagement rate.
The key to an effective chat is to make sure you focus on the quality of the exchange. It is about taking the experience from a product centric event to a consumer centric conversation.
We see a chat engagement rate around 2.5% to 4% of unique visitors when we are online, about 80% convert in contact information.
This brings me to my next point, you have to be online... For this very reason we have set up a team of virtual sales assistants that are there to help facilitate the chat and convert these chats into prospects. It is difficult for a team to be available
Happy chatting!

Since the quality of conversation is critical to a successful chat (getting contact information) it is important to be in a place where you can be focused on that conversation. Either a laptop or desktop is best in this type of exchange.

The Ranch at Pinnacle Point uses live chat with ContactatOnce and we love it. You can instantly talk to your prospects without it interupting what you are currently working on. You are able to ask all of the qaulifying questions and you don't feel so rushed as you do on the phone sometimes. ContactatOnce has generated several leads for us and turning many of them into leases. I highly recommend ContactatOnce for all properties!!

What level of gain have you experienced since enabling the live chat feature? Do you handle the chats in house or use a third party center to respond to customers?