A technique to increase your online chat sales rate
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 05, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
Many of the companies with whom we work in our inside sales training classes are making increasing use of online chat with sales prospects. Much of the time, they're not maximizing the full benefits of chat, either because they're not collecting all the data they might have, or not attempting to engage the prospect in a telephone conversation as soon as the chat session has finished. That second situation is what I'll discuss today.
Although chat has the real benefit of engaging a prospect through your website, nothing works as well to increase sales as having a real conversation. During the chat session, the prospect controls the communication, and the rep is essentially in response mode. In most cases, reps give far too much information, enough that the prospect doesn't feel a need to talk with anyone. This is akin to sending a prospect to your website, or sending sales literature through the mail.
The remedy for this is to break the chat by finding a clue in the discussion that will lead to an opening for you, and responding by writing "that's a question that I can probably faster answer on the phone, because there are several variables that are easier to explain if we talk for a moment. I'm free for a couple of minutes right now. If you'll give me your number, I'll call you within 30 seconds." By telling the prospect that it will only take "a moment," you'll appeal to the immediacy that is a characteristic of the chat experience, and it makes it easier for the prospect to agree and actually have a conversation with you. Then you can make the call right away, do some qualifying, and learn a lot more about the prospect's business. You also have more control over the conversation, and might be able to make a sale or move the prospect more fully into your sales pipeline.
This is a great way to accelerate the sales cycle when using Sales 2.0 technology. Add it to your Best Practices Playbook.