Draft:Managed Live Chat

Managed Live Chat is a Managed Software as a Service [MSaaS]. Managed Live chat service offer interaction with website visitors via instant chat through real agents on business websites round the clock. The primary intention of the service is to generate sales qualified leads for businesses from any industry.

The trend was first originated around 2010 and is now used by a large number of big and small scale industries with the help of a variety of managed live chat service providers across the globe.

Origin of the trend

When SaaS-based live chat was introduced in 2002, it opened a new lead generation space in the online sales arena. Any company could buy the software, plugin its website and operate in-house. Visitors were able to initiate a chat session by simply typing a message in a website's chat window. A sales staff, who is a representative of the company or a chatbot responds to visitor's requests accordingly which resulted in healthier customer interactions and generated further leads.

According to the Kayato survey, “51% of consumers are more likely to stay with or buy again from a company if they offer live chat support.” But over the years, the software tool got complicated and the companies faced problems while operating in-house.

Problems with in-house SaaS

• The cost to set up the software plug-ins in the house is relatively high for a small or medium-sized business. Further, the software applications are sold on a monthly or annual subscription basis and require constant updation.
• The companies which are not in IT background and sales staff who do not possess knowledge on the same struggled to operate the software on their own. Hence the need to hire technical personnel became mandatory which further increases their expenses.
• According to a report from an outsourced live chat service provider, “…over 50% of the leads delivered to their clients are from “chats” conducted during non-business hours and weekends.” Hence they ought to employ a 24/7 online sales executive to reduce the website bounce rate.
• Chatbot, is an AI-based software used to answer the queries of the customers. Although they have the advantage of answering any number of customers and run at any hour of the day, they cannot thoroughly understand the context the questions are asked and mostly provide scripted responses based on keywords. Statistics say, “…about 29% of consumers say they find scripted responses most frustrating, and 38% of businesses agree.” Further loyal customers do not like the idea of talking to a robot as they would feel unimportant.

What is Managed Live Chat?

Managed live chat manage the company’s live chat on their behalf. It helps to obtain 20-400% percent more leads and inquires and companies testified their revenue is increased by an additional 22% every month. Managed Live Chat use the on-demand payment model which reduces the expenses considerably as the companies are paying only for the service they offer or in other words, leads generated. This also reduces the expense of hiring a technical personnel. Managed Live Chat forbid chatbots and employ trained Online Sales Executives to chat with the customers for better customer relationships. Research says, “70% of consumers prefer human agents to AI technologies. Further, the OSEs work 24/7, 365 days to reduce the website bounce rates.  Managed Live Chat provide several customization and detailed analytics of the different types of leads viz. hot and cold leads and ensure instant communication between the company and customers using various CRM integrations.

Future: Chatbot or Human?

“Almost 87 percent of the companies that adopted the Live Chat software plug-in to connect with web visitors in real-time.” Research says “live chats have a higher consumer satisfaction rate at 92 percent.”

Given this, it would seem that Gartner’s forecast of customer service without human agents by 2020 of 25% compared to IBM’s prediction of 85% is a much more likely outcome and poses the more likely scenario of Managed Software as a Service and managed Live Chat accounting for 75% of all future real-time live chat engagements with website visitors.