We run two very different SaaS startups using live chat and we’re going to
list 36 public statistics on the benefits of live chat and tell you which of
them is true based on our experience.

Yes, this is a random image but damn, it’s late and this article is 3,000
words+ in length.

First, check out the full infographic we got the statistics from, it’s really
well put together: https://websitebuilder.org/live-chat-infographic

Company 1 overview

The first company involved in the analysis is
Upscope which lets you see your
user’s screen in one click to guide confused users through to a purchase. Most
users will come to the home page and either chat to us, sign up straight away
or book a demo.

Company 2 overview

The second company is
Anymailfinder.com which finds
and validates business email addresses for B2B marketing. It has been running
for a couple of years and we’ve had around 4,000 conversations with an average
response time of 5 minutes.

The 36 statistics

I've broken it up into sections starting with key highlights

Key highlights

51% of customers are more likely to purchase because of live chat

Anymailfinder: Right now, at least 20% of customers will chat to us before
buying. For larger buyers that figure would be 50% or higher. The larger they
are the more complicated the process so it could well be 75%. Not everyone but
most.

Upscope: Upscope is simpler so it does not require as much explaining before
they buy but live chat is essential for trust because of the type of companies
they are. Most of the chats appear to be support requests after they’ve
installed it so it’s more like 10% before purchase. Another factor is that we
have a demo process so they may not feel the need to chat as they just book
the demo.

29% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase with the option of

live chat even if they don’t use it

Anymailfinder: The live chat system we use is not passive, it automatically
asks them if they need any help and will give them links to content that might
help them to purchase without chatting to us. 29% is a reasonable estimate and
content can also help convert great medium sized customers.

Upscope: It’s too early to say but it would be no surprise. Many of our
customers use chat services too. A company without a chat service is probably
seen as suspect.

48% of customers are more likely to return to the website

Anymailfinder: There are two parts to this. People don’t buy in one sitting.
They talk. Go away. Come back. Talk some more. Go away. This is especially
true for larger buyers. In fact, they are actively testing for support levels.
The second part is that Anymailfinder is a product some people use time to
time and we have many return customers and funnily enough they are the ones we
regularly chat with. 48% is definitely fair and probably does not cover the
depth of it.

Upscope: Upscope needs a team to install and use it. If they do chat then they
certainly will come back if they want the product. The person chats, goes away
to talk to the team, comes back and asks more questions or simply signs up.

Rescue spa increased their conversion rate by 30% with live chat

Anymailfinder: 60%+ of monthly recurring revenue was generated via live chat.
I don’t know how that fits with conversion stats.

Upscope: It’s impossible to say at present. Does it have a positive impact?
Hell yes. The questions they sometimes ask mean they did not understand a
critical part and when we explain it, they sign up. For example, they’ll ask
“Does this work on a SPA (single page application)?” and we tell them ‘Yes’.
They sign up.

Increased brand reputation. 41% of online shoppers trust the brand

Anymailfinder: I certainly think that seeing live chat on a site means I trust
it more. However, now that it’s everywhere I am back to being a little
cautious but if I ask someone a question and they answer then I trust that
site more.

Upscope: Many of our customers are finance and health companies and trust is
everything. In fact, we need to fill out security forms for them to become
clients. Having a visible and active live chat system is essential. Most of
our customers are live chat users themselves and so seeing us using the same
expensive software as they are using is helpful.

Comfort

51% of customers prefer it to allow easy multi-tasking

Anymailfinder: They enter in a question and go off to facebook. We answer them
and go drink coffee. They come back from facebook and see an answer.

Upscope: Agreed.

21% of customers claim that chat helps them to shop while working

Anymailfinder: I guess this is e-commerce related and I’d probably agree
though on a personal level rather than from a company perspective.

Upscope: Same as above.

Websites with live chat have higher customer satisfaction rates.

Anymailfinder: People thank us for our fast support. We certainly know that.
We know that if we answer quickly they are always saying ‘Thank you for the
great support’.

Upscope: Fast answers to difficult software related questions are much
appreciated. We can’t answer all the questions immediately as some take
investigation. Overall they are very happy with our speed though of course,
technically some things are so complicated we can’t solve the problem as fast.
As long as we say ‘we are on it’ then they know they’ve not been ignored.

Speed

53% of online shoppers abandon a purchase if the support is not quick

Anymailfinder: Absolutely. If we don’t answer, they are gone. We have
competitors and they know about them. We have customers who came to us because
our competitors were too slow. I would not say that 53% abandon it entirely
but it would be a significant hit.

Upscope: They’re quite patient really. This is a new industry and there are
not that many players and the products are reasonably different. We don’t miss
many as we have a big enough team to answer during most hours.

79% of customers say they prefer live chat because of the immediacy it

provides

Anymailfinder: I think people prefer to text these days than call. They use
text messages, whatsapp, facebook messenger and more. They’re experts. They
can also go away and come back unlike a phone call. I don’t know about
immediacy but it feels more productive than waiting on the phone listening to
holding music.

Upscope: Same as above.

Average time an operator spends on a chat from start to finish is 6 to 12

mins

Anymailfinder: Don’t really agree anymore with that stat. We used to take 5+
minutes per person but we’ve got better. We’ve got the answers nailed and we
have pre-set answers and articles to send them now using Intercom
educate.
In other words, it’s type, click and boom! Done! However, the occasional user
will chat to us over an hour or longer. It happens. People like to chat.

Upscope: Some customers speak to us regularly throughout the day because they
have complicated sites we need to deal with. Each interaction can take seconds
or minutes but they happen often. These are mostly software related support
questions though.

60 seconds is the average time customers wait for support

Anymailfinder: Yeah, agreed I guess. Again, they appear to ask a question and
wait for e.g. up to 60 seconds but mostly they’ll ask and go browse elsewhere
and come back to check. They’ll certainly not wait around more than 5 minutes…
mostly.

Upscope: Same as above.

79% of people in the USA think that it solves things quickly

Anymailfinder: Americans make a larger portion of our clients so yes, we know
they’re happy with the support we provide.

Upscope: Most of our users are in the USA, so yes. They seem happy.

46% of people in the USA think it is the most efficient way to get

support

Anymailfinder: We’re from London and the people most likely to say ‘lets jump
on a call’ are from the USA. The rest of the world is not so inclined to
phone. However, very few even say that, most Americans just use live chat.

Upscope: Same as above.

Percentage of people who used live chat

2009 38%

2014 58%

Anymailfinder: I don’t know about individual people but in terms of companies
that offer live chat, all our competitors have live chat installed.

Upscope: As above, all our competitors have live chat installed.

Cost effective

Live chat is 400% less expensive than phone support

Anymailfinder: Not true for us, simply because we don’t get many phone calls.
We never did. Also, our live chat software does a lot more than just live chat
hence the much higher cost than our phone solution. Phone calls are difficult
though. We can’t multi-task anymore and that does have a cost. We can only
talk to one client at a time and we can’t pass it between us. Maybe you can
say that for any given hour, the difference between a 1 hour phone call and 1
hour on live chat means that I can help 2 customers at once with live chat
whereas on a phone call it’s one at a time.

Upscope: We do demos on the phone or via skype and they generate more revenue
than just live chat. I’m not sure if that’s a fair comparison though. As
above, live chat allows multi-tasking but as trust is so important, it might
be more expensive in time but it’s better in sales.

Average chat agents can do the work of 15 email support employees.

Anymailfinder: An average chat agent can probably bring in the revenue that 15
email support employees would because an average chat agent would get 15 times
more requests via live chat than all 15 employees would via email. When we
only had ‘email’ as a contact option we received very few support requests
compared to live chat.

Upscope: Agreed with some of the above although we have a demo process and
many people schedule a demo without chatting.

43% of businesses claimed that including live chat reduced phone call

volumes

Anymailfinder: That’s probably true. While we do get phone calls, they seem to
be quite rare considering the large number of people who sign up each day.

Upscope: We receive very few calls overall, we assume that’s because of live
chat and they can sign up for a demo.

A chatting visitor is worth 4.5 times as much as a non-chatting visitor

Anymailfinder: Almost all of our large clients chatted to us before buying and
large clients make up a big percentage of our revenue.

Upscope: The pricing is quite straight forward at $99 so this one is tricky to
answer.

Increased ROI

Customers who chat prior to making a purchase have a 10% increase in

order value

Anymailfinder: Similar to the previous point. Larger clients talk often on
live chat and they’re not worth just 10% but in some cases 1000% more. If we
were not there to chat they might have emailed us but live chat makes it
easier to respond and to see all their previous conversation in one feed. This
means we are more organised in our response.

Upscope: The pricing is $49 or $99 so this does not matter.

Customers who chat before purchasing bring a 48% increase in revenue per

chat hour

Anymailfinder: I think this is asking whether chat is worth it overall. We do
get people who ask questions and don’t buy. Many of them don’t. Over time we
filter the people who are just there casually and never intend to buy. So the
statistic does apply but there is a learning process.

Upscope: Same as above.

ROI from typical live chat software is around 30%

Anymailfinder: A lot higher than that. Lets say that we pay $5000 per year for
the software. We probably made that from one deal in one month from live chat
whereas we would have lost the deal if it had been done just by email.
Actually, as our competitors all have live chat, having ‘contact us by email’
would have been a disaster. First of all it’s not just live chat. You also get
additional tools within live chat software that replace existing processes
that cost time and money. If 60% (or more but certainly 60%) of our MRR is
directly attributable to live chat and it costs us $500 / month for that
software then the ROI is a lot higher than 30% (assuming we understand what
they mean by 30% ROI).

Upscope: Inevitably it will be the same as above. Upscope has not been running
for as long but ‘trust’ is so important that the return on investment is going
to inevitably be a lot higher than 30%.

Customers love live chat

44% of online shoppers consider live chat as a must have feature for

e-commerce

Anymailfinder: They love fast support rather than live chat. Live chat gives
them fast convenient support so I guess they love live chat.

Upscope: Same as above.

Leading contact sources in online environment. 42% for live chat. 23% for

email. 16% for social media and forums

Anymailfinder: No brainer. We received 10 times, 20 times, 100 times more
requests via live chat than email or any other method.

Upscope: No brainer.

Live chat users are young

50% of people aged 55+ have never used live chat. 18% of people aged

18–34 have used live chat many times. 42% of users aged 18–24 have used live
chat at least once

Anymailfinder: Mmmm, most of our users vary in the 18 to 45 range and they all
seem perfectly comfortable with live chat. I agree that people over 55+ are
not as common and they are more likely to call. Also, there are some odd
niches where they are very unfamiliar with tech. Finally, some people just
like to call regardless. That said, there are some cultural differences in
using live chat which are strange. People from some countries turn up and say
‘Hi’ and then wait. Others just ask and leave. There are differences between
countries in their experience of using live chat.

Upscope: Almost exclusively 18 to 45 and they all seem fine with it.

Desktop and mobile

On average 14% of the time desktop chatters will purchase and 7% of

mobile chatters.

Anymailfinder: 95% of them are on desktop and 99% purchase via desktop. It’s
not really a consumer app, it’s a B2B app. They’re at work when they check it
out.

Upscope: Almost exclusively on desktop as it’s a desktop app often used by
live chat support staff.

Chatter engagement is 1.7% on desktop. 1.4% on mobile.

Anymailfinder: It’s considerably higher on desktop. On mobile the chat box
might automatically open our pre-set welcome message that might block part of
the page and that could irritate people as well.

Upscope: Agreed. Considerably higher on desktop.

Mobile chatters are 6.1X more likely to convert than mobile non-chatters.

Anymailfinder: Most people are not walking around on their mobile trying to
figure out how to find an email. When they do chat to us it’s normally a
random question. I don’t see them signing up from mobile much.

Upscope: They might read blog posts on mobile, they might ask questions, they
might check out the site but they don’t sign up from mobile. Also, our sign up
involves an email confirmation with their business account so maybe that plays
a part.

Proactive vs Reactive

Reactive = when customers ask for it.

Proactive = before customers ask

7.8% engagement rate with reactive. 105% ROI.

2% engagement rate with Proactive. 15% ROI.

Anymailfinder: These stats are very interesting. We don’t do manual proactive
chats. It’s all automated. I think most people know the difference. When a
chat box automatically pings open and says ‘How can I help?’ I think most
people know that it’s automated but a few do think it’s real. However, we have
noticed that an automated message on the home page that says ‘See how we
compare to our competitors’ will generate more clicks and requests. It’s
effectively a pop-up advert in chat form. Without a doubt, reactive chats have
a higher ROI but simply because they’re asking questions so they must be
interested but proactive has a very different mid term impact. People read and
then later on might research our competitors and then come back to buy.

Upscope: Agreed with above. Upscope is slightly different, we don’t yet put
out content links and adverts on the same scale. Maybe we should.

Cost effectiveness case studies

By handling 30% of inquiries over live chat, Magellan reduced support

expenses by almost 50%

Anymailfinder: This statistic is both odd and correct. Live chat brings in
more enquiries so support time increases overall but efficiency also
increases. Doing things by email or phone is painful. As we said earlier, some
live chat systems are so much more than live chat. They bring together all
chats and emails into one feed so you don’t need to skip around trying to find
out what the full conversation was. This saves an incredible amount of time,
brain stress and energy. In addition, there are educational tools built into
live chat systems that also reduce the total support time needed to deal with
users over the life time of their using your software.

Upscope: Yeah, all of the above. Our one ‘Troubleshooting’ article we insert
into chats (and which also automatically appears these days thanks to new
smart tech built in by the live chat company) saves us an hour or more every
time they ask. This is because it lists the common simple things a user may
have missed when installing our software. Going through the options manually
is painful for us and them.

60% of Blue Soda’s chats led to sales after implementing proactive live

chat

Anymailfinder: Get me shares in Blue Soda. There is no way it’s 60% for us.
Maybe their product is that good. I don’t know what proactive live chat means
in their case but I’m going to go check out their website and (if the stats
are correct) probably end up paying them money.

Upscope: Give me some of those shares, keep the soda.

Overall revenue growth of Rescue Spa in the first year of using live chat

was the whopping 286%

Anymailfinder: Well, if 60% of our MRR is because of live chat and 75% of our
largest customers came via live chat then you do the maths.

Upscope: Too early to say. For all we know they all bought because we had live
chat whether they chatted to us or not.

Conclusion

Too damn tired to write a conclusion to all this so go read the article below
instead. It covers the before and after of using live chat. I’ll update this
conclusion later.

/blog/before-intercom-live-chat-after-intercom-live-chat-whats-the-difference/