Running a successful Shopify store takes a lot of work: product creation, shipping, marketing, security, and more. The good news is that AI tools have arrived to make life easier for Shopify store owners. Take one of these AI apps for a test drive and see if it meets your needs.
Free Trial Available: there is a free plan available (subject to usage and feature limitations)
Notable Features and Integrations: Shopify integration, background creation, and removal.
Presenting your products with the right photos and videos is essential to lifting conversions. CreatorKit is an AI-powered tool that makes it easier to create photos and videos. The app, released in 2021, also includes multiple templates to create images faster.
While focused on Shopify, CreatorKit images suit social media platforms like TikTok. Paid plans include real-time chat support for customers, while the free plan offers email-only support.
Free Trial Available: A free trial and three pricing plans are available. The higher tier plans allow you to customize CSS, product display and offer insights based on product reviews.
Notable Features and Integrations: The app integrates with Shopify, Klaviyo, and Zapier.
Launched in 2018, Octane AI is one of the older AI solutions on the Shopify platform. The app is designed to recommend products by using quizzes. The app can offer more specific product suggestions by asking prospects a series of questions. In addition to increasing purchases, users report that Octane AI increases email opt-ins.
Free Trial Available: there is a free version and a paid version available.
Notable Features and Integrations: ChatGPT is a general-purpose AI tool capable of answering questions, solving math problems, creating some programming code, and other functions.
ChatGPT, offered by OpenAI, was the first generative AI to see widespread use. While not explicitly created for Shopify, it can be a helpful tool for those willing to invest some time in experimentation.
For example, you can describe the features of your product (e.g., red shirt, large size, cotton, made in the USA, etc) and ask ChatGPT to create an engaging description. After a few back-and-forth iterations, you are more likely to get a helpful response. Experiment with providing additional context, such as “most of our customers are single women aged 18-25 who live in metropolitan areas in the United States,” to see if that provides greater context.
The true power of ChatGPT for Shopify unlocks when you pay for the paid plan (i.e., ChatGPT Plus). The paid plan is notably more powerful because it was trained on a more extensive data set. In addition, you get access to new features faster, like the ability to collaborate with others in a Chat GPT session. Currently, Chat GPT is focused on text chat and cannot be used to interact directly with your customers.
Free Trial Available: Yes, you can start using it for free
Notable Features and Integrations: Arena Commerce AI integrates with Shopify and WooCommerce.
Arena Commerce AI works on any website. Through a chat interface, the AI suggests products to your customers based on their interactions. For example, a clothing ecommerce website could use it to recommend accessories to complement a complete outfit.
Arena’s AI is customizable in several ways to provide a better experience. You can choose the size of responses – a great feature to remember with mobile users. Also, you can select the ‘temperature’ – meaning how strict (or creative!) you want the AI to be in its interactions.
Free Trial Available: There is a free plan available with a limited number of tokens per month.
Notable Features and Integrations: increase your SEO traffic by using the app to create meta descriptions. The app also offers bulk features to create and edit many variations quickly.
Do you like the ChatGPT concept but want a solution that is more focused on Shopify? Yodel is an AI-powered copywriting assistant focused on product descriptions. In contrast to the open-ended nature of Chat GPT, Yodel has a narrow focus on helping you create product descriptions.
Like other generative AI tools, there is a learning curve to master Yodel. Reviewers report that it took them some time to experiment to produce useful results. It is also wise to create backups of your descriptions before using the app if you encounter unexpected problems.
Free Trial Available: there is a free trial available.
Notable Features and Integrations: the app integrates with Shopify and significant online advertising platforms (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Snapchat and TikTok)
Much of the excitement in AI is focused on generative AI – using AI to create text, images, and other media. InCharge shows us that there is another way to use AI to grow your Shopify business: leveraging analytics.
Since the introduction of Apple iOS 14 in 2020, online marketing has been getting difficult. Without the tried and true way of tracking results, how are you supposed to decide which ads and marketing strategies to invest in? InCharge’s analytics technology uses AI to help Shopify stores increase their return on advertising spend (ROAS). The InCharge approach to analytics is special because it combines first-party data (What is first-party data?) and data from multiple platforms.
Free Trial Available: Translation Lab has a free plan.
Notable Features and Integrations: The app’s supported languages include English, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, French, Japanese, and Portuguese.
Opening your store to buyers in other countries (or who use different languages) was tremendous work. Translation Lab is about to make that easier! Launched in 2019, the app is based on Google’s neural machine translation technology. In addition to language translation, the app offers multi-currency support.
Machine translation is a helpful way to get a first draft. However, verifying the quality of translations before using them on your website is also wise. Otherwise, you might make mistakes and hurt your brand’s reputation.
Free Trial Available: the app is free as of December 2023.
Notable Features and Integrations: the ability to scan your website to detect images that lack an ALT text description.
Achieving success in Shopify SEO requires paying attention to countless details. One lesser-known way to improve your SEO results involves your images. For the best results, all of the images you use on your store should have ALT text – a short written description of the image. Writing and updating all of these image descriptions required a tremendous amount of work.
Squirai AI SEO is an AI resource focused on image processing and text creation. Put this app into action, and you’ll quickly be able to generate ALT text for all of your images.
Keep Your Audience Engaged With Arena
Growing your Shopify business is far easier when your customers keep returning to your website and staying engaged for long periods. Reach out to Arena today to discuss how you can use live chat, live blog, and other solutions to keep your audience engaged and growing so you can sell more products.
Keeping your news audience engaged is increasingly challenging. The Washington Post recently appointed a new CEO, highlighting concerns as its digital audience has declined by 28% since 2021, with digital subscriptions also falling by 15%. The struggle to maintain audience engagement is not unique to the Washington Post; many digital news publishers face similar challenges.
To address these issues, experimenting with innovative content experiences is crucial. For example, the New York Times has heavily invested in sports and games to boost engagement.
One effective strategy to enhance engagement is integrating a live blog into your website. The live blog benefits are substantial, as it offers a dynamic content mix, including videos, brief Twitter-style posts, articles, audio clips, and more. This diverse content approach can significantly extend the time your audience spends on your site and improve overall engagement.
14 Live Blog Benefits To Grow Digital News Audiences
With the right execution, retaining and growing your digital audience today is more than possible. Here are some ways a live blog can keep your audience returning for more.
1. Deepen audience engagement multiple times a day
A person who visits your website for minutes is much more valuable than someone who reads a few headlines and disappears in seconds. Live blogging solves this problem by giving your audience a reason to keep coming back for more.
Imagine there is a breaking news story like an election. You can cover that event with a live blog and provide hourly updates. Those frequent updates give your audience a reason to visit in the morning, at lunch, and later in the day to get the latest developments.
2. Grow search traffic
In July 2023, many news publishers noticed a drop in Google traffic. The drop was later attributed to a bug in Google’s software. That disheartening experience reminds us that keeping a close eye on the latest search trends is vital.
It’s been established that providing up-to-date content is a proven way to attract search traffic. A live blog is one of the best ways to provide a steady stream of new content like analysis, new facts, commentary, video, and more. Feeding the search engines with new content – especially on trending news items – is one of the best SEO (search engine optimization) search strategies.
3. Grow the bond with your audience with a human touch
The rise of AI and misinformation makes it harder for your audiences to know who to trust. In 2022, the Pew Research Center reported, “ Adults under 30 are now almost as likely to trust information from social media sites as they are to trust information from national news outlets.”
Rebuilding trust with your audience takes several strategies, including recommitting to high standards of journalistic behavior. You likely have one or more highly trusted news personalities within your current team. Those trusted individuals can help you to grow audience trust.
Invite one of your top trusted journalists to use a live blog to cover a breaking news story. Shaping the live blog around a specific journalist’s reputation and expertise can deepen audience engagement and trust.
4. Increase referrals with viral content
Receiving content from a friend is one of the best ways to grow your audience. This is another area where a live blog can help. For example, you and a few friends might eagerly follow the new NBA drafts each year. A live blog that follows all draft announcements is tailor-made for audiences to share.
You can supercharge this viral effect by using Arena’s interaction elements like polls, responding to comments on your page, and hosting chat experiences.
5. Provide exclusive content for paying subscribers
Paying subscribers are the coin of the realm. Keeping them happy and engaged is crucial for the future of a publishing business. A live blog can help you to win here by offering an exclusive experience.
For example, invite a few experts to share their thoughts on a breaking news story to make contributions alongside your in-house staff. Sharing a broader perspective on the news makes the experience more valuable for your subscribers and keeps them returning for more.
6. Use team reporting for more stories
When a big story breaks, it’s tough for anyone to research and cover it thoroughly. Bringing together a team – even a small two-person team – with a live blog is a great solution. Each team member can submit updates and keep your audience engaged.
7. Accelerate your urgent news coverage
When an urgent story breaks, the digital news publisher with the fastest and best coverage is positioned to win. A live blog is a good option for rapidly developing stories. You can share updates every minute, every hour, or however, you often make sense for your audience.
8. Distribute your online content faster
High-quality content is the foundation of online success as a digital news publisher. Yet, the best content in the world isn’t worth much if your audience can’t find it in their preferred format.
A live blog is flexible: it can be updated on a desktop browser or a mobile device. That means you can keep your reporters in the field engaged.
9. Enrich traditional written articles
Today’s digital audiences are conditioned to expect engaging images and videos. You will struggle to keep your audience if your online content doesn’t meet those social media expectations.
Enhancing your written content with comments, videos, GIFS, and social reactions helps your content to compete effectively with the big social media sites. Think of it this way. One way or another, your audience will want to discuss your content. If you make it easy for your audience to connect and discuss with you on your website, they’ll have a reason to stay there longer.
10. Innovate faster than your competitors
Live blogs – sometimes known as live updates – have been around for years. However, many digital news publishers have yet to use them. Adding a live blog to your website will make you one step ahead of other news publishers.
11. Get closer to your audience’s real interests
Traditional digital analytics only tell you so much about your audience’s interests. You can get basic demographic information and see what content gets likes and views. That information helps, but it doesn’t go very deep.
Offering a live blog where your audience can comment deepens your understanding of your audience. Instead of guessing which kinds of content your audience wants, you can check the comments section and see which updates are driving engagement.
12. Offer a branded experience to your audience
Your audience should have a consistent experience when interacting with your content. Arena Live Blog is designed to be customized. Creating your live blog theme and customizing icons will give your blog the same look and feel as the rest of your website.
13. Connect your coverage to the social media conversation
You may have mixed feelings about social media as a digital news publisher. On the one hand, you love how much traffic social media sites can send you. On the other hand, you don’t like how social media sites compete against publishers for your audience’s attention.
A live blog can offer your audience the best of both worlds. Start by creating your content and updates. Then, track the social media conversation (e.g., tracking specific hashtags and keywords) and curate the best content for your audience.
14. Make the news helpful for your audience
A live blog is an interactive and flexible way to share your content. Rather than simply posting a static article, a live blog invites conversation.
In Brazil, Arena delivered a live blog to keep readers updated about the COVID-19 pandemic. It contained daily statistics about the virus and other sources of information to give a broad perspective on the situation.
Even more importantly, as health measures decreased social interaction, the live chat provided a much-needed social outlook for people to interact with each other.
Discover the Live Blog Benefits for your Website
The best way to find out if Arena Live Blog is suitable for your audience is to try it out. Try our live blog tool for free!
Audience retention is one of the most important signs of a healthy digital publisher (or almost any other business that depends on its website for growth). When retention is high, there’s less stress to replenish your audience constantly. In other words, your audience-building efforts start to compound like money in a savings account!
Declining or low retention of users on a website is an early warning indicator that your business is in serious trouble. To find out the state of your retention, open Google Analytics (or your preferred analytics solution) and dig into the data.
Defining Audience Retention Success: 4 Measures
Like many other success factors, determining audience retention success is best viewed through multiple metrics over time. Start with these four metrics.
1. Audience Composition: Returning vs New
Look at your website analytics for the past month (or better, the last 90 days) and see how your audience breaks down between new vs returning users. You always want a combination of both types of users. However, the critical measurement is the percentage of returning users over time. If returning users are falling as a share of your total audience, it means your audience is losing interest.
This data point can only be understood if you consider your broader strategy and the other measures below. For example, building your sports audience may take some time if you recently changed your strategy to emphasize sports coverage over politics. Your returning audience share will fall during that phase, and your new visitors will increase.
2. Audience Retention By Segment
Viewing your online audience as a single aggregate has its limitations. That’s why we recommend applying segmentation. For example, Google Analytics lets you track “Audience by Cohort” on a time basis. For example, you can compare the behavior of people who first discovered your website in January vs those who discovered your website in July.
Analyzing audience cohorts by start date is helpful because it can tell you which marketing strategies work best. In one month, you might offer a series of live chat experiences with special guests and pull in a large audience of new visitors. Cohort analysis makes it possible to track the subsequent behavior of those new people. You might find that this live chat-related audience is most interested in live events on your website, so you’ll need to keep offering those experiences to keep them engaged.
3. Engagement
Engagement measures like – time on page, bounce rate, and number of pages viewed per user – also contribute to retention. Keeping a close eye on these engagement metrics matters because they signal a good match between your content and audience interests. Let’s consider each of these engagement metrics in greater detail.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who immediately leave your website after arriving. Generally, a high bounce rate is a cause for concern. For example, you might have used aggressive search engine optimization techniques to get a specific page ranking high in Google. However, if that page fails to satisfy users and many leave in seconds – you have a high bounce rate. In that case, search engines will likely view that page negatively, and your traffic will likely suffer.
Time on Page
Attention lies at the heart of online success whether you are a digital news publisher looking to generate leads for a business or make sales. If time on the page is very short (i.e., under 30-60 seconds), that is an early warning sign that your website needs to make a better first impression.
Improving time-on-page performance requires both technical and editorial improvements. From a technical point of view, use tools like PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your website. Using a content delivery network (CDN) may help improve speed. Evaluating the speed of applications and services running on your website is vital. Arena Live Chat, for example, is designed to be a lightweight application that runs fast. Editorial improvements may include writing more SEO-friendly headlines and making your content more accessible to scan.
Number of Pages Viewed Per User
Users who view multiple pages are highly likely to be engaged. Since these users are seeing more of your content, there is a higher chance that they will convert to paying subscribers, join your email list, or convert in another valuable way.
Arena Live Blog is a powerful way to lift your page views per user because of the way it presents content. In publishing, a live blog often provides breaking news updates on a new story. For example, post updates at the end of each inning of a baseball game. Once someone reads your updates for the first or second inning, they’ll likely keep returning to your website as the game progresses.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Increased customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is one of the ultimate measures of successful retention. Unlike the other measures reviewed above, CLV is a lagging indicator. That means your efforts to improve retention may take weeks or months to translate into higher customer lifetime value.
Your customer lifetime value will likely hold steady or improve if built on a solid engagement foundation. That said, drawing a straight line between a specific page and a purchase can be difficult. After all, many people may not be ready to buy a subscription after they land on your website. It may take multiple visits over weeks before a person fully appreciates your brand and decides to buy.
If Your Online Retention Is In Trouble, Try This
Improving user retention – which ultimately contributed to higher customer lifetime value – takes several strategies. Put the following options into action, and you’ll quickly turn around your retention numbers.
Find Out What’s Working And Do More Of It
There’s almost always something that is working well on a website. Start by looking at your top pages – those URLs that have received the highest number of pageviews and highest average time on site. Identify the patterns in those pages and do more of what’s working!
Interview Your Super Fans
Staring at analytics data will give you some helpful clues, but there’s a danger with relying too much on numbers. You may lose focus on the fact that your online efforts are ultimately aimed at connecting with people! On the other hand, life is short, so it’s not practical to reach out and talk to everyone.
The compromise solution is to contact your super fans. It’s easy to find these fans. Check your social media and email marketing service to find people who have engaged the most with your content over the past month or two. Set up a call with 5 of these super fans. Ask them what they like most about your website (get specifics!) and what they would change.
Offer New Interactive Experiences To Your Audience.
Presenting content in a novel way is an underrated way to lift audience engagement. For example, create an online event where you discuss current affairs with a few panelists. This could include offering in-depth coverage of a war or election with experts. Arena Live Chat makes it easy to create a live chat experience on your website quickly.
The digital horizon of 2024 beckons with promises of innovation, and within the world of SaaS, events play a pivotal role. As leaders in our industries, mastering this event landscape is vital for continued growth and relevance. This guide will enlighten you on the top events that are redefining the SaaS narrative.
Spotlight: Top 5 SaaS events of 2024
From the intricacies of Adobe applications to the strategic maneuvers of SaaS in Europe, 2022’s event calendar is a trove of opportunities. Here’s the pick of the lot:
Preconference (only available in-person): Monday, March 25, 2024
In-person conference: Tuesday, March 26 through Thursday, March 28
For: Adobe Summit is a one-stop event for customers who use Adobe’s digital experience tools. You could be using Adobe for design creatives, marketing, commerce, or operations. If you are into any of them, Adobe Summit 2024 has loads of thought leadership content, insights, and inspirations on offer.
Price: Early bird through Oct 31 – $1695
Location: Las Vegas – On site and online
Highlight: Notable keynotes from Ed Bastian, CEO of Delta Airlines; Shantanu Narayen, Chairman and CEO of Adobe; Mary T. Barra, Chair and CEO of GM.
Purpose: It’s a unique opportunity to learn, get inspired, connect with peers and experts from around the world, explore the future of generative AI, and get ready for experience-led growth.
For: Independent startup founders in the SaaS space.
Price: General admission at $1099
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Highlight: Keynotes by Rand Fishkin, Co-Founder of SparkToro; Rob Walling Co-Founder of MicroConf + TinySeed.
Purpose: MicroConf is the original conference for bootstrapped founders, bringing the tactics, frameworks, and stories you need to build level up your business to 6-, 7-, and 8-figure valuations. We avoid the tropes of standard tech conferences by leaning away from the “virtues” of raising boatloads of cash through Venture Capital and introduce you to some of the brightest minds in entrepreneurship from our speakers to your fellow attendees in our hallway track.
For: This conference is aimed for Founders, CXOs, and emerging leaders in software and SaaS companies from around the world.
Price: Starting at $745.
Location: Cambridge, UK.
Highlight: Not only is there ample time for Q&A after each session. Speakers stay for the conference – meaning you can grab them for a chat afterwards. You’re as likely to sit next to a speaker at lunch than anyone else.
Purpose: BoS is about sharing openly and honestly the challenges and triumphs that come with building great software and great software companies.
Highlight: Unique networking meetings, AMAs, mentoring sessions, 1-on-1s, and roundtables.
Purpose: Full days with 100+ tactical sessions from world-known founders, new voices, and up & comers. SaaStr-style actionable advice and learnings to help grow your business from $0 to $100M ARR with less stress and more success.
For: Entrepreneurs who are in the first stages of growing their company, have built a product but don’t know how to monetize, or who might have an idea but aren’t sure where to find the resources to turn it into a viable business.
Price: To be announced.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Purpose: At this one-day founder summit, you’ll get actionable advice and takeaways from top experts, meet other entrepreneurs taking similar journeys, share your own experiences and build the confidence to take the next steps towards growing your business.
Navigating the Digital Event Landscape
With the globalized nature of today’s events, incorporating virtual elements can greatly amplify your outreach. Yet, leaving a lasting imprint digitally demands mastery.
Arena’s live blogs can be your catalyst in creating memorable virtual engagements and hybrid events. Curious? Dive into our ‘Improve Your Live Events’ ebook, brimming with insights on maintaining and elevating attendee involvement.
Embrace these opportunities, intertwine them with pioneering tools like Arena’s live blogs, and watch your marketing aspirations take flight. Your SaaS journey, redefined.
Embedding a group live chat app on your website is a great way to increase engagement, get more leads and add a community feel to your website. With Arena, you can install and set up your group live chat in less than an hour.
Live chat provides real-time feedback, helping identify customer pain points quickly. This speeds up service and product improvements with the help of analytics tools offered by many live chat platforms.
Strengthen Customer Relationships
Live chat offers instant, personalized communication, meeting customer expectations for immediate responses. This makes your brand appear approachable and customer-centric.
Effective live chat support fosters loyalty, with 51% of consumers more likely to stay with or buy again from companies offering it, according to Kayako.
Your Live Chat Quick Start Checklist: 4 Essential Ingredients
To successfully add a group live chat, there are a few resources you need.
Website
To use embedded website live chat with your audience, you need your own website. While chat is available on some social media platforms, there are major drawbacks to relying on those platforms, since your audience may not be active on social media. Also, those social sites are not as easy to control and tightly integrate with your brand.
Website Backend Access
You need access to your website’s backend. This means the ability to login to the WordPress dashboard for WordPress websites.
You’ll find the process straightforward if you have installed and configured other plugins before. If you’re new to the process, follow our detailed steps below. Alternatively, ask your webmaster to follow these steps.
Live Group Chat App
Selecting the right live chat app is important because your audience will be interacting with it frequently. Arena Live Chat is a great choice because it is fast, lightweight, and highly customizable.
In many cases, you can add Arena Live Chat to a website in 10-15 minutes or less! It’s important to choose group chat for website app that runs directly on your website.
Now let’s uncover the step-by-steps to adding Arena Live Chat to your website.
How To Install Arena Live Chat On Your Website In 8 Steps
Before you can embed a group live chat, you need to install a chat app first. In these directions, we’ll cover how to get started with Arena.
1. Choose Your Group Live Chat App
We recommend using Arena Live Chat for a few reasons:
You’re minutes away from getting your group chat for website experience ready. Let’s keep going.
3. View Your Arena Dashboard
When you log into your Arena account for the first time, you’ll see a dashboard that looks like this.
4. Click The Live Chat Button In The Arena Dashboard
You will see the following screen:
5. Click The Embed Code Button
In this chat embed code window, you have some choices to customize the position of your group live chat. In many online events, the side position is a popular choice if you are streaming video or showing other content in the main window.
By using the embed code option, you will get a snippet of code to copy and paste into your website. In the next step, we’ll assume that you are embedding a group live chat on a WordPress website.
6. Add The Embed Code To A WordPress Website
The best way to use Arena Live Chat with WordPress is to install the Arena WordPress plugin.
The plugin is a great way to add a live chat to your website, even if you’re not a developer. You just need to know your chat embed code from the previous step. Once you have this code installed, starting a group live chat experience will only take a few clicks.
7. Install The Arena WordPress Plugin
Start by installing the Arena WordPress Plugin. It just takes a few minutes if you already have your Arena account set up.
8. Create A WordPress Post
After installing the WordPress plugin, you will have access to an Arena button. The Arena button is available whenever you edit or create a WordPress post. Clicking on the Arena button will open a window like this:
Once you click the Add button, the embed code will directly appear in your WordPress post.
How To Embed A Group Live Chat On A Non-WordPress Website
While WordPress is a popular platform, your organization might be using a different CMS platform. In those cases, the following steps may help to embed Arena Live Chat on your website. If you run into challenges, visit the Arena Help and Support Center.
The overall process is similar. However, instead of using the WordPress plugin, you can use the iFrames option. Using iFrames is a good choice for websites that are uncomfortable adding 3rd party JavaScript.
Step 1: Open Your Arena Dashboard
In your Arena dashboard, you will see various options listed on the left side.
Step 2: Click The Live Chat Button In The Arena Dashboard
You will see the following screen:
Step 3: Click The Embed Code Button
In the window, select the iFrame button and you will see code you can use on your website to embed a group live chat on your website.
If iFrames isn’t suitable for your situation, there are a few other choices like AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
Three Tips To Make Your Embedded Group Live Chat Successful
The steps above are all you need from a technical perspective to launch a live chat session.
The following tips will equip you to create and run live chat sessions that engage your audience and keep your audience coming back for more.
1. Decide If You Want A Public or Restricted Group Chat Experience
With Arena Live Chat, you can control who can participate in your chat experiences. You can make events fully public or restrict them with registration. Fully public chat experiences are a good way to maximize attendance. However, public chat experiences often need additional moderation.
2. Choose Your Chat Moderation Options
There are a few ways to create a safe experience for your live chat participants. Start by creating a few simple ground rules for your community. For example, you might have a company rule against profanity or spam in the chat. Taking a moment to explain your chat rules at the start of each session is a good way to keep participants focused.
In addition to ground rules, Arena Live Chat has community moderation features to make your life easier. The profanity filter automatically detects and blocks the most common profanity words. You can also update the list of profanity words to suit your needs.
In some situations, like a product launch event with journalists and executives, additional moderation may be wise. In these cases, you can pre-approve each chat message before it appears in the group live chat window. This kind of manual moderation takes more effort so make sure your employees are ready.
3. Staff Your Live Chat Experience For Success
A successful group live chat experience requires support. In most cases, we recommend having two people to support each group live chat experience. One person can serve as your event host and focus on engaging with the audience. The other person can focus on support needs like moderation and answering technical questions.
Get Started With Arena Live Chat Today
You’ve learned the key steps to embedding a group live chat experience on your website. All you need to do now is choose your group live chat app. Learn more about Arena Live Chat!
Chatbot adoption has rapidly increased over the past decade as businesses seek to improve efficiency and service.
The first generation of chatbots used simple scripts and automation to provide preprogrammed answers to common questions. That innovation added value and eased burdens on support teams.
The next evolution of chat technology and AI will be completely different. Generative AI allows chat to engage audiences, suggest products, and more. While we’re excited about generative AI, it’s smart to consider the pros and cons of AI chat so that you can choose the right path forward for your business.
What Are The Pros and Cons of Chatbots?
Chatbots have exploded in popularity since their widespread adoption started a few years ago. Business Insider states, “consumer retail spend via chatbots worldwide will reach $142 billion—up from just $2.8 billion in 2019.”
Traditional Chatbot Pros
The billions of spending from chatbot interactions are driven by two primary advantages:
Availability
Chatbots can run 24/7 on your website so that consumers can get answers whenever convenient.
Speed
Chatbots can respond quickly to questions by using decision trees and scripts. This approach means customers don’t have to wait on hold in lengthy phone queues.
Traditional Chatbot Cons
While chatbots have a lot to offer, this technology has some things that could be improved.
Complex Troubleshooting
If a customer has a novel or rare problem, it’s unlikely that a chatbot will be able to help them. In these situations, chatbots are usually programmed to refer a user to chat together with a human agent.
Empathy
Chatbots are usually unable to express meaningful empathy or engage an angry customer. For example, a customer might be upset about a delayed delivery. A shipping delay may be outside of the company’s hands. Meaningfully engaging an angry or disappointed customer will likely be beyond a chatbot’s capabilities. In other words, a chatbot is likely unable to “read between the lines” when faced with a significant customer concern.
Contributing To Revenue
The majority of chatbots are focused on customer service. Delivering excellent customer service can increase loyalty and support long-term revenue. Directly selling a new product is beyond the scope of many chatbots.
Advantages of Generative AI Chatbots
Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence designed to generate human-like responses.
Unlike traditional chatbots that rely on preset responses, generative AI learns from customer queries, data analysis, and natural language processing to create contextual responses that are more relevant and accurate. Integrating generative AI with chatbots can improve the quality of interactions, reduce response time, and increase customer satisfaction.
Generative AI Chatbot Pros
Personalized Responses
With the help of machine learning algorithms, chatbots can analyze customer data, such as their previous purchases, search history, and preferences, to provide tailored recommendations and support.
Brand Based Responses
The best generative AI technology is based on quality data. For example, you might train an AI system only on your company’s website. This training approach means an AI chatbot is more likely to provide on-brand responses to customer questions rather than generic ones.
Generative AI Chatbot Cons
Training and Testing
Generative AI technology is relatively new. As a result, it takes relatively more experimentation and effort to make this technology work compared to traditional chatbots.
Chatbot Misuse and Bias
Human misuse and abuse of chatbots is a known problem. For example, the Microsoft chatbot Tay was “trained” to express highly problematic comments, which upset many people. In addition, bias is a problem for chatbots. Consider Amazon’s HR machine learning technology which systematically undervalued female applicants because the system was trained on a data set of overwhelmingly male employees.
The tremendous power of generative AI means these problems will be overcome. As this technology matures, offering live chat experiences for your users is smart.
The Hybrid Approach To Chat And AI
Today, the best way to use AI is to integrate it with other chat experiences. For example, use live chat support staffed by employees when you have a major live shopping or live streaming event.
In those circumstances, unexpected problems or questions may happen, so having an employee available to respond makes sense. Chatbots can pick up the slack and support customers outside regular business hours and events.
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Two Ways To Increase Customer Engagement With Live Chat & AI Chat
Now let’s focus on how using a live chat platform can boost engagement and improve the quality of your chatbot interactions.
1. Drive Higher Engagement With Live Chat
Whether you seek to grow an audience, make sales, or drive lead generation, all those goals rest on engagement. If people leave your website seconds after arriving, it won’t be easy to connect with them in any way. Live chat, especially with live events, gives customers an excellent reason to stay on your website.
There are two ways you can drive engagement and keep users on your website longer with live chat. First, allow customers to interact with their friends in a live chat room. For example, you might run a virtual event for sports fans where people can ask questions of their favorite athletes. That’s not all. You can also run occasional special invitation-only events for your customers featuring exclusive guests.
Arena Live Chat makes these live events more engaging, so customers will happily stay on your website longer. That means you will have more opportunities to use conversion cards to encourage purchases and other conversions. The opportunity to interact with like-minded people through live chat is something special that chatbots can’t offer.
Are you running a live virtual event for the first time? Use the virtual events checklist to prepare and run your event.
2. Use Live Chat Data To Improve Chat Bots
Your chatbots are only as good as the data used to power them. When you first set up a chatbot, it makes sense to start with basic questions and answers like the following:
What is the status of my order?
How do I request a refund?
How do I register for events?
What are the company’s hours of service?
How do I contact sales?
These initial basic questions will help you to get started with your chatbots. Over time, your customers may ask other questions specific to your company or changing situations. In 2021, many companies have been negatively impacted by supply chain delays and problems. By default, a chatbot will not be able to address these questions. However, your employees may notice more customers asking about supply chain problems. In that case, take that live chat feedback and use it to improve your chatbot.
Review the following steps every month to ensure your chatbots keep improving over time.
Review live chat transcripts
Review transcripts of live chat sessions on your website to see what kinds of questions customers ask. If you have many chat sessions, use the following tip below as an alternative.
Survey live chat staff for their views
Reviewing hundreds or thousands of live chat sessions to improve your chatbots may be challenging for your organization. In that case, reach out to your employees via a survey and ask them about the most common questions they encounter.
Test new additions to your chatbot
Develop updates for your chatbot based on the new questions and answers you encounter through live chat sessions. For instance, you might add tech support questions and answers if your company offers live-stream video sessions.
Over time, you can make your chatbots more capable of addressing common questions. Your employees will have more time and energy to solve new products, influencer promotions, and other creative solutions.
The Fastest Way To Add Chat To Your Website
Integrating generative AI with chatbots and live chat platforms provides businesses an efficient and cost-effective way to improve customer experiences. With personalized recommendations, robust security features, and automated responses, businesses can build loyal customer relationships, gain more leads, and increase revenue.
Adding a Gen AI chatbot to your website can take a lot of testing. You have to think of the most common questions, test the chatbot and then make improvements.
Offering an online chat service to your audience is a powerful way to increase engagement. Chat protocols play a crucial role in enabling real-time communication by providing a safe space that allows messages to be transmitted instantly between users. These protocols also define the specific rules and formats for these exhanges, ensuring that messages are sent and received efficiently and securely.
Staying updated with the most popular chat protocols is essential for both developers and businesses to ensure compatibility, security, and optimal performance. By keeping up with these advancements, businesses can provide more reliable and efficient communication tools, meet the growing demands of users, and stay competitive in the market.
Learn more about different instant messaging systems and find out which one suits your needs best.
Three Ready-to-Use Chat Apps
There are significant disadvantages to using an open messaging protocol (i.e., an open standard for messaging). This kind of technology often requires significant development effort and testing, and that’s fine if you’re interested in developing your software, but isn’t very practical when you have a tight deadline.
What if you need to offer a real-time chat experience by tomorrow? That’s where these three chat apps come to play.
Advantages: robust message interface for groups, Chat API, and moderation features. Arena is one of the first chat services to offer AI functionality!
Disadvantages: in July 2023, there is no iOS or Android app for Arena’s Dashboard. Fortunately, Arena is lightweight and fast, so it works beautifully in a mobile browsers.
Arena Live Chat is a chat client designed for groups and events. It is designed to be lightweight and easy to install and configure. If you are running hybrid events or online events to engage your employees or customers, Arena Live Chat is a great choice.
With features such as polls, Q&As, GIF reactions and moderation capabilities, Arena Live Chat is a powerful community chat software for brands and publishers looking to grow their audiences.
2. Facebook Messenger
Advantages: integrated with Facebook, so there is no need to set up additional accounts, supports video chats and payments between users.
Disadvantages: some features, such as payments, are only available in certain countries, some users are skeptical about Facebook’s privacy track record, and may drain mobile device batteries fast. It is not an open messaging protocol, so it has development limitations.
Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular live chat platforms in the world. According to one estimate, there are over one billion Facebook Messenger users today. Since it offers so many features, it is no surprise that Messenger is a relatively large app – it takes over 100 MB in storage in most cases.
From a marketing perspective, Facebook Messenger is interesting because there are third-party services that make it easy to create chatbots. This business approach to Facebook Messenger can boost your lead generation and improve basic customer service. For brands with a large Facebook following, Facebook Messenger has much to offer.
3. Google Messages
Advantages: the chat client supports private messages, group chats, payments, and searching for information on businesses (e.g., restaurants)
Disadvantages: some users have complained about a poor search experience and glitches with video calls.
Initially launched in 2014, Google Messages has gradually become one of the most popular messaging apps. Also known as Messages by Google, the app has an estimated 1 billion installs. In 2021, instant messenger added support for an end to end encryption.
Google Messages added support for rich communication services (RCS) in 2019. This enhancement means that the app no longer relies on the cellular network. Google Messages does not require a mobile app – the chat client is available through a browser. Adding support for RCS makes Google Messages more competitive with Apple iMessage.
What if you want to use an open standard for messaging? The following real time chat protocol section introduces you to some of the best options on the market.
Popular Instant Messaging and Chat Protocols
These protocols and services offer different capabilities and require different levels of effort to implement. Some, like IRC, are relatively easy to set up. Most of the other protocols take more effort.
1. WebRTC – Web Real-Time Communication
Advantages: WebRTC is open source (initially developed by Google), the protocol has relatively sophisticated sound capabilities, and third-party apps can be developed using the protocol.
Disadvantages: it is a relatively new protocol, and there are relatively few online services based on it.
Launched in 2011 by Google, WebRTC is a communication protocol built for web browsers. The protocol supports video calls, but this functionality requires a separate server. The protocol has significant appeal for software companies looking to build their online services.
2. WebSocket
Advantages: allows two-way communication faster than the HTTP protocol. It is a lightweight protocol with a 2-byte cost (much less than HTTP), so it is an excellent choice for users concerned about speed and performance.
Disadvantages: the reliability of WebSocket is limited by the user’s Internet connection.
Among today’s communication protocols, WebSocket is relatively well established. It was launched in 2008 and started to attain widespread adoption in 2010. WebSocket relies on a TCP connection.
3. IRC – Internet Relay Chat
Advantages: long considered one of the oldest and most reliable messaging services in the market, some support for file sharing.
Disadvantages: no support for video calls, voice calls, or other advanced features, a declining number of active users.
IRC is often considered the chat platform that made the rise of messaging platforms platform. Established in 1988, IRC is one of the oldest Internet services. According to one estimate, IRC once had over a million users in the early 2000s. While IRC still has some niche uses and specialized communities, it is much closer to email in spirit than a true chat platform.
IRC’s long-term success as a real-time text messaging platform is nonetheless remarkable. If you are building a chat app (or online community) from scratch, studying the longevity of Internet Relay Chat may be worth the time. Remember that the platform was initially developed before broadband Internet access was widely available, so it is not an excellent match for today’s network capabilities.
4. XMPP: Extensible Messaging and Present Protocol
Advantages: XMPP is an open, flexible protocol and offers a decentralized architecture. Setting up XMPP on corporate networks (instead of the Internet) is also possible for added security.
Disadvantages: it lacks QoS (quality of service) support, so voice and video call performance is not the same as top-of-the-line VoIP services. In addition, there is no single official client you can use to access the protocol.
XMPP is a modern instant messaging protocol that supports popular chat functionalities like voice calls, video calls, and file transfers. You can build a chat application or instant messengers based on XMPP. Depending on your goals, you could build consumer software or a corporate chat app based on this protocol.
As a form of communication, XMPP can support various uses and optional features. Since it is much less well-known than apps like Google Talk or Facebook Chat, you may have to plan for additional training time to help your users adopt the platform.
5. MQTT – Message Queuing Telemetry Transport
Advantages: this messaging protocol is excellent for battery-powered mobile devices. MQTT also has high reliability in delivering messages. The lightweight protocol requires minimal CPU resources, best suited for small, low-power applications.
Disadvantages: no support for video calls, minimal security support, and relatively low speed and latency.
Unlike the other messaging protocols covered above, MQTT is best suited for a specific type of device. MQTT is best used for Internet of Things (IoT) devices and applications. For example, an industrial device at a factory might need the ability to send messages about the temperature or pressure of a specific piece of equipment. MQTT is an excellent choice for that use case. MQTT is not a good choice for consumers.
The relatively weak out-of-box security features are another drawback. Fortunately, this problem can be mitigated by working with security providers. If this drawback is neglected in your implementation, you may introduce more risk into your environment.
6. SIP/SIMPLE
Advantages: SIP is an open standard compatible with several vendors, it is relatively flexible with the option to support text and video messages, professional oversight by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Disadvantages: it is a basic protocol rather than an instant messaging app, so users cannot download it and immediately start using it.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a well-established messaging protocol that has been around for several decades. SIMPLE is a specific implementation of SIP called “Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions.”
The SIMPLE protocol approach to instant messaging offers both session mode and non-session (i.e., page mode) approaches to messaging. In addition, the SIP SIMPLE protocol also supports presence which means you can detect when users are online. The protocol doesn’t offer built-in support for features like buddy lists (also known as contact lists) or message histories. Therefore, it might be a good option for consumers.
7. AMQP – Advanced Message Queuing Protocol
Advantages: supports secured connections with SSL, supports QoS for message delivery, and simple peer-to-peer delivery.
Disadvantages: higher bandwidth requirements than other protocols; it is also not backward compatible with older protocol versions.
Announced in 2003, AMQP has an unusual origin: a developer at JPMorgan Chase created it. Other companies, including Microsoft, Progress Software, and Bank of America, became involved in the protocol. Like the MQTT protocol, AMQP runs on the TCP layer of the network.
AMQP’s corporate background means it offers a good foundation for sophisticated applications. AMQP may be a good choice for communication between machines in business communications. The AMQP approach to instant message delivery emphasizes delivery and reliability. As a result, it is a good choice for enterprise instant messaging where accuracy is paramount, like financial use cases.
8. RCS – Rich Communication Services
Offering an online chat service to your audience is a powerful way to increase engagement. Chat protocols play a crucial role in enabling real-time communication by providing a safe space that allows messages to be transmitted instantly between users. These protocols also define the specific rules and formats for these exchanges, ensuring that messages are sent and received efficiently and securely.
Staying updated with the most popular chat protocols is essential for both developers and businesses to ensure compatibility, security, and optimal performance. By keeping up with these advancements, businesses can provide more reliable and efficient communication tools, meet the growing demands of users, and stay competitive in the market.
Learn more about different instant messaging systems and find out which one suits your needs best.
Choosing the Right Chat Service: Factors to Consider
Choosing the right instant messaging system for your business is an important decision. No single chat protocol or app is suitable for every purpose.
Use the assessment criteria below to help you discover the best choice for your needs. For additional insights on deciding whether to buy or build a chat service, see Arena’s article Chat Protocols and Apps: Should You Build or Buy? for additional insights.
Does the Chat Service Have AI Capabilities?
Since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022, AI has become a revolutionary capability. In a chat service, AI can be used in several ways. You can use it to develop questions and encourage discussions. You can also train AI using chat content if permitted by your policies. We’re still in the early days of the generative AI revolution, so make sure your chat service supports this exciting new technology!
Chat Emphasis: Private Messaging or Group Events?
When you compare different chat programs, a key difference quickly becomes apparent. Many chat apps emphasize private conversations between two users. Like Arena Live Chat, other chat services focus more on chat windows for events. That’s not all. Arena Live Chat also offers one on one messages between users.
How Easy Is Installation And Setup?
Few users (or companies!) have the patience to learn a complex chat protocol. Given your other technology projects, asking an IT department to spend weeks or even months learning how to use WebRTC or MQTT may not be realistic.
Instead, choosing an easy chat solution for companies and end-users to access is best. Arena Live Chat is explicitly designed for fast installation. Most companies install it on their website in less than 10 minutes.
What Is The User Experience Like?
The user experience is vital in chat services. Your customers will spend a lot of time interacting with friends (and your employees) through chat. Therefore, investing time upfront in testing the chat app is crucial.
Specifically, we recommend asking non-technical employees to test the chat app. If they have significant difficulties using the chat app, try something else! If your customers have problems using your chat app, they will simply give up and use a different method – like email or phone – to contact your business.
How Does The App Ensure Security?
Security risks are ever-present in the online world, including chat apps. When you give your users a chat window, some people may view that option as an effective attack opportunity. There are a few ways to mitigate this threat to avoid endless security investigations.
A common way to enhance security and privacy concerns is to rely on end-to-end encryption. In addition, you can apply controls to your user IDs. By requiring users to register before joining a chat experience. Finally, don’t rely on the chat window to do all the work. It is also essential to provide security training to your employees to provide a security-conscious experience to end-users.
How To Add a Live Chat To Your Website Today
Now that you know about the most popular chat protocols and chat clients on the market, you have a choice. The first option is to choose a messaging protocol, select a client and spend time customizing the chat app. This option is a good choice if your company has significant technology development resources and the desire to create highly customized solutions.
Finding a reliable, secure messaging live chat app has never been more critical. Whether for personal use or business communication, ensuring conversations are private and protected from malicious actors, who regularly attack internet services to obtain confidential information. Security features like self-destructing messages and various encryption methods have become more popular.
The Importance of Secure Live Chat for Building Community
Having a secure live chat on your website is essential for building an online community because it fosters trust and safety among users. Secure live chat ensures that all communications are protected from unauthorized access, maintaining the privacy and integrity of user interactions. This is crucial for creating an environment where users feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and engaging with others.
A secure platform not only protects sensitive information but also enhances the overall user experience by preventing spam, harassment, and other malicious activities. By prioritizing security, you demonstrate a commitment to user safety, encouraging more active participation and fostering a strong, loyal online community.
What Makes a Live Chat App Secure?
Security in chat apps is determined by various factors, including end-to-end encryption, data storage policies, and additional privacy features. Here’s what to look for:
End-to-End Encryption
End-to-end encryption ensures that only the sender and recipient can read the messages, with no possibility of interception by third parties.
Data Storage Policies
Secure chat apps should store minimal data on their servers, and any stored data should be encrypted.
Privacy Features
Look for features like self-destructing messages, password protection, and two-factor authentication.
Moderation Features
Make sure your chat app comes with moderation features. Ideally, you will be able to select users to act like moderators, block any misbehaving users and insert a profanity filter, that will allow you to block certain words from appearing in the chat. Learn more about moderation here.
To understand which live chat platform works best for your needs, continue reading our analysis of the most secure chat protocols available.
Cost: Start with the free plan to see if Arena is suitable for you.
Do you need a secure live chat platform for a group of users? Whether is to enhance engagement during live events, transform e-learning classes or offer second screen experiences to viewers, Arena Live Chat is a great solution to bring live chat to your audience. Among other personalization features, you can restrict access to a chat event through registration so only approved participants can enter.
Arena is trusted by brands of all sizes, like Mary Fulton Fit, a small yoga studio in California, and Fox Sports Australia, part of a giant global-scale media company.
Platforms: Mobile App and Desktop App (Windows, iOS, and Linux).
Security features: end-to-end encryption, self-destructing messages, and screen security features.
Cost: free
Signal is often considered the top secure chat platform in the secure chat app category. For an extra layer of security, Signal minimizes the amount of data it collects from its users. This means less information is at risk in the event of a hack or other data disclosure. Other companies may have taken inspiration from the Signal messaging platform source code to improve their products.
There are some downsides to the product. Since the product is entirely free, the sustainability of this secure chat software is questionable. In addition, Signal makes it easy to send messages to people in your phone contact list. However, the full benefits of the Signal protocol are only available if both users use Signal. As a result, Signal is not a good fit if you need to accommodate non-mobile users.
WhatsApp is one of the most popular chat apps, with approximately 2.4 billion users as of mid-2023. The secure chat platform supports text, audio calls, and video calls. In addition, the app offers end-to-end encryption features, a key feature for privacy advocates. Also, WhatsApp supports group messaging for up to 1,024 participants.
There are some drawbacks to WhatsApp, including the fact it has been blocked in some countries like China, North Korea, and Syria. In addition, the app does not support self-destructing messages, so users will need to keep that limit in mind. Finally, the app requires a user to know another user’s phone number. As a result, it is more challenging to use WhatsApp for online events, especially for users who prefer to join via desktop.
Since WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, a social media giant with a poor online privacy record, there might be better choices for confidential chats.
Cost: a free version and Telegram Premium (offers faster speeds, increased storage, and removes ads)
Telegram is an open-source, free-to-use mobile app with hundreds of millions of users. The app has received positive reviews as a secure chat app. In addition, Telegram supports larger groups and channels with up to 100,000 members. The messaging app also lets you share your live location, making it easier to meet up with friends in person.
That said, Telegram has some limitations. From a security standpoint, the chat app lacks end-to-end encryption in all of its messaging. End-to-end encryption is available for special secret chats on the secure chat software.
Unlike Signal, Telegram collects contact information from users. The chat app’s free tier includes ads. Consider carefully whether the app’s ads align with the chat experience you want to offer your audience.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, private chats, secure data storage.
Cost: there are three user plans: personal ($0), Pro ($3.99 per user per month), and Business ($6 per user per month)
Voxer is a chat app that became popular for sending voice messages. In addition to recorded audio messages, Voxer also supports group chat functionality. Unlike most secure apps, Voxer provides additional functionality for paid accounts., such as Dropbox integration for pro accounts. The business plan suits teams of over 20+ users and organizations that need additional administrative controls.
There are some downsides to the app. Some user reviews have encountered privacy problems. Other users have commented on the significant amount of notifications generated by the app. The app also appears to request access to all contacts on a user’s device, a request that may cause security concerns.
6) Facebook Messenger
Platforms: Desktop and Mobile.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, single view messages, secure data storage, multi-factor authentication.
Cost: the app is supported by advertising.
Owned by Meta, Facebook Messenger supports text chat, calls, and file sharing. In addition, the secure chat app offers support for group chats, which has become popular over the past few years. By default, all Facebook users have access to Facebook Messenger, making it one of the most popular chat apps globally.
There are significant downsides to using Facebook Messenger. The app asks for access to personal information and is supported by advertising. For privacy-conscious users, there are better choices than Facebook Messenger. Business users, in particular, should look for other options that emphasize security and privacy to a more significant extent.
7) Pryvate Now
Platforms: mobile app.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, anonymous messaging, secure data storage, no data logging.
Cost: Pryvate Now is available in free and business versions.
Like Signal, Pryvate Now is a secure messaging chat focused on encryption. The app’s encryption features combine high-end AES 256-bit encryption and RSA 4096-bit protection. Also, secure chat software can protect the user’s IP address through masking. Like WhatsApp, Pryvate Now also offers voice calls and video calls. For security-conscious users, Pryvate Now offers compelling choices.
Compared to some of its more popular secure chat apps, Pryvate Now has a less polished user interface. That’s a major downside if you want to use the app to grow your audience. Pryvate calling is limited to other Pryvate users. In addition, the support options available to Pryvate users are relatively limited, even for the business plan. Pryvate is a good choice for individuals and companies that want to maximize privacy over everything else.
8) iMessage
Platforms: Apple products like the iPhone, Mac, and iPad.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, secure data storage, authentication, automatic encryption.
Cost: none – it is a built into multiple Apple products.
Apple’s iMessage service is sometimes viewed as Apple’s answer to SMS messages. In comparison to text messaging, iMessage has several notable advantages. Apple Messages gives users significant control over settings, including read receipts and message retention. Carefully configuring these settings can help to reduce your security risk. Further, it is easy to back up iMessage messages to iCloud. That’s a significant feature if you rely on iMessage to conduct business interactions.
There is an important security limitation to keep with Apple’s encryption. iMessage supports end-to-end encryption when messages are sent between iMessage users. However, the message is not encrypted if an iMessage user sends a message to a non-iMessage user, like a person with an Android phone. Less than half (48%) of Americans use an iPhone, so relying on Apple-exclusive security protections is a major limitation.
Curious to see how Apple handles requests from law enforcement? The Apple US law enforcement guidelines have some answers.
According to this document, “iMessage communications are end-to-end encrypted, and Apple cannot decrypt iMessage data when in transit between devices. Apple cannot intercept iMessage communications and does not have iMessage communication logs.” It is unclear if intelligence agencies have found encryption weaknesses or other methods to access the messages.
It’s unclear if Apple has the most secure messaging app, but the company is progressing in security. In June 2023, the company announced additional measures to improve Apple messaging security.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, no personal data required, anonymous messaging.
Cost: prices depend on the current version.
Threema is part of a newer generation of secure chat apps. Launched in 2012, the secure chat platform provides end-to-end encryption to users.
The app’s focus on privacy includes minimizing the amount of user data it collects. Threema does not collect the user’s phone number. The app also has a reasonably robust web interface, making it a good alternative to mobile-only secure chat apps.
The chat app also supports chatbots that have marketing and customer service applications. These specialized versions are possible because the app charges user fees.
As of mid-2022, Threema has a relatively small user base (about 11 million users) compared to other services like Facebook and iMessage. Therefore, you can’t assume your friends, colleagues, and family have the app. The relatively low adoption rate means this secure chat software may be challenging for audience engagement.
Security features: end-to-end encryption, secure data storage, two-step verification.
Cost: the app is free.
Line has an unusual origin story. It was created in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami that caused havoc in Japan. The app has three capabilities: Life on LINE (a medical assistance service), a Messenger App, and Services. We’ll focus on the Messenger App here.
The messenger app supports chatting, voice calls, and video calls. The app also provides social functionality like stickers, emoji, and group chat (i.e. OpenChat).
There are some downsides to relying on Line. In contrast to most secure live chat apps, Line offers various non-chat services such as shopping, job postings, and payments. From one point of view, Line’s diversity of services makes it more appealing to users. The downside is that the company may not be as focused on developing its chat functionality as other chat-focused platforms.
Cost: free personal version and paid business plans.
Switzerland-based Wire is a secure chat app with end-to-end encryption enabled by default. The app supports written messages, images, and file transfers. Wire’s security technology is based on Signal’s messaging protocol. The app registers users by email address instead of phone number, which has some privacy advantages. By avoiding phone numbers, Wire is more accessible to desktop users.
There are some weaknesses in using Wire as your primary messaging service. Archiving chat content from Wire is relatively tricky. The service also limits the number of users who can participate in a meeting. This limitation makes Wire less suitable for engaging audiences in events. Wire may not be the right service if you want to run a chat experience for a significant online event.
Choosing The Right Live Chat For You
Are you wondering whether to use a popular messaging app or a private messaging app? With privacy in mind, use this guide to essential features to find the right app for you.
Do you want to know whether to use a popular or private messaging app? With privacy in mind, use this guide to essential features to find the right app.
1. How does the app support AI technology?
Generative AI technology and large language models like ChatGPT are here to stay. These tools have the power to make your staff more productive! Before adding a secure chat platform to your organization, check how it leverages AI.
Generative AI in a chat tool is quickly becoming a must-have capability. Without it, your staff must work much harder to engage their audiences.
2. What IT security safeguards are offered?
Whether you call it secure encryption, an encryption feature, encryption protection, or IT security, safeguards are critical to keeping messages safe.
Specifically, check if the app uses both transit encryption and rest encryption. In addition, look for user-facing features like two-factor authentication to protect your data.
Tip: Business users should check if the app has received positive reviews from cybersecurity experts before using the app.
3. What information is gathered from app users?
To maximize security protection, your preferred messaging app should minimize the information gathered from users. Some mobile platform apps collect a user’s phone number and other data from mobile devices.
If the secure chat app you choose collects significant information, give your users something substantial. Offering an engaging live experience is a must. Use these tips to increase livestream engagement.
4. What platforms does the app support?
Some secure chat apps work in popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. Other apps are designed to work with mobile devices only. If multi-platform support is important for your needs, ask questions before using the app!
To maximize event usage, it is best to use a chat app that works with popular browsers like Arena Live Chat.
5. Is the secure chat app backed by a sustainable business?
Some chat apps emphasize that they are free to users for marketing purposes. It is wise to ask questions about these apps. If they are genuinely free to users, then the app maker will have to generate revenue in other ways, such as advertising. Unfortunately, relying on online advertising to generate revenue for a secure chat app may negatively affect privacy.
6. Is the chat app suitable for large events?
This feature is most important for business users and publishers. If you want to use large numbers of people in a chat room to engage your audience, only some of the chat apps covered above will be a good fit. The reason is simple: most secure chat apps are focused on direct messages, messages to distribution lists, and other forms of closed communication.
Arena Live Chat is designed to bring large groups together to share their passion for the news, community, and other events.
Start Your First Live Chat For Free
Starting your first live chat session for your audience is straightforward. You can then add Arena to your website quickly (it usually takes minutes) and launch your first live chat session. Learn everything Group Chat can do for you.
Live content is booming in popularity. Video-sharing services, generative AI, and high-speed networks make it easier than ever to share live content.
Also known as live streaming, live content is a powerful way to increase engagement and achieve your revenue goals.
This guide covers everything you need about live content, including best practices to get up and running fast.
Live Content By The Numbers
The following stats should exactly how popular live content and online video are booming in popularity.
Nearly half (44%) of live-streaming video viewers watch less live TV as a result (source)
The top 3 most popular types of live content are: live news, live content on social media, and live awards shows (source)
More than 75% of US households subscribe to a streaming service (source)
There are over 25,000 full-time YouTube content creators active today (source)
Twitch, a streaming content platform focused on gaming, has more than two million regular viewers (source)
Live content is much more than entertainment, by the way. A growing number of companies are leveraging live streaming to sell products. Known as live commerce or live shopping, this type of business video is a powerful way to present products and generate leads at scale.
What is Live Content?
Live content means sharing a live video broadcast to your followers online. Content creators and companies often share videos on social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. After the video broadcast, the video content may be available online in some cases.
Three Reasons Audiences Love Live Content
Participating in a live content experience appeals to people for a few reasons.
Live content is a powerful way to deepen your brand’s connection with your audience. For example, a publisher can offer participants to interact with their best-known personalities and columnists.
Interacting with a celebrity is fun, but that’s just part of the value of live content. Your audience also has the chance to meet other people who share their interests.
A live content experience is a one-time experience. You can leverage FOMO (“fear of missing out”) when promoting your live content. For example, you might feature a special VIP guest to make your event stand out.
Attending a live content event from your mobile device or computer is easy. There’s no travel time to worry about. Even if you charge admission, the ability to participate in a live content experience from anywhere makes it easier to maximize
Interacting directly with your favorite influencers and companies isn’t the only reason people love live content. Joining a live content experience also means connecting with people who share your interests. Sending chat messages to new friends is one of the biggest attractions to live content.
Live Content Process With AI
Live content marketing is easier to create with generative AI tools like chatGPT. The Arena approach to AI and live content is based on three principles: human collaboration, brand alignment, and speed. Let’s unpack each of those principles so that you can create a modern live content process.
Human Collaboration
When you first saw the potential of generative AI technology, you might have wondered what this technology meant for journalists, marketers, and other content creators. Fundamentally, generative AI enables and accelerates human creativity. This generation of AI tools will make staff more productive.
Brand Alignment
Left unguided, generative AI is unlikely to create relevant, engaging live content for your goals. That’s why it is vital to align your use of your AI to your brand’s style and voice. Implementing this principle requires both technical and management direction.
Speed
In live content, it’s crucial to keep providing new insights and perspectives to keep your audience engaged. Fortunately, AI is one of the best ways to improve the speed of your live content marketing campaigns and editorial content. You can use generative AI to generate outlines, draft simpler coverage, and more.
Another approach to live content is to stream a performance. This approach is trendy in online communities dedicated to gaming. For example, the Dungeons & Dragons online show “Critical Role” was performed live for several hours.
Critical Rolel is notable because each live stream episode typically lasts several hours. Critical Role has developed a passionate fanbase that regularly submits its fan art. In addition, and provided over $11 million to support the team’s TV show launch via Kickstarter. The group’s success – including product sales – can be traced back to live content.
Live Content Success Story: Author Brandon Sanderson
There are multiple ways to create a live content experience for your audience. Some content creators use a simple question-and-answer format to engage with their audience. For example, best-selling author Brandon Sanderson has run multiple popular Q&A sessions with his fans. Sanderson’s commitment to live content is one reason his company launched the most successful publishing Kickstarter ever, generating $41 million in revenue.
The Evolution of Live Content
The current boom in live content builds on past technologies and experiences. Understanding the history of live content is helpful because it illustrates what audiences value. Before the digital era, broadcasters on TV and radio brought together audiences to share important news. In 1969, it was estimated that more than 600 million people watched the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. That shared experience helped to set the stage for today’s live content experiences.
Fast forward to the digital era. Almost anybody can create a live content experience and find a new audience online with a mobile app and a good idea. High-speed Internet connections and content distribution platforms like YouTube make sharing live stream video content easier. The boom in streaming services like YouTube, Ustream, and other platforms makes it even easier to distribute your content to your audience.
Streaming video services achieved a significant milestone in the summer of 2022. Nielsen reported that streaming services are now more popular than cable TV in the US for the first time. By May 2023, streaming accounted for 36% of all TV viewing compared to 31% for cable, according to Nielsen. While major platforms like Netflix and Disney+ have the greatest market share, the ongoing growth of accessible services like YouTube shows that other brands can still grow.
As traditional TV declines in popularity, why should brands invest more time and resources into producing live content? There are several reasons why live content deserves a prominent place in your content strategy.
The Top Benefits of Live Content For Brands and Publishers
Investing resources into live content is worthwhile because it can give an exceptional return.
69% of viewers are likely to buy a ticket even after watching a live event.
54% of people want to see more videos from their favorite brands.
Consumers view live video 10 times longer than non-live video.
63% of Millennials watch live streaming content regularly.
Appealing to Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) is a critically important demographic for many brands. Millennials comprise 21.75% of the US population (roughly on par with Baby Boomers) and have an average household income of $71,000. For organizations keen to appeal to Millennials and Gen-Z audiences, live streaming and video needs to become a key priority.
Video on its own is not enough, however. It’s also vital to offer dynamic content, including audience chats where people can easily ask real-time questions. Keep reading to discover your options to bring live content to life and grow your audience faster.
What Type of Live Content Is Right For You?
Instead of starting with specific consumer platforms for streaming, it’s better to look at the landscape from a strategic standpoint. This section introduces the different categories, including each option’s pros and cons, so you can decide which option is best suited for your needs.
1. Self-Streaming
Some entrepreneurs, gamers, and celebrities love turning on their cameras and streaming their thoughts. Whether you use a smartphone or a laptop webcam, consumer hardware is all you need to get started with streaming.
Earlier, we shared a few examples of live streaming, like author Brandon Sanderson and the Critical Roll web series. Entertainment in various formats continues to be the most popular type of self-streaming. The popularity of services like YouTube, Facebook Live, and Twitch makes this streaming approach easier.
Pros and Cons of Self-Streaming
Pros
Standard webcams and microphones available on most computers and smartphones are all you need to start. Spending more on lights, audio equipment, or a green screen can help you stand out. Aside from a laptop, you can start this live content process for less than $100.
Low-Cost Content Distribution
Consumer platforms like YouTube are low-cost and have a large user base. Some of these platforms also include support for online chats.
Cons
Traditionally, self-streaming live content focuses on one or a few performers. You must find someone in your company capable of performing this role to use this option.
Pulls Users From Your Website
Self-streaming video content relies on third-party platforms, especially if seeking to minimize costs. If your live streaming goal is to generate leads, sell products, or grow your audience, having viewers on your website is preferable.
Unfortunately, self-streaming viewers do not always convert to website visitors. The most popular self-streaming platforms, like YouTube, are focused on keeping users on their websites rather than sending them to your website.
High Competition For Attention
Online distractions are omnipresent with the traditional approach to self-streaming. Video sharing platforms will constantly suggest other videos, channels, and notifications for your audience to pay attention to. As a result, it may take more work to reach your goals.
Who Should Consider Self-Streaming?
Using self-streaming video is valuable in a few circumstances. First, the low cost of this option makes it attractive when you are first getting started in video streaming. Second, your brand may already have many followers on Facebook or YouTube. In that case, it makes sense to stream directly to those followers.
2. Social Media Live Stream
Leveraging a social media platform to grow your business is an established strategy. In the past few years, these platforms have introduced more video options and engagement options, such as a chat window, the ability to accept donations, and more. In particular, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter have made live video content more popular.
Pros and Cons of Social Media Live Stream
Pros
Large Audiences Available
The leading social media platforms have hundreds of millions of users. According to eMarketer, the top three most popular social platforms in the US in 2023 are Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Participating on these platforms means you have access to a ready-made audience.
The main social media platforms have strong advertising capabilities, making getting more viewers easier. AdRoll says the average cost per click on Facebook is approximately $0.44 (or $14.40 per thousand views).
Viral Organic Growth Potential
While organic reach has been declining for years on social media, it is still possible for your content to go viral. The most reliable way to attain organic growth is to produce exceptional content. In addition, encouraging your audience to actively engage with your content (e.g., “like this video” or “comment below with your thoughts about what our next video should be about”) can help as well.
Cons
Platform Specific Requirements
Live content performance varies depending on the platform. What works on Facebook Live will sometimes work on YouTube and vice versa. Therefore, there is a learning curve associated with each platform you use.
Pulls Users From Your Website
If your goal is to grow traffic on your website, giving users a clear reason to regularly visit your website (e.g., time-limited sales or special content) is critical, rather than simply sitting back and watching the live content.
Your Content Is Competing With Friends and Family
Reflect on how you use social media for a moment. You have connections with plenty of friends and family. Seeing updates from someone you know will be more interesting than a live stream. This is the competitive reality of growing a following in social media. Your live stream content is competing against not only other companies but against updates from the end user’s family and friends!
Who Should Consider Social Media Streaming?
Given the scale of social media platforms, including these platforms in your strategy makes sense. For companies with a significant social media presence, using these platforms for live streaming makes a lot of sense.
Remember that social media companies are focused on maximizing user engagement on their platform. At the same time, your goals may differ (e.g., growing the audience on your website)—experiment with streaming video through social media and other platforms to see which approach yields the best results.
3. Direct Live Content Experience
The direct live content experience is the high effort, high reward approach to live content. Instead of relying on third-party platforms filled with distractions, the live content is on your website. To maximize your live content experience, include online chats in your strategy so your audience can easily interact with you.
Pros and Cons of Direct Live Content Experience
Pros
Significantly Reduce Digital Distractions
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor found that 19% of class time was spent using a digital device for non-class purposes in 2019. It’s not just students either – one recent estimate found that adults pick up their phones over 50 times per day! In this context, it is important to help your audience to stay focused on your content.
There are no distracting notifications or messages when your live content is only offered through your website. Fewer distractions mean a greater chance of staying engaged with your content, connecting, and experiencing enjoyable moments with your brand.
Increased Conversion Opportunities
Running a live content experience directly on your website means you control the environment. You can decide to offer time-limited promotions, incentives to contact sales, and more.
Increased Audience Loyalty
Achieving success online isn’t just about the number of followers you have. Engagement and loyalty are also critically important. When your audience starts viewing your website as an interesting destination online, they are more likely to return.
Cons
Adding live video experiences to your website will take some work. Yet, many companies and organizations have made it happen using technology like Vimeo. Recently, we highlighted 10 Vimeo-powered live streaming websites. In the guide, you’ll see fitness companies, museums, classic TV, and religious organizations use live videos directly on their websites.
Creating Compelling Content Takes Work
Coming up with content streaming ideas takes some work. You need to come up with the idea, and you may also want to script and rehearse the event.
The work effort needed to create engaging content is also an advantage. Companies need to be more motivated to create virtual events and content experiences. Therefore, you will have an advantage over other companies if you invest in growing your audience more quickly.
Who Should Consider Direct Live Content Experiences?
While running a direct live content experience from your website is open to many organizations, it is a great fit for a few organizations.
Media companies like broadcasters and news sites are an obvious fit – their goal is to keep their audience engaged directly on their website. In addition, educational institutions are in the business of transferring knowledge to students, and live content can support that goal. Finally, entertainment and eCommerce companies benefit from live content experiences.
Six Best Practices To Improve Your Live Content Results
Achieving excellence with live content takes time and practice. That said, there are some best practices you can use to speed up your results.
1. Start With Your Live Content Strategy
Choosing the right concept for your live event makes a big difference. Your greatest asset is your knowledge of what your audience has responded to in the past.
Review your analytics data, webinars, and social media accounts to determine the type of content your audience engages with the most. For additional insight, consider surveying your audience to ask them more about their interests.
2. Promote Your Live Content Experience Like A Product
You might want to run a live content experience to pursue your marketing goals. To achieve your end goal – more leads, more sales, or a larger audience – allocate the necessary to dedicate resources to promote the live content experience.
For example, you might offer exclusive benefits (e.g., discount codes or the opportunity to ask questions to a VIP in your industry) to people who join your event.
3. Run Your Live Content On Your Website
While running a live stream experience on a social media platform may appear easier, disadvantages exist. You need more of your ideal audience to visit your website to achieve your goals. Therefore, it is best to stream your live content directly on your website and make it interactive by including Arena Live Chat.
4. Prepare Your Team For Live Content
A successful live content experience is similar to putting on a conference event. You need talented people on stage and support staff working behind the scenes. At a minimum, a live stream event should only be run with two people: an “on-air” event host who will appear on camera and a support person keeping an eye on the live chat and other logistical details.
What if your team is brand new to running a live stream? In that case, running a practice event and only events with other employees is helpful. A practice event is a great opportunity to identify technical problems, get used to reading and responding to user content (e.g., likes and comments about your remarks), and overall improve your confidence.
5. Measure Your Live Content Results
Producing a compelling live content experience takes significant time and resources. It is a best practice to review the live stream metrics each time. Start with simple metrics like the number of attendees. Next, measure the effectiveness of your calls to action – this is where using special discount codes created for the live stream makes a big difference.
Try to improve your attendance and engagement metrics each time you run a live stream event. Use the next best practice to ensure your live stream performance keeps improving.
6. Test And Learn From Each Event Experience
It’s essential to go into running live content experiences with reasonable expectations. Your first event may have low attendance, low engagement, or both. Don’t let those results discourage you from offering live content, though! Instead, meet with your event team after the event and think through specific ways you can make your next event more successful.
For example, poor audio quality turns off many people. If this problem impacts your live content, buying a better-quality headset or microphone could immediately improve your events.
The One App Every Live Content Experience Needs
The whole point of running a live content experience is to engage your audience. That means you need to give your audience a way to interact with you. That’s where a live chat solution comes in. Learn more about Arena Live Chat.
Want better customer satisfaction and loyalty? Use these ten metrics to optimize your live chat support experience.
Monitoring and optimizing the following ten live chat metrics is an important step to improve your live chat performance. Use these customer support metrics to identify opportunities to improve the quantity and quality of your customer service.
How Live Chat Increases Opportunities
When customers land on your website, they probably have questions and concerns about doing business with you. When a question or worry pops into potential customers’ minds, you can connect with the potential buyer. While static website content like product descriptions and other pages lay a great foundation, there’s no replacement for having a conversation.
Once those conversations start flowing, measuring live chat performance is crucial. Also known as live chat performance metrics, metrics are essential for management. Regularly reviewing metrics will tell you where additional training or resources are needed to reach your goals.
With Live Chat, your employees can easily interact with your customers at scale while providing a personalized experience. That means you get greater customer loyalty. A high customer satisfaction rate means more return buyers and a positive impact on sales.
Two Ways To Use Generative AI To Improve Live Chat Effectiveness
Traditional methods to improve live chat KPIs or metrics are the foundation of your success. Agents need the right tools and training to carry out their work. Management needs good data to support their teams. After you have that foundation, generative AI tools (think chatGPT but business focused) can help.
1. Answer routine questions based on a knowledge base.
Do you have a knowledge base or a section of your website with frequently asked questions (FAQ)?
If so, generative AI tech can use that resource to provide company-specific responses to customers. This type of focused generative AI is developing, so now is a great time to investigate it for your business.
2. Provide product recommendations
Your live chat KPIs might emphasize customer support metrics. What if you could use live chat to improve revenue directly? That’s an exciting possibility with generative AI.
For example, add a live chat window to a product page and use it to provide specific product recommendations. This capability works well with products with straightforward, easy-to-describe differences (e.g., different types of TV have different sizes, resolution, and other features).
Arena AI Concierge for Publishers, Content & Affiliate Commerce is here. Request early access.
Ten Live Chat Metrics To Watch & How To Improve Each One!
Live chat metrics are only meaningful if they support your business goals. For example, you may aim to improve the effectiveness of your customer service agents by decreasing the average wait time by equipping your team with canned responses to common questions.
When you first start offering live chat, pick a few metrics to measure your performance. After those initial metrics are well integrated into your team, you can continue developing your systems by adding additional metrics to realize your chat strategy.
1. First Response Time (FRT) Live Chat Metric
The first live chat metric focuses on measuring the response speed. In brief, you measure how long your chat agents take to respond to a customer’s first message.
The FRP metric is critically important to impact your customers positively. A fast response tells your customers that you value their time. On the other hand, keeping a customer waiting for a long time is likely to hurt customer loyalty and word of mouth.
The first response time metric is also helpful for management. If FRT responsiveness decreases over time, it may signal that you need more chat agents. It may also indicate that your chat support teams need more support in the form of playbooks, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and other resources.
The average First Time Response is 15 minutes so you can use this timing as a starting point for your organization. In general, the lower this number, the better the customers’ satisfaction with the service. If the response takes more than the average, it will likely cause frustration and negative referrals.
Ways To Improve The FRP Metric
Tracking live chat key metrics becomes truly valuable when you use this data to improve performance. Use these tips to improve your live chat performance over time.
Share FRP Metric Widely
Empower your employees by sharing FRP metrics widely and discussing them at each chat team meeting. Sharing live chat performance metrics with your team will help them become more innovative in improving the customer experience.
Investigate FRP Metric Changes With An Open Mind
The FRP metric is helpful, but it has limitations. Like other chat customer service metrics, this measure doesn’t show the root cause of problems. Start by investigating technology problems that are interfering with service standards. In addition, chat responsiveness may suffer during periods of high volumes.
2. Total Number Of Chat Sessions Live Chat Metric
This live chat performance indicator is a volume measurement. It shows the number of live chat sessions that have been launched. Compared to other metrics for live chat, it is also relatively easy to track automatically. Tracking this metric is helpful over time; it shows the popularity of live chat for service vs. other customer service options like phone and email.
Ways To Improve The Total Volume of Chat Sessions Metric
Use the following metrics to get business value from this live chat metric.
Look For Sharp, Sudden Drops In This Metric
A significant drop in the live metric is a warning sign that something is going wrong with your systems. That’s why we suggest monitoring this metric daily in normal conditions. You may want to track it hourly during times of peak usage.
Ask For Feedback From Your Chat Agents.
The raw volume of chat conversations only tells you part of the picture. It is crucial to touch base with your live chat staff regularly. Ask them about the most common questions they face. Look for patterns in the questions you face so that you can create better answers and solutions for your chat agents to use.
3. Average Resolution Time (ART) Live Chat Metric
This live chat metric is adapted from the world of customer service call centers, unlike the first few live chat metrics. It is focused on the quality of your staff’s customer service.
It is not enough to provide a quick answer: ideally, the goal is to fully resolve a customer’s concern as efficiently as possible.
You generally want your average resolution time metric to be as low as possible. There is a risk of pressuring customer service staff to work too quickly. It is vital to ensure all of a customer’s concerns and questions are fully resolved and avoid cutting off the session simply to boost your chat performance metrics.
The ART metric is typically measured in minutes for most situations. Your ART metric might be days in some highly complex customer service cases.
Tips To Use The ART Metric Effectively
Use the following tips to interpret the ART metric effectively.
Examine ART Metric Outliers
You can expect outliers to the ART metric. Consider cases where agents take much longer than average to resolve the question. For example, new customer support employees might take longer to resolve issues. In that case, the higher ART time is understandable and will likely decline.
On the other hand, keep an eye on the chat load that your experienced chat operators have. If your experienced staff have an excessive workload, customers are more likely to have a bad experience.
Validate ART With Other Customer Service Channels
Your company probably has multiple customer service channels like phone calls, email, and in-person locations. If live chat ART data looks great, comparing it to your other support options, like the phone center, is helpful. Ideally, you want to see consistent levels of customer service resolution across your critical channels.
4. Chat to Conversion Rate Live Chat Metric
To become a chat leader, it’s essential to convert chat participants into buyers. According to our research, 38% of customers who participate in a live chat session ultimately decide to purchase after receiving excellent support front the customer service team.
This chat experience metric may be the most valuable metric we have covered. It tells you how effectively the chat channel produces revenue or leads. Now, let’s look at ways you can help the customer service team convert more chat participants into leads and customers.
Tips To Raise Your Chat To Conversation Rate Live Chat Metric
Use Analytics To Find What’s Working
Not all chat requests are created equal. For example, compare a chat that starts on your home page with a chat on the checkout page. Generally, converting a website visitor to a buyer on certain pages (e.g., a product page) is easier.
When you connect your chat platform to a customer data platform, for example, your chat team leaders may find out that one individual agent has an above-average score when it comes to converting visitors to buyers. In that case, reach out to that person and find out what they are doing. Based on what you learn, develop additional training for your staff.
Improve The Customer Experience With Technology
Additional training is not the only way to enhance the chat experience. For example, take a critical look at your chat software. Your current software may not be able to handle the number of inbound chats you are receiving. Or your software may not load in an acceptable time. Switching to a faster chat tool like Arena Live Chat can improve your customer experience almost overnight.
5. First Contact Resolution Rate (FCR) Live Chat Metric
The FCR rate is a critical quality metric. Your customer’s concerns in a single chat session in ideal conditions. It is unrealistic to expect that you will be able to solve 100% of customer complaints or questions on the first attempt. Setting a high bar for this metric is wise to maintain customer happiness.
To calculate the First Contact Response rate, you must track the number of interactions in a case and the proportion of one-touch resolutions. Track this data for at least one month before attempting to improve.
Traditionally, contact centers aim for a 70% FCR rate. Reaching this level of success is easier when your chat team has access to extensive resources like proper answers to commonly asked customer questions. If your first contact resolution rate is lower right now, use the following tips to work with chat team staff to improve.
Tips To Improve Your First Contact Resolution Rate
Send A Customer Survey After The Chat Session
Sending a short customer survey with a few simple questions is a great way to gather feedback from your customer base. For example, ask your customers to rate their satisfaction level on a scale of 0 to 10. If the score is below 5, ask a follow-up question about it.
Assess Your Chat Queue Data
When customers have to wait a long time, they may be more upset when the chat session starts. As a result, a long chat queue can make it more challenging to solve customer questions quickly. Better training and a high-performance chat system can help here.
6. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) Live Chat Metric
The CSAT is one of the most popular ways to develop a customer satisfaction rating for customer support. A customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures how much your product or service meets or surpasses your customer’s expectations. A short customer satisfaction survey at the end of the live chat session is all you need to achieve this metric.
How To Improve The CSAT Score
There are a few popular ways to improve. Use these tips to boost your chat quality assurance efforts.
Find High Chat Satisfaction Cases
Studying chat transcripts from successful interactions is an excellent way to improve your performance. Look at how your high-performing employees are addressing common customer pain points. Once you identify these best practices, share them with the rest of your team.
Identify Patterns In Low CSAT Scores
Persistent low CSAT scores warn that something is wrong in your business. Before creating an action plan, take the time to understand the problem entirely. Look at contact volumes, peak traffic hours, and recent business growth. Your chat staff may be doing their best to help customers but simply lack the resources to serve customers effectively.
7. Net Promoter Score (NPS) Live Chat Metric
NPS might be one of the best pieces of information to evaluate customer satisfaction metrics. This metric measures overall customer loyalty, not just the chat experience.
The NPS process is simple. You gather consistent customer feedback by asking them a single question: On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to other people you know?
The NPS methodology breaks down scores into three categories:
The Detractors (0 – 6)
The Passives (7 and 8)
The Promoters (9 and 10)
Ideally, you want to maximize promoters and minimize the other two categories as much as possible. Use the tips covered elsewhere in this guide to improve your customer experience. Remember that customers can respond negatively to an NPS question for several reasons (e.g., upset with product delivery, pricing, etc.) that have nothing to do with the quality of their chat interaction.
8. Average Wait Time Live Chat Metric
Think about the last time you contacted a company with a question. Did you enjoy waiting for an answer? Even loyal customers hate waiting. That’s why monitoring your average wait time is a crucial metric.
The average chat wait time is usually less than a few minutes. Of course, this metric may look different during your busiest hours when you have a high volume of incoming chats.
There are a few options to improve the average time it takes to respond to customers. Start with examining the resources your chat agents have. Equipping your staff with canned answers, detailed product information, shipping details, and related resources can make a big difference.
While prewritten responses are helpful, they have limitations. You don’t want your customers to feel ignored simply because your chat staff feels pressured to achieve better chat performance benchmarks. This chat metric must be interpreted alongside other metrics, such as the NPS and FCR rate.
9. Website Visitors To Chats Metric
Increasing the number of chats per month generated from your website is a worthwhile goal to pursue. Most of the time, more chat sessions lead to more sales and more satisfied customers.
Keeping track of this metric is easy because you can easily track the data required. As a starting point, aim for a 1% conversion rate. If your website has 100,000 visitors per month, you should expect to have 1,000 chat sessions per month.
This metric is more valuable when read in the context of other metrics. For example, it is crucial to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction (e.g., high NPS rates, high first contact resolution rates, etc.) even as you lift.
Ways To Improve This Metric
There are a few techniques you can use to improve this metric.
Use A Better Chat Tool
The right chat technology has an important role in lifting this metric. For example, Arena Live Chat is built for speed and usability. Arena can also support a large volume of chat sessions simultaneously.
Optimize Your Chat Session Prompt
Chat windows usually start with a message or a question. Experimenting with different questions (e.g., “Do you have any questions?” vs. “Do you have a question about our Black Friday sale?”) can increase the number of website visitors who start a chat session.
10. Missed Chats Live Chat Metric
The missed live chat metric gives insight into whether your chat team can keep up with incoming chat requests.
A single experienced live chat agent can handle approximately 6 to 7 simultaneous conversations if they are relatively simple. Once your chat team hits capacity, missed chats will become a problem.
It’s not just a question of workload influencing this metric. You may also face a mismatch between working hours and staff availability. Your website is open 24/7 for business, but your chat support team is only available between 9 am to 5 pm.
Therefore, the raw volume of missed chats is only part of the story. It is also essential to track when missed chat requests occur. If missed chat sessions occur during regular working hours, use the other techniques mentioned in other parts of this situation.
Ways To Improve The Missed Chats Live Metric
Improving your performance on this live chat metric can be relatively challenging.
Manage Expectations For Non-Business Hours Service
When you have a significant chat volume outside your usual work hours, give your customers other options. For example, show your customer service email address and invite customers to message your team.
Extend Chat Service Hours At Peak Periods
Chat handling time and chat volume will likely increase when you run sales. In those cases, average response time and missed chat measures may suffer. To avoid this problem, ask more employees to work as customer support agents to handle the demand.
How To Go Beyond Standard Customer Service Chat
You may already have a chat app in place for day-to-day needs. But, what about events like live shopping, livestreams and other virtual events? These events are an exciting way to launch products and bring your community together. In these situations, a different chat solution is needed.
Arena Live Chat is the perfect solution for digital events because your customers can message each other, ask support questions and build trust with your brand. Learn more about Arena’s capabilities today.
