As a consequence of the advancement of technology, there has been a massive change in customer behavior in recent years. There has been a time when it was enough to have your call center number and social media icons on your website, but that is no longer enough today -customers expect real-time communication via email or chat, and they are more likely to choose that method than the old-fashioned way. The last thing you want is for them to leave you if you cannot satisfy their needs. A recent study reveals that live chat has become the number one choice for customer communication in the past few years. You need to find the perfect balance between technological advances and the presentation of your message, in order to provide your audience with a high-quality experience. It’s important to understand what you need to do to figure out how to do it.

The top live chat statistics are as follows: 

• The number of shoppers in the US who demand live chat features is approximately 69%.
• Customers between the ages of 18 to 49 are among the most likely to opt for live chat as a service option.
• Approximately 73% of customers consider live chat to be the most satisfying means of communicating with a company.
• There is a 20% greater likelihood that millennials will use live chat over any other demographic.
• By 2023, the market for live chat will be worth $987.3 million around the world.
• When a customer uses live chat to conduct a purchase, they are likely to spend 60% more than a customer who does not.
• When live chat is used, conversion rates increase by 3.84%.
• In comparison with telephone support, companies are able to save between 15-33% with live chat.
• Amongst brands that believe customers prefer using chatbots to resolve problems, only 29.3% use them (CCW).
• In a survey conducted by Vivocha, 44% of consumers said that the ability to speak to a live person during the purchase process was the most important feature of an online site (Vivocha).
• Among the brands that offer customer service, live chat, chatbots, in-app messaging, peer-to-peer communities, or social messaging, less than 13% actually do so (Zendesk).
• On average, in 2019, mobile devices (Comm100) accounted for 74.5% of the time spent on live chats.
• In a survey conducted by Gladly, 86% of consumers expected their conversations with support agents to transition smoothly between channels.
• The majority of consumers choose their support communication channel based on how quickly they want to get a response (Zendesk).
• By the year 2025, 53% of brands expect to debunk the notion their customers don’t matter to them (CCW).
• The average consumer (68%) is irritated when he or she is transferred between departments, and the majority of consumers (70%) expect their agents to communicate and collaborate with others on their behalf (Zendesk).
• It is expected that live chat will have a greater impact on brands by the year 2025, with 76% of brands saying so (CCW).

How should live chat be benchmarked in terms of standard?

The current technology allows chatbots to answer up to 90% of queries (Deloitte) with a high degree of accuracy.

An AI-powered chatbot with modern capabilities for natural language processing can handle at least 68.9% of the communications from start to finish without a human agent, as opposed to an AI-driven chatbot with basic capabilities for basic conversational processing.

In the CCW (live chat) industry, 81% of brands make use of automation.

The number of brands that use messaging automation to facilitate live chats has increased to 59.56% (Comm100).

There is a 99.45% chance that a brand that communicates via live chat (Comm100) offers a mobile option for live chat communication as well.

Consumers expect the live chat agents they use to interact with them to be familiar with their identification information (66%), previous conversations (56%), and purchase history (55%) (Gladly).

The utilization of chatbots can result in a reduction in communication abandonment of ~5% (Deloitte).

Among managers who are using bots, 84% plan to improve self-service support including live chat (Zendesk) continuously in the future.

Using chatbots can drastically reduce the time it takes to handle customer questions by 77% (Deloitte).

According to Zendesk, 22% of sales teams use live chat for their customer communication.

Generally speaking, when a brand initiates a live chat with a customer, there is a high acceptance rate of 9% for the consumer service sector, and a low acceptance rate of 2.18% for the travel sector (Comm100).

On average, one out of every six website visitors who are proactively greeted by a live chat agent responds to the chat (Vivocha).

A customer can increase satisfaction by 7% within four minutes of accessing their screen or browser via a support tool like Comm100 (in relevant industries like IT).

Vivocha’s research shows that 60% of website visitors who engage in live chat with a representative are receptive.

Approximately 29% of brands benchmark their customer communication metrics against those of their competitors (CCW).

(Deloitte) claims that conversational artificial intelligence can reduce the costs of contact centers by 15 – 70%.

 It has been estimated that 97% of global consumers place importance on customer service when choosing a brand.

This information can be found on the Customer Think website (source)

Around the world, customers are demanding higher standards of service from their service providers. It’s not just about getting the right price and quality of the product and attracting them, with the wide variety of choices available to them in most sectors. As brands work conscious towards providing consistently flawless service by 2021, they will be better able to compete and win customers. Further, a recent study on branding revealed that 89% of marketers stated that their top goal is to increase brand awareness. The fact remains that customer support is regarded as one of the most important pillars of successful branding.

Among 73% of consumers, the most important thing a company can do to provide good customer service is to value the time of the customer.

According to Forrester, (Source: )

There is a cliche that says, “time is money”. In the year 2021, this statement is as relevant as it has ever been. A majority of customers believe that good service is equated with businesses responding to them as soon as possible. So, if you think about it from a customer service point of view, using an online live chat can be incredibly useful.

In fact, 95% of customers rate high-quality support higher than speed.

(Source: Kayako)

Despite this, even more customers place a higher value on effective customer support than on time saved. If they get a good response in a short amount of time, they don’t mind a small delay. In the end, getting a satisfactory response to a customer in one go can save the customer the time that they would lose if they had to ask more questions or find a solution on their own.

One of the most important features that a website can offer is the ability to talk to a live person in order to answer questions during an online purchase. About 44% of online consumers agree.

(Source: Inc.)

Live chat statistics show that many businesses don’t opt for this feature mainly due to fears that it will interrupt the online experience or a lack of knowledge on how to use it effectively. The fact remains, however, that customers often require assistance when they are shopping online, and it is important to them that this assistance is provided by someone who will not offer them stock answers.

It is recommended that you use Facebook chatbots as a first point of contact for the remaining 56%.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that:

According to 47.5% of US internet users, the biggest issue with chatbots is that they provide too many unhelpful responses.

(Source: Statista)

Live chat studies show that a lack of a live person is one of the biggest threats to businesses, as it wastes valuable customer time with scripted responses that do not apply to the specific situation and end up wasting the customer’s time.

More than half of consumers report that they view a company more favorably if the company offers more personalized customer service to meet their individual needs and interests.

(Source: Emarketer)

Also, a real person is more likely to be able to customize the response to fit the customer’s specific needs. Nowadays, personalization of services and even products has become a huge feature of today’s economy, and unless you achieve this, you will not be able to impress your customers.mpress your customers.

Approximately 51% of customers desire that businesses are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

(Source: Inc.)

Live customer chats are another major benefit of having access to one. In view of the fact that numerous companies have geographic spreads, it is only expected that many companies will be contacted at odd hours of the night. It is clearly not the customer’s desire to wait for the store to open its doors at 9:00 in the morning in order to get an answer to their question.

The research shows that 53% of consumers are likely to abandon their online purchases if they are unable to find answers to their questions.

(Source: Forrester)

In order for you to retain your customers, it is very important to respond immediately to them. If you do not satisfy them in the short period of time you have with them, you may lose half of them. If you do not provide quick answers to your customer’s queries, they will perceive that you do not value their patronage. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the global cart abandonment rate is 75.52%, so you must make sure that your customers can find their answers easily.

The number of companies using a live chat on their website is only 9%.

(Source: Super Office)

With so many customers requesting a live chat, it’s shocking to see that so many companies are still unable to provide this service to their customers! You have an advantage over your competitors who do not have a live chat option on their site if you have one on your site.

Statistics on live chat adoption

By the year 2022, it is expected that 85% of businesses will opt for live chat support.

Despite the fact that web chat customer service has been around for a while now, it has only gained traction in the last decade. There are numerous reasons for this growth, with one of the most common being digitalization, which has allowed many companies to automate their operations and improve efficiency. Similarly, customer demands are on the rise, and businesses need to be able to meet them as well. In today’s world, tech-savvy customers are more familiar with the messaging platforms, and according to a study, 79% of them prefer live chat over other methods since they have access to support instantly.

(Software Advice)

According to the company, about 60% of customers want a quick response from support when they contact them.

According to live chat statistics, the majority of customers prefer a response or support that is provided within 10 minutes after contacting the customer support team. In accordance with the answers from the study respondents, 46% of customers think that any contact with the marketing team is of the same importance. The number of customers who are the most ‘impatient’ when they make a request to the sales department is the highest – 62 percent.

(Hubspot)

35% of businesses believe that live chat is the preferred method of communication.

What is strange is that there is a disconnect between what companies think their customers want, and what they actually want. The number of business owners thinking about using online chat customer service is only 35%. In contrast, they are overstaffing their contact centers with operators, since it seems that 42% of firms consider this to be what customers prefer when it comes to customer service. Additionally, 14% of respondents think that their customers prefer to communicate via email, while 9% say the same about social media.

(Kayakoo)

It has been found that 63% of consumers who spend $250-500 each month on the Internet make their purchases from businesses that offer live chat service.

Additionally, they are also more likely to remain loyal to this company as well. On top of that, based on the live chat sales statistics, it is expected that 51% of customers will buy again from a company that offers live chat. By comparison, it has been found that 38% of people are more likely to make their first purchase on a website with a live chat widget. Therefore, 79% of companies report that the presence of this feature has positively impacted their revenue, sales, and customer relationships over the last two years.

(Kayakoo)

Customers between the ages of 18 and 49 are most likely to prefer live chat over other options.

According to the National Institute of Health, 36.5% of women aged 18-29 in the United States have used it at least once. Furthermore, in the group between 30 and 39 years of age, there are 37.5% of people who have used it at least once. In spite of this, only 62% of retail owners have put it into practice on desktop and 55% have put it into practice on mobile. According to Gartner, there are some examples of excellent online chat customer service that stand out from the crowd. It is one of these companies that used Apple Business Chat to enable its SMS service.

(Gartner, eMarketer)

Live chat customer satisfaction in Mexico is the highest, with 94.11 %.

Moreover, the average chat duration of this chatroom is one of the longest (21 minutes and 12 seconds) out of all chatrooms. According to the live chat customer satisfaction statistics, Canada and Australia do not seem to be that far behind. The former has a customer satisfaction rate of around 88.36%, while customers of Down Under are more satisfied with 93.59 %. As a result of this, most of the live chat transactions occur between the hours of 10 A.M. as well as 3 P.M. On average, 50% of all live chat transactions occur between these hours.

(Performance Magazine)

The desktop chat engagement rate is 1.7% while the mobile chat engagement rate is 1.4%.

A desktop user is likely to make a purchase 14% of the time on average, but mobile users will make a purchase 7% of the time on average. In addition to that, they are incredibly engaged when it comes to web chat customer service on desktop, which is considerably higher. It is estimated that mobile chatters convert 6.1 times higher than non-chatters on mobile devices.

(Upscope)

8. It was estimated that 51.68% of chat queries originated from mobile devices in 2018, on average.

The live chat support statistics show a strong growth of 7.9% comparing the previous year to last year. In order to put this into a more elucidatory perspective, let us say that there were 23 million chats in total. According to the chart above, we can clearly see that live chat usage for primary purposes is shifting from desktop to mobile in a general sense (or basically everywhere). Live chat was the most popular form of communication for mobile users when they were shopping, taking part in leisure activities, as well as when they needed consumer service. On the one hand, the first group of users had a mobile usage of 72% while the second had a mobile usage of 70%. The transportation industry, on the other hand, had the lowest percentage at 19%.

(Comm100)

There are around 2% of customers who engage in proactive live chats.

The difference is not that significant when compared with the higher reactive chat engagement rates (up to 7.8%). Although proactive chat provides customers with great opportunities for recommendations, they do not seem very willing to engage in proactive chat. It has been found that on average there are 23 seconds between the time that livechat responds to a customer’s inquiry in a reactive chat. For proactive chat, however, the amount of time is harder to determine.

(Fair Trade Outsourcing)

According to research, around 73% of customers find live chat to be the most effective way of communicating with a company.

On the other hand, live chat has been deemed more satisfactory by 73% of customers compared to email and phone. In contrast, 51% of customers expressed pleasure while communicating via email with the company. Last but not least, 44% of respondents felt the same way with regard to the business’ phone engagement.

At the same time, live chat engagement statistics meanwhile confirm that 42% of customers indicated that live chat was the preferred way for them to leave their contact information. This makes live chat the most effective lead-generation method in this regard.

(Invesp)

According to 79% of customers, the main reason they use live chat is for the immediate answer to their questions.

As we can see from the live chat performance benchmarks, this is indeed true. The reason for this, however, is not the only one. More than half of all customers find multitasking important. Furthermore, 46% think it is the most efficient means of communication for them. Also, 29% believe it is the most accurate way of receiving information. There are 22% of people who do not enjoy talking on the phone, however there are 21% who can chat while at work. In addition, 15% of those surveyed said that they thought the information that they received was better than if they had called, according to live chat statistics.

(Invesp)

Besides promoting sales, live chat is used 29% in marketing to raise awareness of the products and services of the company.

The entire customer journey is encompassed in our live chat customer support. According to a study, the use of social media for marketing awareness is reported in 29% of cases. Afterwards, 39% of cases report the conversion of leads from social media. 32% of this amount goes to early engagement, and 24% to mid-stage engagement. As a final note, 18% of respondents cited it as a tool for closing the sale, and 39% cited it as a means of post-sale support.

(AMA)

Millennials are 20% more likely than baby boomers to use live chat than they were ten years ago.

In fact, this age group, along with millennials, is one of the fastest-growing segments of the market. Due to this fact, they tend to be the ones who use it the most, citing convenience as their number one reason for doing so. The latest live chat statistics show that 63% of millennials prefer their questions answered by live chat, rather than traditional forms of customer support.

(ICMI)

In a recent survey, 36% of Gen Z customers feel that they would prefer to contact customer service using live chat.

It is also likely that they will prefer channels such as WhatsApp or live chat customer support via video instead. Apparently 61% of customers under the age of 24 do not intend on calling companies for help on purpose when they need it.

(Live Agent)

In the B2B space, live chat is used by 61% of users.

As you might have guessed, this is rather surprising, considering that B2C is a larger customer segment. Despite this, adoption statistics for live chat show that B2B has almost twice as many users as B2C. For reference, B2C has a 33% rate of adoption from customers. Further, we have B2G and non-profit sectors, each with 2% and 5% live chat users, respectively.

(Zoho)

By 2023, it is projected that the global market for live chat will reach $987,3 million.

During the forecast period, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.3%. As the customer-centric approach gain more and more traction, online chat customer service is gaining more and more prominence. With this approach, companies are able to gather valuable insights about user preferences, which allows them to increase sales and conversion levels.o increase sales and conversion levels. Consequently, live chat will continue to become an increasingly popular solution for companies. There will continue to be a need for customers to have access to real-time communication, and this will continue to drive the growth of the live chat market.

(Knowledge-Based Value Research)

The global live chat software market is expected to reach $997 million by the year 2023. (Allied Market Research, 2020)

The percentage of organizations that use live chat when they have less than 100 customers is staggering at 56%. 

Furthermore, 74% of organizations implemented live chat when they had fewer than ten employees on board with them. (Zoho, 2018)

Additionally, 25 percent of businesses adopted live chat in their first year, while the other 25 percent did so in their second year or after 

A third of organizations implemented live chat ten years or more after they were founded. (Zoho, 2018)

85% of businesses in the B2B sector and 74% of businesses in the B2C sector use live chat to help close sales. (Zoho, 2018)

In the B2C sector 67% of companies use live chat for customer service, while 66% of companies in the B2B sector use it. (Zoho, 2018)

54% of businesses in the B2B sector use live chat as a marketing tool, compared to 31% of businesses in the B2C sector. (Zoho, 2018)

Moreover, there is new data showing that live chat has been able to boost revenue of travel and hospitality companies by $16 million in the last year. (Nuance Communications, 2019)

Insurance companies have also benefited from live chat by saving $1 million in call deflection costs in the last 90 days. (Nuance Communications, 2019)

The lack of cross-departmental collaboration is one of the main reasons why 38% of companies fail to provide excellent customer service. (Conversocial, 2019)

The shocking truth is that 26% of businesses believe they are not prepared to offer live chat support via public social media apps. (Conversocial, 2019)

Statistic on Live Chat Conversions

It has been reported that a customer who uses live chat spends as much as 60% more than one who does not use live chat.

This is because live chat support can deal with customer concerns and questions quickly and efficiently. Additionally, 38% of customers are likely to purchase a product after a positive real-time chat with the customer service representative. (Software Advice)

A recent survey found that 57% of consumers would abandon a purchase online if they didn’t receive a response to their question.

In order to retain your customers and have them complete an order, Webchat customer service plays a vital role. When customers do not receive prompt responses to their questions, more than half of them abandon their shopping cart. Additionally, 63% of consumers also said they’d be happy to return to a shopping site that has a live chat feature integrated into it in the future. (Acquire)

The conversion rate for live chat has increased by 3.84 percent.

Statistics indicate that the main reason for the rise of live chat marketing is the possibility of including some strategies for this. A company can get leads at a fraction of the cost of what it would have to invest in a regular method of getting leads. In the event that the chat agent makes an initial contact with the visitor, the sales department will be able to swoop in and convert those leads into paying customers. In addition to this, some businesses have implemented integrated customer relationship management solutions in order to better interact with their agents. (Software Advice)

 For example, Virgin Airlines increased conversion rates by 23 percent after the implementation of live chat.

According to the company, based on its benchmarks for live chat performance, they claim that live chat converts customers at 3.5 times more than those who don’t use it. Nevertheless, the following are a couple of facts worth mentioning. Virgil doesn’t use this chat as a means of closing sales, rather it uses it in order to solidify additional revenue and achieve an increase in average order value. For reference, the company’s average order value (AOV) has increased by 15% in the last year among its customers who use the live chat service, compared with the rest of the customers. (Digital Commerce 360)

Following the implementation of live chat, Intuit’s conversions rose to an astonishing 190%.

This figure decreased to about 170% for the Mint and QuickBooks seller. In a matter of just a few months after the chat widget was added to the product comparison page, the sales levels of the company increased by an impressive 211%. There is no doubt that the presence of a live chat widget brought a 43% increase in the average order value at the checkout process when compared with the presence of no chat widget at all. (Template Monster)

Rescue Spa increased its revenue by 286% as a result of introducing live chat.

At Rescue Spa, we offer upscale beauty services and products and sell a variety of upscale beauty products. A few years ago, the company decided to become involved in the online space by launching an e-commerce platform. The company brought in a new site vendor, enhanced the checkout process, and enabled the live chat feature to use. There was an average growth of 175% in revenue per year after that. The fact that companies that offer live chat support enjoy higher conversion rates and sales is just another proof that they benefit from this service. (Marketing Sherpa)

Customer Satisfaction Statistics for Live Chat

38% of customers are frustrated by the poor customer service they receive when using the live chat service.

In most cases, these frustrations are caused by the fact that live chat support is unavailable, or how they are disconnected from the chat, or having to fill out a form in order to initiate a chat. Approximately 28 percent of customers find that scripted responses are the most frustrating, while 24 percent of customers are frustrated by long wait times. Another nine percent of customers find it frustrating if they have to repeat themselves. (Kayakoo)

Live chat stats show that the longest waiting time for a response to a live chat query is nine minutes.

You can imagine the frustration of the customer in this situation. In other words, long waiting times are one of the reasons a customer may decide to stop being a customer of a given company. During our customer journey, response times in live chat play a vital role. In our experience, the customer waits a total of two minutes and forty seconds from the moment that they initiate the chat to the moment they receive an answer. It is not uncommon for agents to be able to reply within the first 30 seconds, but not all are as quick. A response that was returned in seven seconds was the fastest response we have ever recorded. (Super Office)

In 21% of all companies, live chat requests do not get answered.

The percentage of customers that are not satisfied with the product justifies their doubts. On the other hand, for those who receive a reply, according to live chat statistics, the wait time is two minutes and 40 seconds on average. 45% of companies don’t ask for user feedback after the chat is completed (55%), and 55% don’t offer transcripts after the chat is completed. In addition, 23% of all chatbots never ask for contact data prior to starting a conversation. (Super Office)

Around 69% of organizations use canned messages in live chat to communicate with their customers.

The fact remains, no matter how crucial it is for customers to have real-time communication with their providers and to have their questions answered, not all of them receive a personal touch. According to Jeff Epstein, the VP of Product Marketing and Communication at Comm100, agents know that no matter how unique they are, they don’t come up with responses from scratch every time. As time passes, all their responses become more automated and they sound like they are pre-recorded. (Forbes)

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Support Statistics for Live Chat vs Phone Support

The cost of handling live chats is more than 50% less than handling phone calls.

As an example, companies with live chat support that have traditionally used phone models when providing support would find this form to be significantly cheaper than using phone models. In addition, live chat has the added benefit of being more efficient than phone models. For instance, in traditional call centers, agents can respond to one call at a time or answer one email at a time. However, in customer service with live chat, an agent can engage in up to six different chats at once, in contrast to that in phone support. In some estimates, on the other hand, the cost of call center support on the phone can be as much as $12 per call, compared to $5 for a web chat. (Super Office)

Since introducing live chat, Magellan GPS was able to decrease phone call costs by 55.8% between 2013 and 2015.

The company’s spending on contact centers decreased from $1.5 million approximately to $840,000 approximately between 2013 and 2014, based on data from live chat chats. After deploying Velaro’s live chat solution for a year, this has amounted to a 43% reduction in costs. The number of direct costs decreased by 22% between 2014 and 2015. The majority of support queries that Magellan receives are rerouted to live chat, reducing the need for telephone support. Thus, the number of people using the phone declined from 66.9% to 33.1% (Velaro)

By the end of 2021, 71% of people believe that the popularity of live online chats will surpass that of traditional support channels. (Source: bold360)

In most cases, the reason for this is because people increasingly prefer to communicate through chatting rather than making phone calls.

The fact is more than half of all customers prefer to use real-time online chat rather than telephone support. (Source: Super Office)

Shortly put, live chat has overtaken phone support in terms of popularity, while only 23% of customers prefer email. It drops even lower for social media and forums, with the number falling to just 16%. 

The main reasons why more customers prefer live chats are that they are more convenient (26.9%) and that there are no waiting times (34%) involved. (Source: ProProfs)

Statistics from live chat tell us that the main reason why customers prefer this method is because it is so convenient and they do not have to wait, contrary to phone calls. Also, customers say that the brand allows them to engage with them better, outline concerns, and receive immediate results.

There is a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and the quality of the live chat experience. (Source: Help Scout)

Statistics from Comm100 indicate that the majority of customers are happy with the help they receive over live chat, and this is being revealed in the live chat customer service statistics released by Comm100. With the percentage falling to 61% for email support, the figure dropped to only 44% for phone support. Thus, if businesses want to improve their phone support, then they can either work on improving their live chat support or focusing on phone support.

There is an average 60 % increase in spending per transaction among ‘chatterers’ compared with non-chatterers. (Source: invesp)

It is therefore unclear why this was brought up in the discussion of live chat vs. phone support statistics? It’s worth noting that if you only have telephone support, you could be losing out on a lot of money to your competitors.

————

Implementation of ChatBots

An average of $300,000 was saved by organizations by using chatbots in 2019. (Intercom, 2019)

Further, it is predicted that by 2023, retail sales generated by chatbots will amount to $112 billion. (Retail Dive, 2019)

In the United States, Europe, and China, 40 percent of businesses are already using chatbots and virtual agents by the year 2020. (Forbes, 2020)

There is a 73% chance that bots and automation are going to play a significant role in the near future for businesses in North America. 74% of companies in Europe agree with this statement as well. (Conversocial, 2019)

Human-intermediated chatbots have been found to be successful in certain cases, the Dutch airline KLM, has seen a 50% reduction in handling times because agents no longer have to type everything. (Forrester, 2019)

Even so, only 14% of US online consumers believe that interacting with chatbots will have a positive effect on their experience, while 8% think that they will have an extremely positive interaction with them. (Nuance Communications, 2019)

According to a more recent report, 41% of consumers believe the use of chatbots and Artificial Intelligence could benefit their customer experience. But 59% believe otherwise. (Conversocial, 2020)

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Statistics on Customer Preferences

It’s true that 41% of customers prefer live chat over phone interactions, but 42% of businesses believe that their customers prefer live chat. (Kayako, 2021)

The highest global customer satisfaction rate for live chat usage was recorded in the real estate industry (98.56%), followed by the transportation industry (90.86%), technology sector (90.13%), business services sector (89.47%), and education sector (88.69%). (Comm100, 2020)

More than 79% of companies say that live chat has improved their customer loyalty, sales, and revenue as a result of live chat. (Kayako, 2021)

The number of consumers who are likely to buy from a business that provides live chat support has increased to 38%. (Kayako, 2021)

51% of customers say they are more likely to return to a business that provides live chat support or make another purchase from them. (Kayako, 2021)

As well as this, 94% of customers also say that brands that provide customers with a satisfying experience through messaging platforms are more likely to have repeat customers. (Conversocial, 2020)

There is an 85% chance that customers who use the live chat feature on a website will become customers if they use the feature. As well as being bigger chatterers, they would also spend 13% more than non-chatterers. (Intercom, 2019)

63% of consumers who spend $250 to $500 per month online are more likely to become loyal to and buy from a business that offers live chat support than one that doesn’t. (Kayako, 2021)

A recent survey revealed that 71% of customers expect brands to offer customer support via messaging platforms in the future. (Conversocial, 2020)

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Response Time Statistics for Live Chat

There is no doubt that long waiting times are one of the major sources of consumer frustration, as reported by 24 percent of consumers. (Kayako, 2021)

There are 19% of businesses who report that their customers are frustrated with long waiting times. (Kayako, 2021)

There was an average wait time for a consumer with a team of 26 to 50 agents which averaged over 80 seconds. Teams with a range of 26 to 50 agents had the longest wait times. (Comm100, 2019)

It has also been found that teams composed of 26 to 50 agents have the longest chat duration at an average of 13:41 minutes per chat session. (Comm100, 2019)

The average wait time for live chat for the recreation industry is only 0:15 seconds, which is the best among other industries. (Comm100, 2019)

In an updated report, it was found that agents on average take more than 52 seconds to respond to a customer question on live chat. (LiveChat, 2020)

A live chat session will typically take an average of two minutes and forty seconds to complete once it has been initiated. (SuperOffice, 2021)

Usually, a live chat agent needs to spend an average of 11 minutes and 34 seconds to comprehensively resolve a customer case. (99Firms, 2020)

The majority of consumers, 95% in fact, prefer slow, personalized live chat support if it ensures a higher level of service. (Kayako, 2021)

According to a study by ZDNet, organizations that reported live chat customer satisfaction scores of 90% or higher had an average chat duration of 12 minutes and 26 seconds, which was 13% longer than organizations that reported lower scores on customer satisfaction. (Forbes, 2019)

A team with more than 50 live chat agents has the highest rate of customer satisfaction (88%). A team with more than 50 live chat agents also has the smallest number of chat sessions per agent. (Comm100, 2020)

There are 21% of companies that do not respond to live chat requests, which is unfortunate for them. (SuperOffice, 2021)

In comparison, only 43% of businesses know that they don’t offer their customers a good enough user experience. (Kayako, 2021)

There is a consensus among 87% of consumers that brands need to make more effort to provide consistently good customer experiences, especially since 54% of them base their purchasing decisions on their overall experience. (Nuance Communications, 2020)

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Statistics on live chat mobility

According to the World Bank, by 2020 there will be more than 5.19 billion mobile phone owners, which represents a 2.4% increase over the previous year. Moreover, the percentage of people who spend time online using their mobile phones has increased to 50.1%. (We Are Social, 2020)

As of 2019, mobile devices accounted for 74.5 percent of all live chats, an increase of 82% from last year. (Comm100, 2020)

It is estimated that 89% of all mobile apps are chat apps. (We Are Social, 2020)

The percentage of companies that did not provide mobile chat in 2019 was only 0.54%. (Comm100, 2020)

By 2020, there will be 167.77 million mobile phone owners in the United States. It is projected that the number will reach 187.5 million by 2024. (eMarketer, 2020)

76.5% of chats in the recreation industry were conducted on mobile devices. (Comm100, 2020)

In the industry of consumer services, 71% of chats were done on a mobile device. (Comm100, 2020)

The industry where the least amount of live chats was received in 2019 was technology, where 24% of the conversations took place. (Comm100, 2020)

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Statistics on Live Chat Technologies Emerging in the Industry

With the assistance of chatbots, 82% of common customer questions could be answered without the assistance of a human agent. The results of the study showed that 88% of customer requests were successful when human agents and chatbots worked together. (Acquire)

It is estimated that an automated chatbot is able to resolve 80% of all customer issues without a human agent’s assistance. (Acquire)

The number of organizations using canned responses in live chat sessions is approximately 69%. (Forbes, 2019)

It is estimated that 69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots as they enable them to communicate with brands more efficiently. (Mordor Intelligence, 2020)

More than 71% of consumers would gladly use a chatbot if it meant that they could improve their customer experience. (Conversocial, 2020)

It is reported that retail companies using chatbots are seen by customers as efficient (47%), innovative (40%), and helpful (36%). (LinkedIn, 2020)

By 2025, $102 billion will have been generated by the chatbot market from $17.17 billion in 2019. The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34.75% during 2020 – 2025. (Mordor Intelligence, 2020)

In spite of the rise of chatbots on the internet, there is still a high preference for human agents over AI technologies among consumers. (99Firms, 2020)

It is important to note that proactive live chats, where an agent welcomes visitors to chat, are slowly gaining traction. As of 2019, over one million live chats have been initiated by agents across the world. (Comm100, 2020)

Using co-browsing, where an agent is able to access the customer’s browser while resolving the issue, helped increase customer satisfaction scores by more than 6 points compared with the market average. (Forbes, 2019)

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The effects of COVID-19 on live chat

According to Euromonitor International, customer service tickets received in North America during the pandemic were 16% higher than pre-pandemic levels. (Zendesk, 2020)

Compared to January to March 2020, the average number of monthly live chats increased by 23% from April to August 2020. (Comm100, 2020)

At the beginning of the pandemic, on average, every live chat agent had to handle 18% more sessions than they normally would. (Comm100, 2020)

Ecommerce customers used messaging apps such as WhatsApp (up by 352% compared to pre-pandemic levels) and SMS/text messaging (up by 102%) more than other customer service channels since the pandemic began. (Zendesk, 2021)

As compared to January to March 2020, many industries reported an increase in mobile chats received between April and August 2020: travel (+16%), healthcare (+6%), business services (+4%), telecoms (+5%), recreation (+1%), and real estate (+1%). (Comm100, 2020)

32% more tickets were solved by companies that leveraged live channels during the pandemic. (Zendesk, 2021)

There was a study that discovered that people who have to work from home in order to provide their customers with quality customer service found it difficult due to inadequate infrastructure to provide them with high quality customer service. After COVID-19 was declared a pandemic two weeks ago, hold times and escalations increased by 34% and 68%, respectively, within just two weeks. (Harvard Business Review, 2020)

As a result of the pandemic, the number of calls rated as “difficult” more than doubled from a usual 10% to more than 20% during the initial months. (Harvard Business Review, 2020)

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Metrics for measuring the first response time

For live chat, in 2020, the average first time response time was between 46 (Comm100) and 48 seconds (Live Chat).

As of 2019, customer support teams with 90 percent or higher customer satisfaction ratings had an average response time of 1 minute, 32 seconds (Comm100).

It is estimated that the average response time of support teams whose satisfaction rates are less than 90% is 30 seconds in 2019 (Comm100).

According to Zendesk, 28% of consumers expect a live chat response within five minutes.

It is estimated that long wait times are the number one cause of “bad” customer service (Zendesk).

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Metrics related to Resolution Time

In 2020, the average duration of support chats ranged from 11 minutes, 24 seconds (Live Chat) to 11 minutes, 55 seconds (Comm100).

Comm100 reports that customer support teams with satisfaction rates above 90% chatted for an average of 11 minutes, 47 seconds, while those with lower satisfaction rates chatted for an average of 8 minutes, 42 seconds.

The top factor contributing to “good” customer service is the speed with which you resolve the issue.

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What is the popularity of live chat?

In the next year (2020) (Zendesk), live chat is expected to grow by 65% (or 500%).

According to Zendesk, 17% of people between the ages of 18-24 use social messaging apps to resolve issues with brands.

The average use of automated live chat messaging among support teams of 50 or more people was 2.1% compared to teams of 1-50 agents (0.4-1%) (Comm100).

The vast majority of live chat conversations are initiated by visitors to a website (Comm100).

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How do consumers feel about live chat? What do they think of it?

The average satisfaction rate for using live chat is 87%, a rate that is higher than all other types of communication channels (Infinite Global).

When a consumer asks a sales or marketing question, 82% of consumers would like a direct response (Infinite Global).

When asking a customer service question, 90 percent of consumers expect an immediate response (Infinite Global).

When it comes to communicating with a brand, 36% of consumers expect to be able to choose the communication channel of their choice (Gladly).

According to Gladly, 30% of consumers have used live chat to resolve issues within the past 12 months (2020).

The number of consumers who say that personalized service is more important to them than targeted marketing is 79% (Gladly).

The numbers of consumers who perceive improvements in their live chat support experiences have gone up to 12% over the past decade (Comm100).

In contrast to this, only 11% of consumers say they are confident that brands are taking their feedback seriously (Comm100).

The majority of consumers (57%) said that they feel loyal to a particular brand when they receive satisfying customer service (Zendesk).

It is estimated that 84% of consumers will go out of their way to purchase more products from a brand that offers outstanding customer service (Gladly).

According to the Comm100, customer satisfaction plateaued between 2018 and 2019 and dropped to 83.04% in 2020, a decrease of 0.06%.

Approximately 23-28% of consumers use chat and messaging to resolve issues with a brand (Zendesk) .

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How to Optimize Your Live Chat Experience Using These Numbers

The easiest, quickest, and most accessible way to get help from a customer support representative has been live chat. As a result, AI chatbots have emerged as cheaper, more efficient and more effective alternatives to human agents. In addition, they improved the quality of service delivery and have helped reduce the burden on human agents. The incorporation of live chat customer service makes more sense as it can be performed from home, at least in the short term, since telephone customer service could present a minor problem. In addition, a live chat customer service option requires less infrastructure in general.

It is possible to implement live chat in your small business with the help of one of the many small business live chat apps available today. In addition, do not forget to use the live chat trends as well as the statistics we mentioned earlier if you want to develop a strategy that will enable you to reap maximum benefits from your live chat. Some companies have already proved that live chat sales techniques deliver more revenue than any other sales channel. Live chat for marketing is a creative tool, and some companies use live chat for marketing and for sales.

It is very important to keep in mind that no matter how powerful your live chat channel is, if you want to drive its uptake, you must promote it. For example, you should make sure your live chat channel is clearly visible on your website to increase the rate of consumer adoption. In addition to that, customers expect you to be available 24/7 when you offer a live chat channel. Due to this reason, it is important that you have the right number of customer service agents on hand to respond to any customer queries effectively during all working hours (day or night).