Bad #1: Waiting for an immediate response
We expect live chat to be fast, responsive, and helpful. Unfortunately, it isn’t always the case. A 2017 study found that 38% of consumers feel their live chat experiences are not good enough, and that goes up to 43% for B2B buyers.
Why don’t they like live chat? Because major delays can mean it doesn’t’ feel very “live” or much like a conversation. The average wait time to get a question answered can be nearly three minutes, and that same study found 21% of live chat support requests are never answered.
Pro tip: Chat is a helpful thing if you can live up to expectations. That means having enough agents to respond immediately or an automated platform that can field basic questions and then hand complex issues off to agents. The second tip is to put hours on your chat window, so you immediately temper visitor expectations — plus many live chat software solutions are smart enough to hide the chat popup when it’s not available.