If you own or manage a health club, you know how crucial it is to provide as many guest passes to qualified buyers as possible. There are many ways to go about increasing the number of guest pass sign-ups you get, but live chat has one of the highest returns on investment as any solution out there. In fact, an eMarketer poll found that 62% of customers were inclined to purchase products online if live customer support were available. While guest passes aren’t considered a direct “sell,” they provide your team with warm leads that can be converted to members.
We are living in a time where people anticipate an immediate response, so potential customers are now starting to expect live chat when they come to your site. According to a 2016 Forrester article, customers using online chat has risen significantly in the past few years, from 38% in 2009, to 43% in 2012, and to 65% in 2015. That means if your club doesn’t have live chat and another club near you does, not only do they look like they have better customer service, but they are also likely to get more leads than your club.
Here are a few reasons why 24/7 live chat will increase guest pass conversion on your website:
With live chat, leads get answers to their questions about the club quickly, thus improving the customer service your club provides and supplying a perfect opportunity to offer a guest pass. According to BoldChat.com, 79% of the people who prefer live chat said they did so because they get their questions answered quickly. If they can’t get the answer to their question right away, you’re missing out on a key touchpoint with a potential customer.
Live chat is great, but 24/7 live chat is what makes using the service a no-brainer. Have you ever visited a website and clicked on their live chat only to see a message pop up asking you to leave a message? Filling out a form to leave a message defeats the purpose of the live chat experience. In order to get everything you want out of live chat, you should have live chat agents be on all hours of the day, as potential leads don’t just visit your website between 9am and 5pm. In fact, Kissmetrics found that 50-60% of the leads they get for their clients come in after hours.
When live chat is on your site, visitors will inevitably end up staying there longer than they would have otherwise. By improving your “time on site” metric, you can increase your website’s ranking on Google and other search engines. When you have a higher ranking on Google, people searching for health clubs in your area will be more likely to click on your site and engage with live chat agents.
Using a proactive live chat message to engage a potential customer is a great way to secure leads. Someone might not notice your live chat icon in the corner of the screen, so adding a friendly message that pops up without them clicking on anything can help get the conversation going. According to Zopim and Zendesk, 94% of customers who were proactively invited to chat were somewhat or very satisfied with the experience. More chats lead to more guest passes given out, which leads to more converted leads.
If you want an expert health club live chat team and don't want to hire and train staff, consider ClubConnect Engage. ClubConnect Engage is the only live chat platform and service built for health clubs. Learn more here.