There are plenty of important distinctions that you need to consider if you’re planning on running an eCommerce website. If you’re running a brick-and-mortar store and looking to go online, you have to think about how some of the physical experiences translate to online. Not only that, but you have to plan for the significant differences in marketing, as you have to rely on your Lakeland web design and other online tools to properly represent your business to get customers to buy your products. Your website plays a very important role in how it generates conversions in the form of sales.

However, despite the main differences between running an eCommerce site and running a brick-and-mortar shop, there is one constant between the two, which is the provision of customer support to your audience. Since your customers will need help with their shopping, you have to give them the support that they need to help them make up their minds. With a brick-and-mortar store, this is easy enough, as you can have staff on hand to provide support when needed. But how do you accomplish this with a virtual store?

Most eCommerce sites make do by providing customer support via live chat. While many customers miss the face-to-face interaction that in-person customer support provides, live chat is still highly beneficial for many reasons. Live chat support can provide customers with the exact responses that they need to help them make up their minds about purchasing the item, which can help improve conversion rates. Also, live chat support is an opportunity to connect with some immediately, which cuts down on the time spent waiting for an email response that other eCommerce sites employ.

However, keep in mind that if you’re going to be using live chat support on your website, you have to be prepared to invest in this. You have to funnel your resources into finding support agents and training them on your business and products so that they can effectively respond to any questions and concerns that your customers will have.

Their salaries will have to be provided, which is another expense that you will need to consider. Not only that, but you have to invest in changing up your Lakeland web design and overall development of your site so that this feature is integrated into your website. However, keep in mind that all of these are still considerably less than paying for all of the overhead costs affiliated with a brick-and-mortar store.

When done right, live chat support can be a significant boon to your business, especially once you’ve considered a lot of important external factors. It’s important that you have all of the information that you need before you launch this, as this can be quite costly to implement for a new business.