As online purchasing continues to grow rapidly, with e-commerce sales up +14.2% in 2021 compared to the previous year, customers' expectations of convenient and fast customer service assistance are increasing alongside it.

Enter: Live Chat and AI-powered chatbots to make a positive impact on the customer service experience.

According to Live Person’s 2021 Consumer Preferences Survey, the vast majority of consumers say they prefer brands that allow them to use messaging to engage with the brand and have a strong preference for self-service, and quick options to handle customer issues themselves.

73% are more likely to do business with a company if they can message them rather than call. 

Over three-quarters (78%) of consumers would like the ability to securely message with any business. 

77% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if they could browse or get answers over messaging. 

Consumers are looking for personalized conversations and convenient customer service from brands more than ever, and live messaging and AI-powered chatbots help businesses create a personalized and trusted relationship between consumers and brands. Simply having bots pull a customer’s previous order information and refer to their behavior with the brand does loads for generating this trust. Consumers report a greater desire to be loyal and spend more money with brands they gain this trust with through messaging channels. 

Positive sentiment towards chatbots nearly doubled in 2021 vs the previous year (61% vs 31%), with consumers valuing their speed, ease and efficiency, among other things. Knowing these consumer preferences, why wouldn’t you give live chat and chatbots a try, starting with a free trial of Maven WebChat? 

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