Return on investment after implementing Live Chat support services


All over the world, web-based businesses are turning towards the live chat solution. The Internet-based economy is global, and the consumer base is widespread and diverse. In such an environment, the need to maximize profit and return on online investment is as important as anything a business can do to improve.


A ‘live chat’ customer service agent, or WebGreeter, amicably approaching and greeting interested visitors on your website can be hugely beneficial for your online business in a multitude of ways: for the cost model of maintaining a live customer support system and for the quality of the service you can now provide to your prospective online customers. Besides providing your visitors information they need in a convenient way and closing sales online in real-time, WebGreeter’s Live Chat solution also lowers the ownership cost for a customer service setup.


The cost-per-chat for WebGreeter varies in accordance with our package: you can choose our per-chat model of per-seat model (sales and customer service support are both provided); this cost is usually between $1.5 to $5 (or less, depending upon the complexity of your business website, the level of expertise required for it, and the range and number of products or services you offer to your clients). This is much less, however, as compared to the cost of a call center-based customer support service that cost anywhere between $6 and $20. In some cases, the cost of call support and live chat might be similar, but phone-based sales and support requires high setup costs, maintenance of equipment, and a larger team of sales/ support staff.


  • • The greatest advantage of WebGreeter’s live chat support in the cost model is that each live chat operator is able to attend to multiple chats, thereby requiring a smaller team.
  • • A professional live chat person operator trained at WebGreeter’s Training Center can handle anywhere between 5 to 8 chats at one time while providing the highest level of service. On the other hand, a phone operator providing a similar service can only talk to one person at a time.
  • • The running costs are dramatically reduced as many more visitors can be served at a time by a single greeter than can be serviced by a team of phone-in customer support agents.
  • • The cost associated with the training and salaries of a phone-based team and the cost of VOIP/ phone setup are also dramatically reduced this way, as WebGreeter requires only a small amount or bandwidth, and uses its own home-grown software solution.
    (WebGreeter guarantee’s that the Money invested in service implementation is easily recovered within a short time. Implementation of Live Chat services has a beneficial effect for any business model, whether it's B2B or B2C.)
  • • Customer services costs are reduced while feedback is more positive and the service is efficient.
  • • Customer sales and after-sales services are improved, as Greeters can successfully create leads, close sales, up-sell to existing customers, and provide after-sales support.

Some ROI stats from major service providers and web based businesses (research based on WebGreeter’s own market survey and well known sources):


  • 1. For a chat-based customer support service, a return of investment of approximately 100 – 120 % is well within reach for most business models within the first four to five months of service implementation.
  • 2. For a customer sales/ services chat setup, supported by a team of proactive, sales trained chat operators, an expected ROI of approximately 220-300 % is normally easily achieved.
  • 3. For websites that require applications and forms to be filled, for instance subscriptions and surveys which are necessary to buy products or benefit from services, chat-assisted procedures, where a chat agent walks a visitor through the steps, have 138% higher completion rate as compared to how visitors normally behave towards such procedures and applications.
  • 4. According to a survey the live chat sales (sales/services) solution increases sales conversion significantly and visitors are highly satisfied with the chat experience; 60% of them say chat helped them decide to purchase.
  • 5. The average sales cycle for web-based businesses is 15-30 days. According to surveys by Live Chat support providers, there is a 50% reduction in the average time of a sales cycle. The Live chat solution has helped sales representatives to close 60% prospective sales within a week while 40% of those are completed on-the-spot or within 24 hours.


2011-01-03T14:33:54