Your landing pages are your business’ most visible representative. They’re accessible to anyone at any time, but without the right tools, you might not capture as many online leads as you could.
Live chat for contractors can help you generate more leads for your home improvement business by offering visitors a fast and easy engagement channel.
Qualified leads can be hard to come by, especially if you’re not offering website visitors the right options for submitting information.
For example, form fills are useful, but they’re also a passive channel. Visitors arrive on your landing pages ready to engage, but instead they have to leave their information and wait to hear back in a few days.
That’s not ideal.
The same can be said about your phone number. Often, people call a business and have to leave a message. This is especially true if they’re looking for contractors at night or if the team is out on a job.
It’s an unfortunate fact: it’s difficult for prospects to connect with your business in real time.
It’s obviously important to have forms and phone numbers on your landing pages, but having another conversion mechanism that’s engaging and available 24/7 can help your business capture even more leads. Live chat for lead generation is exactly what contractors like you need to start generating more leads from your landing pages.
Here are a few reasons why live chat software and services work so well for contractors.
1. Homeowners want to message with businesses (especially contractors)
There are plenty of reasons why messaging channels such as SMS or chat are so effective in helping businesses capture more qualified leads. But perhaps the simplest one is that it’s what people prefer. In 2010, SMS wasn’t even statistically significant as a B2C communication channel according to Twilio. But by 2013 it was within consumers’ top-three choices.
image source: Twilio
And according to Flowroute, now it’s the top choice.
In 2016, 58% of consumers viewed businesses more positively when they offered text messaging as a communication channel.
On the other hand, 47% of consumers stated they would react negatively if a business didn’t offer SMS as a communication channel.
image source: Flowroute
Why? Because messaging channels make things easier for everyone.
People enjoy the convenience, speed and simplicity of messaging with contractors. In fact, Twilio found that 89% of consumers would like to use messaging to connect with businesses, but only 48% of businesses are equipped to message with prospects.
If your business falls into that category, it might be time to start looking into live chat vendors.
2. A low cost per lead makes chat an easy investment
Overall, live chat pricing varies considerably. However, depending on the provider you go with, your cost per qualified lead may be as low as $18, and leads that affordable can produce a significant return on investment for your business.
For example, imagine you’re a roofing contractor that charges $450 per square foot for standard composition shingle installation. A single square foot offers a 25X return on investment.
Of course, between traditional advertising, pay-per-click campaigns and your website or landing page costs, you’ll spend more than $18 turning a lead into a customer. However, the $18 you spend per lead can help you convert website visitors into contractor leads at a higher rate.
In other words, every dollar you spend on marketing campaigns will become even more valuable through increasing returns.
3. 24/7, instant and real-time availability
Providing a positive customer experience is the foundation of lead conversion. Even the best lead generation strategy won’t get anywhere without professional service and speedy response times.
Fortunately, live chat offers prospective leads a fast and easy way to engage with your business.
SuperOffice, a CRM provider, found that 62% of companies fail to respond to customer service requests. But even the businesses that do follow up on customer inquiries tend to do so too slowly.
In fact, the average response time is over 12 hours! In today’s connected world, that’s just not fast enough, and that’s why consumers are increasingly happy to engage with businesses through messaging solutions.
They come with the implication that the conversation will move faster. In fact, some chat providers are able to consistently respond in under 60 seconds.
If you’re unable to provide service fast enough, news of that bad experience will probably spread. A study from Groove shows that angry customers tell 16 friends about the negative experiences they have with businesses.
image source: Groove
If your business responds to inquiries too slowly, its reputation will suffer. With a 24/7 messaging solution, you can avoid that by ensuring someone is always available to instantly engage with website visitors in real-time.
Capture more high-quality leads with chat
If your business is in search of a way to produce more leads from your website, it’s time to look into chat. Data indicates that adding a messaging solution to your website can increase your online leads by as much as 40%. That’s a significant revenue boost for contractors.
A chat solution will give your website visitors another option for contacting your business. That additional channel can be enough to convince some people to provide their contact information. And if you’re not offering a way to instantly engage with your business, your competition probably is.
At the very least, buying into messaging channels is a way to keep up with competitors. However, if done right, it can be a huge boon to your business’ growth!
