Congratulations! Your website looks much better than it did 5 years ago.

Your navigation is intuitive. Your pages are well merchandised with a clear layout and good design. Your content is to the point and your pictures look great. You are telling an attractive and convincing product story.

You are using web analytics software, you are generating dynamic and personalized content; you are driving targeted traffic to your website through a better use of your online ad dollars. Your ecommerce practices have been sharpened and your website optimized. You are doing everything right.

So why has your conversion rate been stagnating between 3% and 4%?

It's time to ask yourself: "How can I get to the next level of performance?"

The answer is simple: Add sales people to your website. Why? Because good sales people will increase your revenue, like they do in your stores and in your call centers. Why not use what has worked for you for years off line on the Web, as well?

I spent the first part of my career in retail, selling cosmetics in department stores at Lancome, toys at The Disney Store and office supplies and equipment at Office Depot. I hired, trained and managed salespeople I called beauty advisors, Cast Members or Computer Specialists. I spent a lot of time merchandising counters, fixtures, walls and windows to create exciting product stories to entice impulse purchase or facilitate planned purchases. And I learned one thing as a result: no merchandising techniques can beat a great sales person. In fact, when used effectively, they complement each other very nicely.

Merchandising (or the design and layout of the page on a website) will attract the eye and peak the interest of the consumer. But the addition of a sales person to that site will leverage that initial interest in the product and will continue the selling job where the webpage left it, and eventually close the sale. By interacting with a consumer that showed initial interest, the online salesperson can clarify the consumer's needs, suggest the right product(s), pitch the features and benefits of that product, and answer in real-time the questions the consumer may have as she is making up her mind about buying the item in question.

An online salesperson can create a dynamic, one-on-one interactive sales process that neither web design nor technology can. This creates a better online experience for the consumer because it enables product expertise to be dispensed in real-time and sits at the consumer's fingertips on the webpage itself.

The best technology to create this dialogue between the online consumer and the salesperson is live chat. Live chat (also called IM or Instant Messaging) makes possible the important one-on-one, real time dialogue between the consumer and the salesperson that I mentioned above. The Chat Box, as it appears on any site, is a flexible tool: it can be accessible via a click-to-chat function, or can be launched based on business rules designed to determine the online consumer's readiness to receive assistance in their buying experience. The consumer has to opt-in to the chat and can abandon it or close the chat window at anytime, leaving them in control of their experience.

Most commonly, businesses deploy chat to increase revenue and sell more items and services. In these cases, live chat can be used to pitch a product on a product page, in an online ad unit, or when the consumer exits the website without completing the transaction. Live chat can also be deployed at the beginning of the checkout process to cross-sell items complementary to the one(s) already in a shopper's cart (for example: accessories, or extended service plans) or to pitch a promotion to increase the size of the cart ("Buy 2 items and get the third free"; "Free shipping if you buy $50 worth of goods"). In every case, live chat can increase revenue by at least 50% versus static executions.

Live chat can also be used to create different calls to action, such as registering on a website, sharing contact information to receive a call from a product specialist or signing up for an email newsletter. Using live chat successfully during checkout can reduce cart abandonment by offering assistance to online consumers and answering their questions about security, privacy and shipping, or by offering incentives to complete their purchase. Live chat is also effective on the post transaction page as well (i.e., on the Thank You page or the order confirmation page) to pitch contextual third party offers.

As you can see, there are many situations in which live chat is effective in creating a better relationship with customers. But it is important to be well informed when adopting this solution: Companies with a Web presence should seek turnkey live chat sales and care solutions that utilize software, trained reps and online marketing expertise; businesses deploying live chat to websites need to understand the complexities of online sales to assist online consumers and create that all important call-to-action.

The interactive space may have changed much, but it hasn't changed everything. If you are a business looking to boost your online sales and marketing activities, think about how you are using sales offline, and then replicate these successes online. with live chat.

Bernard Louvat is the CEO of inQ: a leading developer of chat marketing solutions for e-commerce websites. Louvat is also co-founder and served as CEO of Evolution Robotics, Inc., the leading provider of low-cost robotics technology solutions licensed to the consumer electronics and retail industries. Previously, Bernard was Chief Executive Officer and Founder of BizBuyer.com (a leading provider of online procurement services) and served as a General Manager at CitySearch (www.citysearch.com), the leading local e-commerce platform now part of InterActive Corp. For more, please visit: www.inq.com.

Article by Bernard Louvat, CEO of inQ -
excerpted from ADBUMB Newsletter, Issue #180