Well-known ecommerce retailing expert Lauren Freedman of the e-tailing group released an Online Chat survey, in cooperation with inQ, an ecommerce chat provider. The study assessed how 31 retailers and telcos use online chat technology to sell.

Christophe Cremault, senior vice president of marketing at inQ, said "We determined key dimensions of human interactions with online shoppers that are critical to inQ's customers' or live chat's success. We wanted to measure to what degree these dimensions have been adopted across the industry, and commissioned the e-tailing group to conduct a survey." InQ refers to these as "human interaction metrics," and tracks them as part of its HI Metrics service.

"One of the most surprising -- and disappointing -- findings when I conducted these chats was how seldom a chat culminated in the agent asking for the sale," said Freedman. She added "When a consumer is engaged in a live chat, the merchant should be opportunistic and when appropriate ask for the sale. You wouldn't expect to visit a retail store and not have the associate encourage you to buy the merchandise you had just tested or tried on. Not doing so is missing an enormous opportunity and in today's retail climate getting the sale is imperative."

Here are some key findings and suggestions for improvement:

• Chat is not located to sell. 88% have chat on customer service pages while only 42% offer it on product pages.
• Too-low usage of proactive chat. Only 15% leverage this technology.
• Offering alternative or better products occurs too infrequently. Average rating of rating 1.7 out of 5.
• Insufficient encouragement to buy. Average score of 2.7 out of 5 means a substantial number of potential sales are ignored.
• Unacceptable response time. 39 seconds average is below par, especially when half the sites surveyed connect in 3 seconds or less.
• Near-perfect customer service. With one exception, everybody did a great or excellent job at answering the initial question.
• Technology works (mostly). With a couple of exceptions that required (unsuccessful) downloads, the technology does not seem to be any issue.
  

For a complete copy of the HI Metrics report, or to learn how inQ's HI Metrics differ from the industry at large, email Lisa deSouza at ldesouza@inq.com.