Zopim Vs the Rest of the Social Media Tool

Name: Tan Hui Quan (U1121081K)

Assignment: Session 3 - Exercise

1. What is Zopim?

Zopim is a web-based software development company based in Singapore.

It is one of the many Live Chat softwares companies that allows ecommerce owners to monitor visitors who are on their website and engage them in a chat real-time. They develop and provide an online marketing, live chat support and web analytics product.

2. Why is Zopim important for Ecommerce business?

• Zopim helps Ecommerce micmicks the customer service that a customer will receive when he visits a Brick-and-mortar store by starting setting up plugins that can automatically start chats pro-actively.
• Zopim provides instant answers to the customers. Live chats are usually faster than phone support where you usually have to have to go through cumbersome menus. Not to mention email support where nobody even expects an instant answer.
• Livechat also provides a more convenience and competent service as compared to a phone support. Agents can easily send helpful links to the customer through the chat interface and type complicated names into the chat box. It is also easier for your staff to "know all the answers" because they can just quickly ask collegues if they get a tricky question. The customer will not be able to notice it.
• Agents are also able to “multi-task” by serving three or even more people simultaneously with no problems with strong accents that are hard to understand. 
• Zopim helps cut down on expenses by saving on both the businesses’ employee task time and phone expenses. Live chat reduces overall contact center costs by lowering average interaction costs and increases efficiency by allowing live chat representatives to handle multiple chats simultaneously, thus reducing the need to hire more representatives. This also improves the waiting queue to a fraction of its former size when compared to a call center. With a shorter waiting time, this can potentially increase the chances of conversions and lead to higher overall sales.

3. In what circumstances will Zopim be useless for an Ecommerce business?

• Depending on the targeted group for your product, if your websites attracts mainly technophobes or an older generation, Zopim may not be what they are looking for.

• Zopim is also not great on mobile platforms due to the nature of a smaller screen of a mobile. The aesthetics and features of Zopim might be limited on mobile platforms. This is a crucial problem to take note especially when 75% of Singapore users are always “on-the-go” and would prefer surfing your website on their mobile.

• Chat agent must always react in timely fashion. The nature of a livechat sets up an expectation from the customer to have an almost immediate response. If an agent fails to respond quickly, the potential customer may leave the site frustrated.

4. How can one fully benefit from using Zopim?

Besides being able to increase one’s business potentials and turn leads into customers immediately, one can fully maximize the benefits of using Zopim by providing

• Specialized training for agents.

Live chat agents have to be trained to be extremely knowledgeable about the business’ inventory and website navigation. In order to improve agents’ performance and ensure that they will be able to provide assistance to the customers in the most accurate and timely manner, “Cheat Sheets” and FAQs could be provided. Agents also need to be trained to reply their customers messages in a friendly manner as it could help to replicate the same high level of customer service that a customer receive when he visits a Brick-and-mortar store. There is an art to knowing when to ask a question and when to offer solutions or additional products to customers.