Can chat replace texting for interacting with businesses?

Millions of Americans love to text as their primary form of communication. The challenge is that most businesses are on landlines, so texting with them is much less common. Can website chat become a great alternative for businesses to have the same experience regardless of device?

The answer is that it’s already happening. Many businesses are embracing chat. More importantly, many chat companies are starting to become much more mobile friendly, allowing for proper chat interfaces to operate on mobile devices just as they do on desktops.

Chat and text have many similarities. They’re both real-time; there’s interaction that can happen between two live people without the gaps associated with contact forms or email. They both have more control given to the customer when compared to phone. Calling gives the real-time communication, but it’s a bit more direct. Some people simply don’t want to talk on the phone. Texting or chatting eliminates this.

In some ways, chat is actually superior to text for business communications. For example, chat can be manned 24/7. Companies like CarChat24 offer complete operator coverage for their car dealer clients.

“Chat is usually the only way that people can communicate directly with a business no matter what time or day they’re conversing,” said Jeff Sterns, VP of Sales. “We strongly recommend 24/7 because we’ve seen the results – people communicate whether the business is open or not.”

The most important component of chat other than the real-time nature is that people are shying away from asking questions on contact forms. Even if someone is very interested in a company, they are still much less likely to fill out a form today than ever before.