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The face-to-face service of brick and mortars has been replaced by an overwhelming favoritism towards digital convenience offered by ecommerce sites. However, when there is a problem or an urgent inquiry, shoppers are looking for immediate action and instant gratification that can only be satisfied by a personable communication method. For this reason, chat adoption continues to grow in the U.S. and U.K. as the most prevalent ecommerce communications method, and as a preferred means of interacting with merchants online. BoldChat Live Chat Effectiveness Report, a comprehensive collection of research on the effectiveness of live chat technology in ecommerce and a survey of over 2,000 online shoppers in the U.S. and U.K. about their attitudes, opinions and behaviors towards live chat during their online shopping experience revealed that nearly two thirds of shoppers have engaged in a live chat session while shopping online.

Shoppers are usually the party that initiates the chat, and of shoppers who have used chat, 42 percent indicated that their first use was for a support or customer service question. While support and service was the most common entry point for chat use, other initiated conversations were inquiries about product information before making a purchase. As the report details, "This was by far the most popular response, when asked how shoppers most recently used chat, coming in at 52 percent of all chat users." The report also reveals that it is not just shoppers that can initiate a chat experience. In fact, shoppers are becoming more receptive to merchant initiated chat, with 39 percent of respondents interacting with merchant initiated chat sessions.

This report is adapted from an article on MarketWatch.