Online Chat Available on Fastener E-commerce Site

E-commerce company Fasteners Plus has recently launched an interactive chat option on its website, allowing customers to ask a sales team member questions, request a price quote and more via instant messaging. The FastenersPlus.com website, which caters to contractors, business owners and consumers, features thousands of fasteners categorized by type and specialty.

Nikki Dudley, vice president of Operations, says the idea for the chat feature came about during the development of the site and categorization of the 20,000+ products. “With so many products across different categories, we knew we needed to implement a method for customers to be able to communicate instantaneously with our sales team if they had a question,” she says. “The interactive chat allows us to see what the customer is looking at online so we can answer questions and make recommendations quickly and easily, without having to search a part number.”

The option to open a chat conversation with a sales team member is enabled via a window when the customer first visits the site, and remains an option throughout the visit. Customers also always have the option of e-mailing or calling the sales team for assistance as well.

Dudley says the feature has also been extremely useful as the company continues to build out the site, such as uncovering common questions that may warrant an answer in an FAQ section on the site. Analytics have also revealed pages where customers are initiating a chat session, which in turn helps determine which content may need updating.

“While this is an excellent feature for our customers, it’s also proven to be very helpful for us,” Dudley adds. “The same informal back-and-forth flow of a traditional in-store conversation can be had via chat, so we’re utilizing that valuable feedback from our customers as we build out the site.”