What Chat Rooms Can Do For Your Site

Entertainment, social, and commercial web sites have experienced dramatic traffic increases in recent years by adding chat rooms to their sites. One remarkable success story is America Online, whose online chat forums are one of the main reasons why the company has captured a higher market share compared to other companies in the same line of business.

As America Online has proven, chat rooms are vital, effective, and affordable tools that allow people to communicate rapidly and easily. The presence of a chat room increases the allure of the site that hosts it, whether the site is on the internet, or inside a corporate intranet.

Let us first explore the benefits of an internet chat room:

Internet Chat Room Benefits

Internet chat rooms can take many forms, from customer help desks, to distance learning centers, conference rooms, discussion forums, social gathering places, etc. Regardless of the form in which the chat room is offered, the main benefits are the same. 

1. Provide Real-Time Interaction
Businesses can use their chat rooms to gather valuable marketing insights about consumer preferences and interests. In a chat room's relaxed atmosphere, people tend to openly discuss what they like or dislike about a company's products or services.

Social and entertainment sites can quickly and easily enhance their online presence with the dynamics and variety provided by real people and special events without time delay. As web sites become more sophisticated, interactive features such as a chat room will become indispensable tools.

2. Increase Site Traffic
Chat rooms give visitors a compelling reason to frequently visit your site. Most web sites that add chat capabilities experience a remarkable increase in their traffic.

3. Build Online Communities - Promote Loyalty
Web sites with chat rooms consistently demonstrate higher repeat visit rates and longer time spent by each user.  Interactivity is a crucial factor that creates a sense of community and a feel of belonging that keeps visitors coming back. A good example is Yahoo, which has become a true online community. Successful online communities depend on interaction among members. Community-building is essential to online commercial activity.

4. Generate Revenue from Banner Advertising
You can turn your web site profitable through online advertising. Chat rooms attract large numbers of users with similar demographic profiles, which creates a good opportunity for targeted marketing efforts that advertisers are willing to pay a premium for.

5. Generate Revenue from Memberships
The common belief is that chat rooms must be free to attract users. However, web sites can indeed profit from a membership model. Just take the case of Pristine Day Trader, a web site that offers real-time stock-trading recommendations to subscribers who are willing to pay $500 per month to access the chat room.

6. Generate Revenue from Leasing/Renting Chat Programs
Web hosting companies can now profit from renting or leasing chat programs to their customers. Demand for chat programs will increase within the next two years as companies and organizations realize the importance of having dynamic and interactive web sites.

7. Increase Sales through Real-Time Customer Service
Companies can now take advantage of interacting with their customers through the Internet. Live interaction enables a sales agent to close the sale as soon as the potential buyer is ready to make a decision. Chat rooms also allow companies to offer very effective customer service at relatively low costs compared to traditional means. The opportunity to interact with a company's representative in real-time make customers feel that they are part of a community, and that the company understands and values their opinion and suggestions. Personalized and professional customer service will keep clients coming back and buying more. 

8. Conduct Online Training, Seminars and Conferences
Companies and organizations can benefit greatly from conducting online training, virtual meetings, distance learning courses (like ZDUniversity), and moderated events. For all these applications, chat rooms allow to reduce travel costs, and to increase participation.

9. Enable Around-the-Clock Access
Web developers can now turn their web sites into vibrant communities open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round.

Intranet Chat Room Benefits

Chat programs are well positioned to make significant inroads into the corporate market as companies realize the benefits of establishing real-time, interactive communication with their employees.

Corporate intranet chats empower organizations by helping employees stay informed about:

1. Promotional events
2. Public relations announcements
3. Online office hours
4. Team collaboration
5. Project status
6. Virtual meetings

Undoubtedly, a company will benefit from cost-effective simultaneous communication and feedback from its employees.

Conclusion

We hope that the benefits of having a chat room in your site are now clear. The next step in your quest to build a better web site is to visit the Adventia Chat Server page to learn how our software will help you reach your goals and empower your site. For specific questions, please contact us.