As website owners, we know that traffic is the lifeblood to our site’s success. Whether through online advertising, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content creation, or email marketing, getting visitors to our site is crucial to its success.

But traffic is just part of the equation when it comes to sales and business success. Too often, visitors don’t find the support or answers they’re looking for, and disappear to never return again.

In the process, you lose the opportunity for a customer, and a mutually beneficial long-term relationship.

Zoho SalesIQ is live chat software that provides real-time visitor tracking and lead scoring to help take your visitor engagement and conversions to a higher level.

It automatically shows you how your visitors are interacting with your site, and can tell you which visitors are your hottest prospects and deserve your attention. It can help you reach your prospects on a more personal level and better engage them through customer support and sales.

In this review, we’ll take a close look at Zoho SalesIQ, including its main features, how to set it up and use it, and our final thoughts and recommendations.

Zoho SalesIQ’s Main Features

Zoho SalesIQ features include:

• Simple Setup and Customization

SalesIQ takes less than five minutes to set up. It provides options to brand and customize the chat box, agent avatars, logos, colors, messaging, and more.

• Live Chat Software with Real-Time Visitor Tracking

With Zoho SalesIQ, you can monitor your site traffic in real-time, see the pages they visit, and gather personalized information such as their location and referrer source. You can also see engagement rates for pages, how long they’ve been on your site, and more.

• Real-Time Lead Scoring

All businesses are different, so a “hot” prospect for one site is not necessarily a hot prospect for another site. Zoho SalesIQ lets you customize rules to determine what makes up a hot, warm, or cold prospect for your business.

In the Rings View, hot prospects are easily recognized because they are closer to the center of the ring. In the List View, hot prospects are listed towards the top of the list.

• SalesIQ automatically distinguishes between new and returning customers.

• Automate Visitor Engagement with Intelligent Triggers

For those times when you’re away from your site, or attending to another customer, you can define rules based on visitor activity to automatically engage visitors through the chat system.

For example, when a visitor does a certain activity (e.g., visits a specific landing page), you can have the chat system automatically start a conversation with them. You can also set chat triggers based on a visitor’s CRM data, and save contact information in order to continue live conversations later.

Canned Responses

For more efficient customer support, SalesIQ allows you to set up premade statements or questions for chat sessions.

• Automatic Chat Translation

In today’s online world, business is often global. SalesIQ helps you break language barriers by automatically translating visitor questions into your native language, and translating your answers back to their native language.

• Reporting and Chat Monitoring

SalesIQ provides reports to your inbox, helping you measure and improve sales conversions.

You can track such things as:

Number of visitors you have across the hours of the day
Number of visitors you contact vs. how many respond
Average number of pages visited across hours of the day
Who has been on the site, and how long
Total visits vs. unique visits

SalesIQ lets you monitor chat conversations between your support team and customers, allowing sales managers to work with and coach their agents.

You can track the performance of your sales agents with ratings, average response times, and more. You can track specific agents or see how different departments are doing as a whole.

• Integration with Zoho CRM

The integration between Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho CRM is especially beneficial because of the ability to easily enter lead and contact information, notes, follow-up actions, and potentials directly within the SalesIQ chat window.

For instance, after engaging a visitor, you can easily add them as a lead to Zoho CRM by clicking Add Potential. From there, you can apply rules to the lead in order to automatically transfer hot prospects to your top sales agents.

Zoho SalesIQ also lets you use CRM data to prioritize visitors in real-time and initiate chat triggers.

• Integration with Zoho Campaigns

SalesIQ also integrates with Zoho Campaigns and other email marketing programs. You can engage new prospects through email campaigns, and do things like give coupon codes to visitors who come to your site directly from email product offerings. You can even chat directly with an email recipient from their inbox.

Chat History

SalesIQ and Zoho CRM allow you to go back and view all interaction history you’ve had with a visitor or customer.

• Integration with Other Third-Party Programs

SalesIQ offers add-ons for CMS, email marketing, e-commerce, social media, analytics, help desk, and more. And of course, SalesIQ works with other Zoho modules, including Zoho CRM and Zoho Campaign.

For example, with email marketing integration, you can track visitors coming into your site from email campaigns, and identify personal information like their name and email address.

With e-commerce integration, you can reduce cart abandonment with store visitor tracking.

With social media, you can add live chat capability to your social media pages to interact directly with prospects and customers.

SalesIQ works with WordPress, Joomla, MailChimp, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Zendesk, Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, Tumblr, and many others.

• Open API

SalesIQ comes with an open API, allowing for advanced user development.

You can even invoke the API and set up dynamic scenarios through conditional logic.

For example, you can dynamically change your site’s content based on the pages a visitor looks at. Or, a software developer could reveal a coupon code and webinar registration signup based on the amount of time spent on a product page.

• Mobile Ready

Because SalesIQ supports the Jabber/XMPP chat protocol, you can respond to your visitors away from your desktop on any mobile chat client that supports the standard. This includes iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, and more.

Setting Up Zoho SalesIQ in WordPress

Setting up SalesIQ for live chat and tracking is a simple process that generally takes less than five minutes. In this example, we’ll install the free version of Zoho SalesIQ.

1. In the WordPress admin, go to Plugins… Add New.

2. Search for Zoho SalesIQ and click Install Now.

3. After the plugin is installed, click Activate Plugin.

4. After activating the plugin, click the Zoho SalesIQ link in the left sidebar of the WordPress admin.

You’ll see a box with some information that says: Please paste your Zoho SalesIQ code snippet here.

1. To get the code snippet, open a separate browser window, and register for a free Zoho SalesIQ account at https:www.zoho.com/salesiq/ by clicking on the red START MY FREE TRIAL button.

2. After registering an account, login to your Zoho SalesIQ counsel at https:www.zoho.com/salesiq/ and click Settings.

3. Click Web Embed and copy the code from the Float Window section.

Note: Visitor tracking is supported only with the Float embed.

1. Go back to WordPress, and paste the code into the SalesIQ code box.

To have both live chat and tracking capabilities, keep Hide Chat widget unchecked.

1. Click Save Changes.

For live chat notifications, you’ll want to stay logged into https://www.zoho.com/salesiq/

Using Zoho SalesIQ

Starting a Test Chat

To get a feel for how Zoho SalesIQ works, here’s how to start a test chat from your website.

1. Login to your Zoho SalesIQ dashboard at https:www.zoho.com/salesiq/

2. In another browser window, go to your WordPress site and initiate a chat from the lower-right corner by clicking the Click here to chat button.

The default chat window will come up. Enter information for your test chat and hit return or enter on your keyboard.

1. From your SalesIQ dashboard, you’ll receive an alert sound telling you have an incoming chat request.

In the lower-right corner you’ll see their question along with other information about them.

1. Respond by clicking the Reply (or Ignore) button.

This will take you to the My Chats section of SalesIQ.

1. To reply, enter your response into the chat box at the bottom of the next screen, and hit enter.

You also have the option to use Canned Messages, More Actions (e.g., Block IP, Share URLs, Transfer This Chat), or end the session.

In My Chats, there will be a separate tab window for each visitor that you’re chatting with.

Starting a Chat with the SalesIQ Dashboard

Here’s how you initiate a chat with one of your website visitors from the Visitor Online section of your SalesIQ dashboard:

1. After logging into your SalesIQ dashboard, click on Visitors Online (in the sidebar), to track all visitors to your website through either the Rings View or List View.

Rings View displays concentric circles, with the hottest visitor prospects towards the center, and the coldest visitors towards the outside circles. Along with the visitor’s country flag, it can show their name/random ID, time on site, visitor actions, and stars (for visitors who don’t fall within your customized sorting categories).

List View shows information for Hot/Warm Visitors, and Cold Visitors. Cold visitors are visitors who fall outside of your customized sorting categories. List View can show the visitor name/random ID, time on site, country flag, website referral source, and landing page/chat status.

1. In either Rings View or List View, click on the visitor information for the person you wish to chat with.

A visitor information window will pop-up with information such as time on site, new vs. returning visitor, IP address, city, state, country, and more.

1. Enter your text in the lower left area and click the Start Chat button (or hit enter).

If you’re using more than one department, you can select that department.

Set Up Visitor Tracking

Based on visitor actions and other criteria, SalesIQ can track and prioritize your visitors in the Visitor Online section of its dashboard, in either Rings View or List View.

In this simple example, we’re going to prioritize visitors who are on our site for more than 5 minutes as “hot” prospects. This way, we can engage our best prospects and leads in live chat and focus on their customer needs.

1. To prioritize visitors to your site, from the SalesIQ dashboard, go to Visitors Online and click Customize.

2. In the Prioritize your visitors pop-up, choose the conditions and criteria for defining your visitors as hot, warm, or cold. The four rows correspond to the hottest prospects (at the top), to cold prospects (at the bottom).

SalesIQ comes with a number of presets for quick and easy customization. For our example, we just need to change one of the values for the default setup for Time on Site.

1. If it’s not already selected, choose By Time Spent from the dropdown menu at the upper-right of the pop-up.

2. In the top row (which represents the innermost ring or top of the “hot” list), make sure it looks like:

Time on Site…is more than…5 Minutes

Note: By selecting the option to Hide the visitors contacted by other users,  you won’t see visitors contacted by other agents.

1. Click the Apply button.

Now, visitors to your site who stay for more than five minutes are positioned, in real-time, towards the center (in Ring View), and listed towards the top of Hot/Warm Visitors (in Lists View).

This was a very simple, yet effective example. Zoo SalesIQ offers nearly unlimited tracking conditions, criteria, and values to help you prioritize your visitors.

Set up Lead Scoring for Your Visitors

You can set up rules within SalesIQ that determine a visitor’s “Lead Score”. Visitors with higher lead scores are visitors that you have a higher likelihood to close on a sale or other conversion.

Lead scores are based on visitor actions and value in Zoho CRM.

1. To add a lead scoring rule, go to Settings…Lead Scoring.

2. Click the green Add button.

3. In the Create your scoring Rules window, choose a condition from the dropdown menu (e.g., Actions performed, Browser, Campaign Content, Landing Page Title, Number of Past Chats, etc.).

For example, perhaps you want to add 25 points to visitors who’ve visited at least 10 pages on your site. You would choose Number of URLs Accessed from the dropdown menu.

1. Choose criteria based on the condition (e.g., is between, is equal to, is less than, is more than), and enter a value.

For our example of visitors who’ve been to at least 10 of your site pages, you would select is more than. For the value, you’d enter 10.

1. Choose whether to add (Add) or subtract (Less) points if the condition is met by the visitor.

For our example, because you want to add 25 points to the lead score of a visitor who has visited more than 10 pages, you’d select Add and type in 25 for the points value.

1. Click the green Apply button to add the lead scoring rule.

Note: SalesIQ comes with a set of default rules you can use and edit. You can also disable and delete rules.

Also, under Advanced Configuration, you can set how often to recalculate the lead score (e.g., daily, weekly, etc.). This allows you to subtract 25% off of visitor lead scores based on inactivity.

So if we set the lead score recalculation period to Every 30 Days, and we had a visitor with a previous lead score of 100 who was a no-show to our site for 30 days, their lead score would be reduced to 75.

Set up Intelligent Triggers For Automated Visitor Engagement

If you have many visitors on your site, it’s nearly impossible to manually communicate with all of them. With intelligent triggers, you can automate your visitor engagement through the floating chat box.

Intelligent Triggers are created with rules that are based on visitor actions. The rules are implemented in a top to bottom order.

1. From the left sidebar of the SalesIQ control panel, go to Settings… Automation… Intelligent Triggers.

2. To add an Intelligent Trigger rule, click the Add button.

By selecting actions and providing values, you’ll need to provide answers to these statement:

When the visitor…
And if…
Then…

1. For example:

When the visitor…Lands on my website.
And if… Campaign name contains … holiday
Then… Send chat invite… from Mark… with message… Hi, here’s a coupon!… After… 20 seconds

1. Click the green Add button.

If you wish, you can continue adding rules for the Intelligent Trigger, and reorder them by clicking and dragging.

In the above example, let’s assume a visitor from an email campaign called “Holiday Savings” went to your site (through a link in the email). After 20 seconds, they would automatically get an offer for a coupon from “Mark” through the floating chat box.

Connecting SalesIQ and Zoho CRM

SalesIQ and Zoho CRM work nicely together, allowing you to share visitor information between them, and helping you build leads and contacts in Zoho CRM.

1. To connect the two programs, go to Settings… Integrations.

2. Go to Zoho CRM Integration, and click Enable CRM Integration.

Note: You must have a Zoho CRM account, and it must be installed on your site.

Zoho SalesIQ Support & Documentation

The people behind Zoho SalesIQ provide friendly and responsive support.

They offer webinars, training, free live help, as well as free setup and training.

If you’re hesitant to install their live chat and tracking code yourself, they provide a button so that you can email the code to your webmaster or web developer. All you have to do is click on Send to Webmaster below the SalesIQ code on the Settings…Web Embed page.

You can also find helpful documentation at: https://www.zoho.com/salesiq/help/

You can find free webinars here: https://www.zoho.com/salesiq/free-webinar.html

Zoho SalesIQ Pricing

Zoho SalesIQ has four plans to choose from, including a free plan which is best for small businesses.

Here’s a summary of the four plans:

Free

Allows for 2 users
Track and engage 5000 visitors/month
Add SalesIQ on 1 website
Mobile support
100 chat sessions/month
30 days storage

Basic ($19/month)

Allows for 3 users
Track and engage 10,000 visitors/month
Add SalesIQ on 3 websites
3 departments
1000 chat sessions/month
Unlimited storage

Professional ($59/month)

Allows for 5 users
Track and engage 50,000 visitors/month
Add SalesIQ on 5 websites
5 departments
Unlimited chat sessions
Insightful reports

Enterprise ($129/month)

Allows for 10 users
Track and engage 100,000 visitors/month
Add SalesIQ on 25 websites
25 departments
Unlimited chat sessions
Chat translation support

You can see more details here.

Zoo SalesIQ comes with a free trial period of 15 days, so you can test out SalesIQ without any commitments or credit card information.

They also offer a money-back guarantee, and you can change plans at any time.

Video Tutorial: Zoho SalesIQ

Conclusions & Recommendations

Your website is the front door to your business. It needs to quickly communicate its purpose and be a gateway to the support and answers your target audience is searching for.

With live chat, real-time tracking, and lead scoring, Zoho SalesIQ can reduce your bounce rate and increase your conversions by helping you understand and engage with your visitors when they need it most.

It allows you to see how your visitors interact with your website in real-time. And the real-time scoring allows you to easily see who your highest potential customers are, letting you engage them with targeted and personal messages.

Instead of customers leaving your site and never coming back, you can meet their needs and build valuable long-term relationships with them.

Zoho SalesIQ even lets you automatically engage customers through Intelligent Triggers—for those times when you’re away or busy helping someone else.

And it integrates with Zoho CRM so that you can automatically build leads and contacts to pursue later.

SalesIQ works with just about any platform, both desktop and mobile, including Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and more.

It provides organization and tracking from both a bird’s-eye view and a close-up, detailed view, allowing you to more efficiently help your visitors, guide them, and close them.

With average bounce rates hovering around 70%, SalesIQ is a critical real-time component for engaging your customers, understanding them, and improving your ROI on marketing. Trusted by over 70,000 users, it’s a solution that has helped engage over 30 million visitors per month.

If you’re interested in Zoho SalesIQ, and how it might help increase leads and conversions for your website, you can find out more here.