Needle is a company that integrates sales chat into e-commerce websites. The service is designed to increase customer satisfaction and convert more visitors into buyers with an in-store type of experience. Needle is raising $2,000,000 for expansion from several angel investors.
The purpose of Needle (www.needle.com) is to give online retailers a tool for chatting in real time with shoppers. This provides another avenue that enables customers to make purchase decisions. Websites already utilize a large amount of content to entice buyers. This includes product reviews, videos, and customer comment pages.
Needle endeavors to add chat as an additional service to e-commerce sites. One outgrowth of having live voice communications is driving social networking actions such as Facebook “likes” and viral coupons. But providing live chat adds more to the customer experience than ordinary social media. Research indicates that real time voice response leads to more purchases and higher spending per customer.
Needle therefore functions by obtaining experts who are able to communicate about specific types of purchases. Most of the company’s Needlers are located by using crowdsourcing techniques such as searching blogs and Facebook profiles. Needle gives its experts incentives to provide high quality customers experiences as well as invite their friends to become Needlers.
Anyone can complete an application to become a Needler by explaining personal interests and hobbies as well as favorite brands and stores. This allows Needle to match applicants with the right situations for helping customers. Needle is expected to have a system for ranking its experts.
Needle is led by CEO, Morgan Lynch, who previously founded Logoworks, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2007.