The e-commerce Main Street is littered with deserted shopping carts and unsent online forms, travel itineraries and service applications.

According to Marketing Sherpa, consumers abandon nearly 60 percent of all online transactions before they hit the “submit” button. Each incomplete transaction reduces revenue, increases acquisition costs and represents a lost opportunity to win long-term customer loyalty.

There are many reasons customers leave a site before they finish a transaction. Some still feel uncomfortable with providing personal information online. Some feel they need more information to make a final purchase decision. Others, especially when it comes to expensive or complex purchases, feel more comfortable taking the leap when they have human assistance.

Live, interactive Web site help gives customers the opportunity to communicate with a live agent throughout their online shopping experience — right up to the time they’re ready to hit the “submit” button. As a result, these marketers are not only reducing Web site abandonment and increasing sales and form conversion rates, but they are increasing average order sizes and total sales, differentiating their customer service and even reducing their contact center operations costs.

Marketers are now using live voice and live chat to provide online help. Voice-based service offers customers the ability to make an immediate phone call to an agent by clicking a button on the site.

Live voices help keep the customers engaged on your Web site while talking with an agent who provides the information and confidence customers need to complete the transaction.

Live chat, on the other hand, brings the contact center agents to your Web site to interact with customers via text messages.

While voice and chat solutions both provide value when deployed independently, companies implementing both options realize no one solution fits all customer needs. However, if you’re just getting into the live-help game, most e-commerce gurus recommend deploying live voice first; it requires no upfront investment to gauge customer demand and to test placement of call buttons throughout the site. Good advice for the marketer who wants to test the waters of live help before taking a full plunge.