With the many channels available for customer service these days, those with the quickest responsiveness seem to win the most. An eDigital Customer Service benchmark study found that live chat has the highest satisfaction level of all customer service channels, while a Forrester report found that 44% of customers claimed that having a live person assist them in the middle of making an online purchase was one of the most important features a brand website could offer. With its timely and personalized nature, live chat offers many great benefits for customer service. Here are seven tips for delivering true customer satisfaction with live chat.
Websites can be cluttered with a lot of information, so customers need to see live chat invitations when they appear. Placing a pop-up in the lower right-hand corner of a webpage is ideal, allowing the customer to keep navigating as they get support. Use a large enough font for better visibility, and consider using a photo or avatar as a means of humanizing the invitation.
Geolocation features in a proactive live chat software solution lets agents know the perfect time to offer chat to a customer who may be in-store, while the intelligence capabilities of the solution provides web analytics to enable brands to deliver prompt live chat invitations to the right customers at the right moment. Engaging customers at these optimal times is essential to great service and brand growth. However, it’s also critical to make sure that a live agent is available when the invitation is sent. Never leave a customer waiting for service.
For mobile customers on the go and those who seek assistance in-store, chat options should be available on a mobile-optimized brand website. Offering click-to-chat and click-to-call buttons makes it easy for mobile customers to get support whenever they need with the option of switching channels when voice is necessary.
Like messaging, live chat should be treated like a professional yet friendly conversation. Agents should always introduce themselves by name, ask for the name of the customer, and humanize the interaction as much as possible. Even if a call script is used, always leave room for unscripted conversation that lets the customer feel at ease, such as asking specific questions about the customer’s case and showing empathy for difficult situations.
Chat and messaging may seem informal, but agents need to follow certain rules to make the conversation professional and easy to follow. Agents should always write complete sentences with proper spelling and grammar, using short paragraphs at a time so the chat flows like a conversation. Be sure to simplify overly technical language that customers may not understand, but also avoid slang and abbreviations. Keep the language simple and to the point, and check for the customer’s understanding as you go.
As on any other channel, customers deserve a timely response and, as much as possible, a swift resolution. Agents should answer promptly when customers follow up on a chat invitation and remain focused on delivering an answer without too much excess conversation. If a situation is taking too long to resolve, give the customer the option of switching to another channel for more support. Lastly, make sure customers are given contact information such as the agent name, phone number, and case number should the chat go offline unexpectedly.
Analytics can determine which brand webpages are most frequently visited in order to prioritize the use of live chat on the most popular pages. Skill-based routing may then be used to direct live chat to the most qualified agents, boosting agent performance for better service.Live chat is an ideal channel for customers who are pressed for time but still desire a personalized, conversational experience. To deliver the very best live chat for your customers, learn about Vocalcom, a global leader in cloud-based contact center software solutions and premium conversational commerce platform for great customer experiences.
