By
Jodi Beuder
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Date Published: January 28, 2014 - Last Updated August 22, 2018
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Customer service, particularly in technical support, is increasingly becoming available on numerous multi-channel platforms, and live chat is an efficient, personalized way to help customers and strengthen your product’s reputation. In fact, just a few days ago, a poll conducted by ICMI asked online shoppers if they used live chat for support; a resounding 83% of responders said ‘Yes!’ In order to keep on trend with multi-channel customer support platforms, and keep customer experiences consistent and positive, companies are investing in live chat software.
What are the benefits of utilizing live chat software?
Providing a superior customer experience includes the goal of diagnosing the problem quickly and solving it even quicker. Live chat software assists companies with achieving such goals, reducing average handle time for the contact center agent and improving efficiency in handling customer inquiries across multiple channels. Live chat software probably offers more for the company than it does for the customer, even though ultimately the investment into live chat is for customer experience improvement. Live chat software provides statistics that can assist the agent and the company to improve its practices; statistics that can reported in live chat software include time to response, time spent on chat with customer, post-chat satisfaction surveys and responses and much more. The more companies can learn about their live chat engagement with customers, the better they will be able to handle that channel communication.
What are the latest and greatest tech trends in live chat?
Chat Satisfaction: Post-chat satisfaction surveys are useful and according to a survey completed by BoldChat, 90% of customers who participated in a live chat during their online experience were satisfied with the quick service.
Proactive Chat: Companies that use live chat have taken to the Proactive Chat, where they invite their web visitors into a chat interaction prior to their actually having a question. While some have viewed proactive chat activity to be invasive and interruptive of their shopping experience, others have reportedly said that knowing the live chat was there if they had a question gave them better confidence in the product and potential service capabilities of that retailer.
Abandoned Shopping Cart Notification: Agents that are notified of customers who have abandoned their shopping cart can assist that customer in completing their sale. Live chat software will track the customer’s visit and will ping an agent if the shopping cart has been left unattended for a certain period of time. With live chat the agent can walk the customer through the process and help assure the customer that their information is secure and won’t be shared.
Can small companies keep customers happy in real time?
Small companies can utilize live chat, even when they have a small customer service team. Training agents in handling multiple channel customer inquiries can assist them in handling more than one inquiry at a time. Live chat software can be helpful for a small company e-tailer who wants to provide quick service and help close a sale. The software can let customers know if someone is available for live chat, so expectations aren’t disappointed. Offering live chat can help small businesses reduce customer support costs, since it takes less time to handle an inquiry through live chat; lower cost per interaction and resolution.
Live Chat is One of Many in a Multi-Channel Customer Experience World
As with any form of customer support, the positive customer experience can only be as successful as the process that it follows. Companies should have a multiple channel strategy in place, with live chat being a quick and reliable method customers can interact with support team members. Live chat should not be a stand-alone method for customer support, but instead one of the many ways companies offer connection with their customers.
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