Live chat software, also known as customer messaging software, facilitates synchronized online chat support to website visitors via messaging.
When a person goes to your website, a chat window or widget will appear for them to start a live chat session. The visitor will type their message in the chatbox and will promptly receive a response. Live chat conversations enable businesses to initiate contact with website visitors, offer customer support, or engage with returning customers.
By utilizing live chat, marketing, customer support, and sales teams can improve communication throughout the customer’s journey, enabling businesses to offer:
- Enhanced synchronized support
- More personalized customer experience with custom welcome messages and more
- Better brand interactions
Key features of live chat software
When choosing a live chat service solution, it is important to consider certain key features. These features include:
- Proactive chat: The live chat system initiates conversations by reaching out to website visitors and offering immediate help. This can increase customer engagement by facilitating an open communication channel between customers and brands from the first point of contact. Proactive chat can feature a personalized message for a more personal conversation.
- Canned responses: Companies can create libraries of responses to common questions that agents can use for a more efficient response time.
- Visitor tracking and insights: This feature provides insights into visitor behavior by tracking information like:
– Time spent in chat sessions
– Conversion tracking
– Transcript reports
– Customer activity
– Customer activity (where they were on your website) - Chat rating: Customers can rate their live chat experience with an agent or sales rep. Customer feedback provides vital insights into support quality and can inform future support strategies based on customer satisfaction.
- Chat routing: Chats are transferred to available operators with skills-based routing, to ensure customers are matched with the right agents. Chat routing reduces downtime and ensures agents aren’t overwhelmed by high chat volumes.
- Operator and chat monitoring: Managers can supervise operators to evaluate their overall performance and target points that require further training and improvement. By monitoring chats, you can see which of your agents are chatting and which aren’t, to reduce downtime and increase agent productivity.
- Offline forms: If your agents aren’t online 24/7, chat forms allow customers to reach out with their questions and problems at any time of the day. Customers fill out chat forms which are routed to an agent once filled out, to be dealt with as soon as the agent becomes available.
- File sharing: Agents can drag and drop files like screenshots, offers, and catalogs to share in chats, providing further support for customers.
- Notifications: Stay on top of your messages and provide timely responses with sound and visual notifications.
- Queue times: Let customers know an approximate wait time before embarking on live chats with agents. This feature reduces bounce rate and means there’s less chance for sales losses due to long wait times.
- Reports and analytics: Monitor operator activities, chat histories, conversations, and average handle times for chats. Use the data to inform future strategies and make improvements.
Benefits of live chat software
Live chats with customers provide real time support that enhances customer experience and boosts conversion rates.
Customer service solutions such as live chat have a significant role in adjusting your business to meet the distinct needs of consumers. The transition from segmented to connected CX has rendered traditional support inadequate.
Implementing live messaging software on your website yields various advantages that result in improved CX and business performance.
Reduce service costs
The reason live chat is the ideal tool for reducing operational business costs is because it is much cheaper than a phone call. Additionally, agents spend less time dealing with support requests when resolution time is minimized.
In addition, they have the ability to serve multiple customers simultaneously and handle multiple interactions. This leads to significant cost reductions for businesses, as they can depend on a smaller number of agents to deliver customer support. Furthermore, the ticketing system guarantees accurate allocation of requests to the appropriate agents consistently.
Boost agent efficiency and productivity
With the implementation of live chat, the conventional call center processes have undergone a transformation. The adoption of live chat empowers agents, enabling them to respond promptly and deliver efficient synchronized solutions to customers and visitors on the website.
- Keep answers short and offer quick solutions with visual aids (through co-browsing and file sharing)
- Save time by using canned response to answer common queries
- Engage in multiple conversations at the same time and chat with your customers based on priority
- Chat bots can be deployed to handle simple inquiries, allowing human agents to deal with more complex support requests
Optimize conversions
By incorporating live chat on your website, conversion rates can be boosted as it eliminates the need for visitors to navigate away in order to reach out for assistance. With prompt access to support personnel who can provide answers to queries, visitors are inclined to convert since they can obtain necessary information and address concerns before making a purchase decision.
Prevent cart abandonment
There are various reasons why a customer may choose to abandon their shopping cart before completing the purchase. For instance, if a customer is uncertain about the acceptance of their credit card, they may reconsider their budget and abandon the cart. Alternatively, if they are unable to quickly find the shipping costs, they may become frustrated and decide to try their chances with a different website.
By offering live chat support, businesses can decrease cart abandonment rates as it assures customers of the presence of someone who can address their queries, thus fostering transparency and trust in online brands.
Provide context to customers
With a live chat platform, you have the capability to share files, images, gifs, and videos with customers, which is not possible through a phone call. Additionally, live chat offers more contextual information compared to email, making it easier for customers to find solutions quickly and efficiently.
If a customer contacts a support agent regarding a product’s functionality request, the agent has the option to direct the customer to a visual product demo video showcasing how to use it.
Collect customer data
The process of live chat involves the collection of customer data, which can then be analyzed and utilized to enhance the customer service experience.
- Analyzing support request messaging transcripts
- Feeding customer data into your CRM to provide 360-degree views of your customers
- Determining common questions that help you to pinpoint gaps in your website and support content resources
- Building better relationships with customer profiles that enable agents to personalize customer messaging
Increase customer satisfaction
Live chat is a type of support that customers find preferable to speaking with unknown individuals on the phone. This method addresses common frustrations experienced through traditional phone-based support, such as exorbitant expenses, lengthy wait times, and disjointed communication.
There are several ways that live chat enhances customer satisfaction rates.
- Increases first contact resolution by enabling customers to find an immediate answer to their concernsCustomers don’t have to provide personal information
- It’s inclusive, particularly for the hearing-impaired, making it an accessible way to contact service teams
- It’s device-friendly and allows customers to seek help from desktops or mobile apps in a way that’s convenient for them
Track agent performance and success
Live chat service solutions provide analytics that allow organizations to conveniently monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) which are in line with their business objectives. No matter what is most important to your business, whether it is enhancing satisfaction rates or boosting conversions, providing live chat tools to agents will yield quantifiable outcomes. Furthermore, utilizing data insights can aid in giving feedback to agents and shaping customer service strategies.
All-in-one customer service solutions
Every great customer service solution should provide certain features. An integrated set of tools, known as an all-in-one solution, collects, organizes, responds to, and reports on support requests. It allows businesses to respond efficiently and effectively resolve issues across both traditional and digital channels.
How To Assess Outsourced Customer Service Companies
All service providers will possess different advantages and disadvantages, but there are certain standards that they must all meet. The following list encompasses the fundamental requirements of each provider.
In order to make an informed decision, it is advisable to evaluate these factors before partnering with a specific company. This includes examining testimonials, user reviews, and any evidence or documentation they can provide, such as case studies showcasing their experience in handling customer service outsourcing. It is important to keep in mind that certain aspects may only be revealed over time, so it is necessary to consistently assess these factors while collaborating with the appropriate outsourcing company.
Average Response Time
In today’s world, speed is regarded as a crucial characteristic for modern consumers. In terms of customer service, the time it takes to respond can serve as an initial gauge of your promptness.
The duration it takes for your business to respond to a customer is known as response time. The initial response time holds significant importance, although customers expect timely action whenever they have a request or inquiry.
Once you have a service provider on board, it is beneficial to assess the average time it takes for them to respond through various channels, processes, or points of contact. For example, if you receive prompt responses through live chat support but experience delays with email or your support ticketing system, you can identify which aspects of your customer service require attention.
First Contact Resolution
First contact resolution (FCR) refers to the situation when a customer service representative successfully resolves a customer’s issue or addresses their concern during the initial contact. FCR serves as a metric for evaluating service quality by comparing the instances of achieving FCR with the overall number of customer contacts.
Both internal and external measures can be used to assess issue resolution. Internally, CSRs can track their own tasks to determine progress. Externally, post-contact surveys can provide insights into customers’ perceptions of resolution effectiveness. While managing internal measures may be simpler, external measures provide valuable feedback on customers’ satisfaction with resolution standards.
It is advantageous to find a service provider with a high proportion of FCR, but it is also important to consider your own processes and instructions for resolving issues in order to sustain this rate. It would be even more beneficial if you can locate a service provider that assesses FCR internally and externally.
Handling Time And Efficiency
The term handling time denotes the duration during which a customer interacts with your CSRs until their problem is resolved. It should be noted that average handling time (AHT) encompasses the time the customer waits, whether it be between email responses or when placed on hold during a call.
Requiring customers to repeat information they have already provided can quickly increase handling time. Additionally, this can cause frustration for customers and give them an impression of unprofessionalism from the team.
When evaluating a potential customer support provider, consider their Average Handling Time (AHT) and their approach to issue resolution. If their procedure involves frequent transfers of customers, ensure that they excel at conveying information to prevent customers from repeating themselves. A competent customer service ticketing system can greatly contribute to resolving such issues.
When evaluating AHT, it is important to consider that it can differ greatly between channels. Synchronous channels, such as live chat and email, typically necessitate quicker resolution compared to asynchronous channels like email and social media. If your customers have a strong preference for one channel over another, the provider’s AHT in that specific channel becomes more significant.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) signifies customers’ general perception of your business’ service. It relies on surveys completed by the customers themselves, which may result in less objectivity or standardization. Nevertheless, it remains valuable in this subjective realm of conducting business.
When assessing a provider, the CSAT scores of their clients can serve as a reliable gauge of their overall service quality. However, it’s crucial not to solely base judgment on the numbers. The accurate assessment of CSAT relies on carefully designed surveys that are distributed at appropriate moments. If feasible, request to review examples of CSAT surveys and inquire about the timing of their distribution within the customer service procedure.
InfoSec And Data Privacy
In the present time, people are highly concerned about information security and data privacy. Although many users are willing to share their data for enhanced services, a violation of privacy can still have a significant impact on your business.
If you are considering working with an outsourcing agency, it is important to ensure that they have appropriate information security measures in place and adhere to data privacy laws. For instance, if you handle customers from the EU, any companies you hire should comply with GDPR. This is particularly crucial when it comes to customer relationship management (CRM) outsourcing, as it entails handling significant amounts of user data.
