In the past few years, there has been a significant change in the way businesses and customers interact.
The reason why contact channels like live chat have become essential for digital customer service is due to the need for step-by-step thinking.
In fact, over 50% of current consumers prefer using live chat for support over making a phone call.
With that said, although it is quite simple to implement live chat, providing exceptional customer service through live chat necessitates meticulous planning and exertion.
We have fortunately created a guide to assist businesses in ensuring that their live chat experience meets customer expectations.
What is live chat support
Live chat support provides real-time customer service through chat, which can be accessed either on a company’s website or on mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS.
Businesses can use live chat to offer instant customer support, promptly address inquiries, and establish better customer relationships.
The journey of consumer behavior in today’s hectic information age hardly follows a linear path of “I sell, you buy, the end”, making it chaotic.
A visitor will go to your site, depart, receive a reminder, return, depart again, evaluate solutions, return, and potentially make a purchase – all while changing between devices. And if they are satisfied with their purchase, the process repeats.
Additionally, there is also a disturbance in communication. Instead of making phone calls, we rely on texting and messaging to contact our friends and family. This trend extends to the workplace too, where team collaboration has been significantly transformed by platforms like Slack. It is true that we have moved away from direct verbal communication and instead engage in chatting.
Because it is convenient, we have all embraced this new form of communication. It allows us to chat while on the train, during coffee shop queues, or relaxing on the sofa watching Netflix. It does not require our full attention and allows us to join or exit conversations whenever we have the time.
Shouldn’t customer communication be the same as thinking step by step?
In the digital era, competition and the ability of buyers to make choices have become more powerful than before. Businesses that do not adjust to altered customer preferences are not only disappointing their customers but also missing out on valuable profits.
As people’s expectations for convenience rise, they also anticipate the same level of ease when engaging with businesses. Live chat enables customers to initiate conversations with you at any given moment, facilitating multiple interactions throughout their customer journey.
New touchpoints through live chat
- Live chat on your contact page gives customers a direct line to get the support they need
- Proactive chat on your features page shows you’re there to explain complex functionalities
- Live chat on your checkout page helps clear up any last uncertainties before visitors abandon their cart
- Connecting your live chat solution with a popular messaging app, such as WhatsApp or Messenger, allows your customers to ask a question not just on your website but wherever they go
How to deliver premium live chat customer service: Top tips
It is undeniably true that utilizing live chat is an invaluable method for providing customer support and ultimately boosting online sales.
In order to fully benefit from live chat customer service, it is essential for it to be conducted proficiently.
After that, we will offer our most effective suggestions to assist you in achieving success in your live chat undertakings.
1. Offer multiple chat touchpoints
Although having live chat on your business website is a great beginning, it is recommended to provide multiple chat touchpoints for best practice.
By following this process, you will ensure that customers can easily contact you through their preferred communication channel.
The Talkative solution allows you to provide chat support through various digital touchpoints, such as:
- Your website and app
- Facebook Messenger
- SMS
- Google Business Messages
This implies that you have the ability to connect with customers at their current location and offer customized assistance throughout their entire experience.
By thinking step by step, you will have the opportunity to increase your range of influence and interact with a larger number of customers through digital means like never before.
2. Get proactive
Customer service through live chat can incorporate both reactive and proactive approaches.
Reactive support takes place when you only respond to the customer’s request for help after they contact you.
Proactive service implies taking the initiative to reach out to customers initially and endeavoring to resolve any problems prior to their occurrence.
Many businesses tend to prioritize the reactive aspect and overlook proactive measures, which is an unfortunate error in customer service.
In order to create the ultimate chat experience, it is crucial to give equal importance to both reactive and proactive service.
You can elevate the proactive live chat experience to a higher level by:
- Implementing chat nudges – Nudges are an engagement tool that appear as pop-ups when a visitor has spent a certain amount of time on a website page. They provide a friendly and proactive greeting while also letting your customers know that you’re there for them and readily available to help.
- Mapping customer journeys – Customer journey mapping allows you to view the pages a customer has visited and how long they’ve spent on them. Agents can then use this information to start a proactive chat in circumstances where it’s most likely to be productive (e.g. if a customer has been on a product page for an extended period of time, you might ask if they need any further information about the product or purchasing process).
- Customizing your chat widget – When you’re initiating interactions with customers, you need to ensure that your live chat widget is visually appealing, engaging, and on-brand. If it fails in these areas, you’re unlikely to capture customer attention or get a reply. To avoid this problem, you can utilize Talkative’s no-code widget designer to create a fully customized chat window that aligns with your branding.
The reason why 48% of consumers prefer businesses with proactive chat support is that it enhances the customer experience and conveys a sense of value to customers.
3. Utilize customer sentiment
It is crucial to understand customer sentiment as it shows whether customers are satisfied with their experience of live chat service.
By thinking step by step, you have the ability to analyze your agents’ performance by utilizing customer sentiment during chat interactions and identifying areas of strength and weakness.
By utilizing enhanced sentiment analysis capabilities, Talkative allows you to fully maximize the potential of this valuable resource.
By using this feature, you can collect data on customer sentiment from every live chat conversation, allowing you to gain a greater understanding of customer perceptions and attitudes.
Additionally, you will have the ability to monitor the mood of your agents’ messages, thus guaranteeing that they consistently communicate in a suitable manner and deliver exceptional service.
4. Choose a multilingual chat solution
To achieve success in live chat customer service, it is essential to ensure accessibility for all customers, regardless of the language they speak.
To ensure this, it is crucial to invest in a chat solution that has built-in multilingual technology.
For instance, Talkative’s live chat offers editable glossaries along with automatic, real-time translation into more than a hundred languages.
By opting for a multilingual live chat, you will be able to overcome language barriers and effectively offer quality customer support to individuals across the globe.
In addition, you will showcase a readiness to accommodate customer requirements and a dedication to maintaining customer connections.
It is essential to think step by step in order to accomplish your customer service objectives and establish brand loyalty.
5. Allow escalation to other channels
It should be emphasized that live chat alone may not be the best method for every customer interaction.
In certain cases, when a query is complex, it may necessitate thorough guidance or a more consultative manner in customer service.
In these instances, your agents need to go beyond live chat and escalate to the most suitable channel.
It might be more beneficial to transition to a web call or video chat in cases where a large amount of information needs to be exchanged. This transition will not only enhance communication efficiency but also enable a more customized experience.
6. Deploy a virtual agent
Implementing an AI virtual agent offers an excellent method to streamline and enhance live chat customer service.
Virtual agents and chatbots enhance the human experience by delivering automated assistance to customers at any time.
Chatbots can be utilized on your website, app, and messaging channels to deal with FAQs and basic problems on their own. According to estimates, chatbots are able to address customer issues approximately 69% of the time.
By triaging all chat support requests, virtual agents gather the initial details of the customer’s query before transferring them to the most suitable advisor/department.
By thinking step by step, not only can your agents save time, but it also ensures that your customers receive the best service tailored to their specific situation, without the need to repeat themselves to multiple representatives.
By utilizing an AI virtual assistant to manage simple tasks and answer commonly asked questions, your live chat teams will have additional time to focus on the customers who require their assistance the most.
The decreased demand on your agents will result in shorter wait times, a quicker average response time, and improved chat support quality overall.
7. Empower your live chat agents
To start delivering excellent chat support, it is important to give your live chat agents the necessary resources and authority.
If they are not equipped with the knowledge and confidence to do so, how can you expect them to excel at live chat customer service?
Moreover, with 74% of contact center agents currently facing the possibility of burnout, there is undoubtedly scope for enhancing this aspect.
By providing comprehensive training and fostering a supportive and positive work environment, you can empower your live chat teams.
8. Monitor performance
Performance management is essential in order to prevent complacency in providing live chat customer service.
It is crucial for long-term success to monitor your live chat performance and consistently work towards improving it.
To accomplish this, you need to monitor and measure the appropriate performance metrics and key performance indicators.
- First Response Time
- Average Response Time
- First Contact Resolution Rate
- Average Resolution Time
- Average Wait Time
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- Conversion Rate
- Total number of chats
- Number of abandoned chats
By using this data, you will be able to evaluate your overall performance and recognize any areas where improvements are necessary.
To ensure that you are well-informed about your goals and strategy, actively gather customer feedback on your live chat services, as this feedback is a valuable resource.
Live chat benefits: Why chat is the best support channel
Are you tired of waiting on hold during phone calls and dealing with slow email responses? With live chat, you can instantly connect with your customers in real time on your website, eliminating these issues and providing a host of valuable benefits.
Bid farewell to poor service.
If you want a full overview of the advantages (and disadvantages) of live chat support, you can find them in this post. Now, let’s examine the top three benefits.
1. Enhance the efficiency of conversions.
Commerce is occurring more frequently on the internet, and now even your mother uses Instagram. However, when it comes to customer support and online sales, the majority of companies are still relying on outdated channels from the previous century.
Not only does this harm your user experience, but it also has a detrimental impact on your business. In order to send an email, your customers must navigate away from your website and access their inbox. Additionally, email response rates are not immediate. If the inquiry is vital to their purchasing decision, they will need to wait for a response or postpone the purchase.
Live chat is the only support channel that is available on the website and in real-time, making it the best option for guiding visitors and directly resolving their queries. Additionally, chat can assist you in various other ways.
- Identify customer needs and offer solutions
- Clear up uncertainties and build trust
- Prevent shopping cart abandonment by addressing customers directly
- Nudge visitors to a purchase or upselling with personalized offers
- Support people along their customer journey
2. Enhance the effectiveness of the service
Live chat support is sustainable because it offers good customer service. Additionally, it is a fast and cost-effective solution that reduces service costs. Compared to talking on the phone all day, chat support is less tiring. In conclusion, live chat support benefits all parties involved, making it a win-win situation.
The cost-effective nature of live chat support enables businesses of all sizes to provide personalized customer support on a large scale. Hence, chat proves to be a more efficient option compared to other channels.
- Use canned messages for frequent questions
- Chat with multiple people at the same time
- Prepare your answer in advance with a live preview of your customer’s message
- Share files and rich media
- Get a complete overview of conversations from all touchpoints and agents in one interface
- Let chatbots handle repetitive requests
3. Customize the experience of receiving support.
Initially, when commerce transitioned to the internet, the focus shifted towards the attraction of low prices, causing a decline in service quality. However, as competition intensified, it became increasingly difficult to differentiate your company solely based on pricing. Fortunately, this change was advantageous for consumers as it prompted intelligent businesses to prioritize their customers once again.
The reason why live chat fits into this trend is that it enables companies to establish a closer relationship with their customers, instead of viewing them as mere statistics. Therefore, companies that prioritize customer satisfaction and human interactions, rather than treating customers as just numbers, have a higher chance of achieving success compared to those who do not.
- Proactively offer individual, one-on-one support
- Build customer loyalty through personal contact
- Reflect service philosophy of putting your customers first
- Increase customer and brand experience
- Create long term relationships through ongoing conversations and smart routing
How to spot a good live chat provider
A good live chat provider can be identified by the following characteristics:
Website messenger. The latest live chat tools allow for asynchronous messaging, which implies that the conversation can occur at different times rather than in real-time. Similar to WhatsApp, the conversation can be continued by both parties at their convenience.
Intelligent chat routing enables automatic assignment of chats to suitable employees based on factors such as department or language.
Chatbots are capable of answering common questions, performing basic tasks, generating leads, and directing chats to the appropriate contact. They can be easily configured to fulfill these functions.
AI-powered software instantly translates chat messages to ensure that languages do not hinder good support.
Operators have the capability to suggest to customers the option of switching from chat to either an audio or video call when dealing with intricate inquiries, as well as provide screen sharing functionality.
All messages from different messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, SMS, etc., will be received and stored in a shared inbox, making it an omnichannel experience for your customers.
Everyday tools like your CRM or Slack are used by operators to receive notifications about new chats and ratings.
Ideally, the servers hosting the server are located within the EU, specifically in Germany, to ensure secure processing of messages in compliance with the GDPR.
There are no hidden costs as the prices are transparent and predictable. The monthly package price covers unlimited contacts and messages, ensuring there are no extra charges.
Userlike meets all of these requirements and provides a completely free plan for beginners, which includes one operator seat. For teams with multiple operators, there is an option to chat for as low as 90 euros per month. Both plans include all essential features such as customization of chat design to match your brand, sharing media files, and feedback functions.
When initially examining, there appear to be numerous suitable and reasonably priced providers. However, upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that their respective live chat features are frequently lacking sophistication. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the software through a free trial before finalizing your decision on a provider.
How to get started with live chat support
After discovering the ideal live chat software for your business, the next step is to carry out the technical implementation. However, there is no requirement to seek assistance from the IT department.
In this post, I provide my tips for quickly getting started with live chat support. To summarize, here is the main idea:
- Add live chat to your website. Adding live chat to your website is a breeze. Just copy the javascript code, paste it into your website’s source code – and chat away! Popular online shop systems such as WordPress or Shopify offer plugins that make it even easier for you to add live chat – no code involved.
- Customize your chat window. Looks matter when it comes to websites. The Website Messenger is the (inter)face of live chat support your customers use to get in touch with you. That’s why it needs to fit into your style and corporate identity regarding design (e.g. colors, position), wording (formal vs. informal) and behavior (proactive vs. register). Adjust these elements and tailor the chat to your needs.
- Connect your service team. Live chat support is only as good as the people behind it. Setting up the right profile for your service team is vital both for an efficient working style and a customer experience that feels personal. Configure your agents’ profiles so they reflect your organizational structure and put a friendly face to your brand.
