In the current time, the success rate of a business depends on countless factors.
One of those significant factors is customer experience.
No matter what kind of business you are running, customer experience is a critical factor. Why?
- As per Gartner, 81% of modern-day businesses compete on customer experience.
- A statistic reveals that around 60% of users want a speedy reaction from the support team for their query.
Countless other eye-opening stats rank customer experience on top.
And the ways by which customers reach you play a crucial role in this.
Users have a variety of media to get in touch with your business, such as calls, emails, reviews, etc.
Live chat support is a new way that many firms integrate into their systems for their customers.
Why?
Well, the key reason is that live chat lets customers get in touch with your business quickly.
As 79% of the users prefer live chat support for instant responses, it can be an excellent tool for your venture.
The following write-up will uncover some of the best tips and tricks to use chat support for a remarkable customer experience.
What is Live Chat Support? Why do you need it?
Live chat support is an awesome way to resolve user queries and tell them more about the products and services. Usually, the live chat support appears in a small window on the corner of your computer screen when you visit a website.
The person talking to you behind the window on the client's side is usually a human being. Here is an example of live chat support!
The next question is why do you need a live chat support option on your website or app?
Here are some pointers that answer the question!
1. It is fast
Whenever a user calls online customer service, they have to bypass the IVR system, which is frustrating.
Moreover, the email system is also a bit slow.
Compared to both of these methods, a live chat is a faster way to answer all the questions.
By utilizing solutions like embedding Sendbird chat API into your platform, you can provide customers with real-time support and a seamless chatting experience, thereby enhancing overall customer satisfaction.
Also, there are many alternatives to Sendbird which have similar functionality like Sceyt, TalkJS and other ones.
2. It helps in customer retention
Customer acquisition may be easy, but customer retention is not. You need to do more to retain a customer, and live chat support can help here.
For instance, when a customer sends a message, it gets stored in the records. Agents can use it anytime to check what’s the issue.
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Other than that, if there is an emergency issue with a customer, some advanced tools can help.
Agents can take remote control of their user devices to resolve the issue.
They can also share screenshots with the agents for assistance.
3. You can provide it 24x7
Customers will not just face issues in the 9-5 window; they can get a “No Signal” on their TV at night too.
Therefore, chat support is necessary as it can help customers 24/7. The only challenge to this is the scheduling of the staff.
If you can do it, it’s good. However, if this is not possible, you should provide the users with content documents about the product or an AI live chat alternative. These will surely be helpful.
4. It boosts team productivity
With phone support and email, you can handle only one customer at a time.
However, when chatting, you can juggle between various customers simultaneously.
Therefore, if you keep your focus, you can handle multiple customers and boost the overall productivity of the process.
5. You can survive the market competition
As you are not the only one in the market, having a live chat support option can put you way ahead in the competition.
Take this example!
A customer is perplexed while choosing between two services.
If he finds live chat support on your website and not the other, he will surely choose you. It is faster and more interactive than calls and emails; therefore, it will be a great option.
Effective Tips to Improve Customer Experience Using Live Chat Support
So, we know that live chat support can have an unimaginable impact on your business.
But only if it is done right! Having a chat support window is not enough; you need to focus on many other aspects.
Let’s discover some effective tips and tricks to improve customer loyalty and experience using chat support!
- Make it easy to find
- Add a human touch
- Use a chatbot
- Keep the language welcoming and friendly
- Have thorough knowledge of the product or service
- Target first contact resolution
- Keep them engaged and promise a way out
1. Make it easy to find
As 41% of the customers expect to see a live chat widget on websites, it should be easy to find on your website. The customer should not spend time looking for the live chat option.
Your website should be designed in a way that the customer finds it instantly.
Most website owners keep their live chat window as a pop-up on the side of the screen.
In addition to this, you can also integrate other communication options such as phone and email.
2. Add a human touch
One thing you can do to improve customer experience is to add a human touch to it. One way to do this is by making a human talk to the customer rather than a chatbot.
As per stats, around 69% of people prefer to talk to a human rather than a chatbot. So, it will be best to employ people instead of a chatbot (however, it is not a limitation).
On top of that, add images of real people on the profiles of people responsible for chatting. It makes customer engagement more personal.
3. Use a chatbot
Yes, the previous point focuses on the fact that users prefer human assistants.
But, if you want to make your process 24x7, you may need a chatbot. All the users will not face a technical issue during your working hours.
To make sure that your users get the solution to their problems while you are away, you can integrate a WhatsApp chatbot.
A chatbot can be of great use as it can provide quick answers and even links to some manuals and guides for the customers.
While you are not available, chatbots can save the basic contact information of visitors. Then you can use marketing automation to directly send an email to these visitors and ask them to book a 1:1 demo call in your calendar.
Chatbots are also cost-effective as they can save your business about 30% of the customer support cost.
4. Keep the language welcoming and friendly
The key to a good conversation is a friendly voice.
No matter how frustrated or sad you are, you need to be friendly when talking to a customer. You can begin with a greeting like, “Hello, how can I help you?”.
On top of that, when customers tell you about their issues, offer empathy to show that you feel what they are going through. It adds a sense of care.
Make sure you handle the entire chat in a friendly manner. Ask questions from the customers to know the issue better. Understand their state of mind and then provide a solution.
I understand the state of mind of the CX people.
It becomes really hard to stay calm when things get repetitive in nature.
Customers think they’re asking a question, but the support rep has faced the same question 15 times a day.
An easy way to deal with this scenario is to create short videos that can be repurposed and reused.
Create a short 40-50 seconds video on the most popular features of your product and add subtitles using an animated text generating tool.
Now, you can directly send this interactive video to visitors and save some time.
5. Have thorough knowledge of the product or service
Imagine a scenario where you are asked a question about the product, and you cannot answer.
For a small business, the person asking the question can be an opportunity that may never come again.
If they don’t get answers to their questions, they may never return to your website.
Therefore, you need to provide proper training to your chat support executives.
Though they should have inside knowledge of the product at their fingertips.
If not, they should be backed by some product manuals, videos, and troubleshooting guides.
6. Target first contact resolution
We all have experienced the customer support process. Usually, you tell them the issue, and they resolve it.
They may take one call or more than that; you never know.
This uncertainty of time needs to be avoided. If the resolution process is slow, it may frustrate the user.
To ensure that this does not happen, target resolving customer issues in one contact.
For this, you can take the call for a bit longer and try all the troubleshooting steps.
To make your work easy, use fellow assistants’ help, troubleshooting guides, and canned responses.
You can even prioritize new users to ensure that they become regular customers.
7. Keep them engaged and promise a way out
Facing an irate customer is a normal day at work for chat support executives.
The only way to deal with such customers is to promise them a solution in the call and keep them engaged.
You can let them know that they are important to you.
Try to give them the fastest possible solution and request time for the perfect one. You can ask them to check the device manuals for add-on information that they can consult in the future.
Promising a solution to the customer can build faith in them. It can further make them less frustrated as they now have hope for a solution.
Conclusion
User experience is a critical factor that significantly affects your business.
Therefore, you need to do everything possible to make it better.
Live chat support is one option that can help you improve it faster.
However, you need to implement some strategies for that.
If you are planning to integrate a live chat feature into your website, you can rely on the POWR chat plugin.
You may also consider live chat outsourcing so as not to deal with support requests yourself as a business owner.
Author Bio
Anisha is a Digital Marketing enthusiast who loves to create content and explore SEO trends. She also writes on sales, marketing, and CX.
