Top 3 Tips for Click-to-Chat

Providing your customers with a Click-to-Chat channel is quickly becoming one of the favored ways to receive customer service in a multichannel customer support world. It’s easy to get to, it’s usually offered around-the-clock, and it’s in tune with comfort of the internet generation. It’s been around for a number of years now, but there are still a few kinks to work out when implementing it in with your business. Here are the top 4 tips to providing successful Click-to-Chat service to your customers.

#1. Be Consistent. This rule flows across any and all channels of customer service, but because of the environment it can sometimes be tricky to ensure that your agents are providing consistent service and information in a chat-based exchange. Negating can be approached in a number of ways, not the least of which is providing your agents with a heavy hitting, thoroughly, easily searchable knowledge base. PhaseWare is fully equipped to help you create and maintain just such a knowledge base which would give your agents the right answer, immediately, every time they ask for it.

#2. Be respectful. Live chat users can be very relaxed about how they interact. It started out as a service for purely social exchanges, and usually the type of customer who selects chat as their support route has been chatting casually through online messaging services since childhood. When a customer leads with a hyper-casual tone, it may seem appropriate to respond in kind as the customer service associate, but this can lead to more issues than one would figure. Jokes, lax language, and even use of emoticons can result in misinterpreted intentions and cause accidental offense. Remember, while customers can only represent themselves, each representative in a customer service scenario becomes the face of the entire company. Maintaining an upper level of respect and treating each customer with a professional tone is the most secure path to giving excellent live chat service.

#3. Be quick. Chatting online is perceived by customer to be tantamount to a phone call in terms of response times. There’s a little give while the chat is “ringing” (waiting to connect to an agent), but beyond that the responses should be immediate and the issue has right about the same allotted time inside your company’s standards to be resolved as a phone call would. You can apply First Call Resolution (FCR) metrics to your live chat department just as you would with the phone department, although you may have to tweak the expectations a little to work with the department’s comfort zone. Giving your agents the tools they need to answer the chat quickly and correctly also hearkens to the needs of your phone-based customer service, as agents can make use of a reliable knowledge base, a thorough Self-Service Center, and the reliable support from their management groups.

Most customers that check in with your company via live chat want a sort of low commitment, in-and-out type of service that can cater to their personal needs quickly, efficiently, and without much input on their part. This can work to your company’s advantage if you give your agents the right support they need to provide just such a service. Keep in mind the need for speed, accuracy, and respect, and you’ll get to watch the benefits of good service roll out before your company’s eyes.
CTA: Your customers want live chat and your company needs it. PhaseWare can give you the advantages you need to make full use of a click-to-chat service, placing the most efficient and accurate tools in your hands in a matter of days.

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