Offering a multi-channel customer support platform is a lauded strategy to achieving higher levels of customer satisfaction. Customers like having the power to approach your company and connect with the support team using whatever method they feel is the most comfortable — it helps create a sense of trust and ease between the buyer and the business. With this in mind, it has been increasingly popular to provide e-mail support in tandem with phone-based support, to cater to those customers who would like time to reply at their leisure. It seems like with just these two channels, you would be able to cover most of the necessary bases for support channels. So why bother with adding another option? Does your company really stand anything to gain by spending time and labor on another support method?
Short answer: Yes. Your company has so much to gain from adding a live chat channel to your site that it will pay for itself every month, over and over again. Here’s a short rundown of what you’d be enjoying by adding a live chat channel.
#1. Increased Revenue. If you provide a live chat customer service team to shoppers who have happened upon your company in a web-based setting, your chance to inform each potential customer and offer the best of your products pop up all over the place, literally. In pop-up windows. There’s a market waiting for your guidance; all you have to do is show up.
#2. Increased productivity. Live chat allows customer support agents to handle multiple customers at once, and because of the flow of interaction and availability of internal support, these agents can do so without compromising the quality of service they are able to provide. Giving customers this alternate route will also improve the quality of your other customer support channels, as less strain will be placed on their queues.
#3. Improved brand reputation. Companies who “get away” without offering live chat do so at the risk of appearing out of touch with the current generation of buyers. As an important facet of a successful product, building your brand image includes reaching out to the customer on their platform of choice.
#4. Higher customer satisfaction rates. The live chat channel offers the best of both worlds for customer service: The speed and personal touch of a phone call, with the easy clarity of an e-mail. Customers in today’s world are often multi-tasking their days, so having the ability to clear up a concern without interrupting their workday is in high demand. This, coupled with a desire for immediate and exclusive assistance, is a clear call for one thing: live chat.
Ultimately, the question is, can your company afford NOT to offer live chat? The positive effects of such a service are so widespread that you would be amiss to overlook them any longer. Live chat is definitely where it’s at.