Importance of Online Chat for boosting Business Performance
Initially used as just a forum to connect with your customers, online chat has matured into a strategic communication channel that positively impacts the customer experience.
live chat services
Improve Customer Experience With These Live Chat Etiquettes
The Importance of Chat Etiquettes The guiding principle for successfully providing customer service via live chat is to help the customer with the task or issue he or she contacted you about. It’s irrelevant whether you are handling the processing of an order, answering a billing question, or checking the status of a return; your job is the same. You can turn even a disgruntled client into a lifelong fan of your product or service by using appropriate live chat etiquette. Implement these 10 tips and watch your customer satisfaction scores soar. Know Your Stuff If you don’t know the product or service you’re supporting, it won’t matter how polite or friendly your sound. The fastest way to frustrate your customer is to display a lack of basic knowledge. Even if you don’t immediately know the answer to the problem at hand, you should at least know how to find it. Familiarize yourself with the visitor-facing portion of the company’s website so you can quickly direct your customer to the correct place if he or she is looking for product details or the FAQ section. Don’t Lose Focus While it’s important to be friendly and personable as a part of live chat etiquette, it’s also easy to drift off course into small talk in the name of polite customer service. Remember that your goal is to fix the issue the customer contacted you about. Be ready to gently steer the conversation back to the problem at hand if things seem to be getting off track. Listen Most products and services have features that generate questions from users regularly. You may feel that you answer the same queries every day and can make assumptions based on those experiences. However, listening to the customer’s words as they describe what they are struggling with is critical. Don’t assume their problem is the same as everyone else. Tell the Truth If you make a promise to a customer, keep it. That seems like a pretty simple principle of live chat etiquette, but operators get tripped up on it often. Don’t offer something that you don’t have the authority to follow through on, and if you do make a promise, stay with it until you know it’s done. Explain Yourself Rather than just replying to a question with a yes or a no, provide an explanation for why that is the answer. Even if the customer doesn’t like the answer, he or she is more likely to accept it if they understand the reasoning behind it. Know When You’re In Over Your Head If you find yourself faced with a customer support issue that you simply cannot solve, don’t be afraid to admit that to the client. Reassure him or her that repeating the whole story won’t be necessary, and then transfer everything you’ve done so far to the more senior agent to maintain the live chat etiquette. Speak Clearly Remember that the person you are communicating with may not be knowledgeable of all the abbreviations, technical terms, and other jargon associated with your product or service. At least initially, ask basic questions in simple terms. If you establish that the customer is more advanced, then you can elevate the terminology of the conversation. Keep It, Professional While it’s tempting to lapse into less formal language using slang or shortcut spelling, resist the urge. In a professional environment, stick to proper grammar and sentence structure to build your customer’s confidence in you. Don’t Leave Your Customer Hanging If you need to put the conversation on hold to research or get more information, be sure to communicate to the other party what you are doing. If you just disappear, the customer might think something happened to the connection. There’s no such thing as overcommunicating in the world of live chat etiquette. Try to Fix It With One Chat Customers feel most confident and happiest with your service when you answer their questions or fix an issue with one call. Having to contact your company again and again with the same problem damages brand loyalty and makes the customer less likely to recommend your products because of a bad customer service experience. Remember the Impact Obviously, most consumers wish they never had to reach out for support of a product or service. But if they do need to, the best way to turn around that negative experience is to provide a customer support experience that is so good and so helpful they want to tell their friends about it. In a 2017 study by Northridge Group, 81 percent of customers surveyed reported that the quality of the support experience would be a determining factor in whether they continued to use a product or service. If you need help in establishing a world-class live chat support team, contact Etech.
The Effects of Live Chat Integration on the Customer Experience
A great customer experience can enhance the value and length of the consumer and merchant relationship. Each product in a marketplace has to be a better or more affordable substitute, tying commercial success to service. Businesses that roll out sophisticated customer experience tactics to add value to their offerings with giveaways, enhanced services, loyalty-based bonuses, live chat, and up- or cross-selling are quickly becoming leaders in the customer service industry. Defining Customer Service Customer service is the interaction between organization and customers. While there are many different definitions, there isn’t a right or a wrong interpretation because what makes customer service good depends heavily on what meets consumer expectations. Customer Experience Ideologists Top industry experts drive innovative strategies for enhancing the customer experience. They create client-centered philosophies for businesses to leverage the emotional aspects of the experience. Some of the top influential people and their service-oriented industry tactics include: Shep Hyken – Supports developing a culture and loyalty mindset to enable clients to share experiences and promote your products on social networks Colin Shaw – Predicts trends for reducing shopping cart abandonment Ken Varga – Believes aligning relevant advertising efforts prompts customers to buy what they’re researching Donna Fluss – Offers free, valuable advice for integrating customer relationship management software in support centers for quality assurance to optimize customer experiences Hank Brigman – Communicating offerings through newsletters, advertising, and word of mouth achieves the goal of being omnipresent A successful customer-centered corporate culture utilizes the services of a dedicated customer experience manager to focus on the emotional aspects of interactions to communicate relevant information. Influencers and the Wow Effect Formula The difference between influencers and ideologists is fuzzy. It may seem that influencers concentrate more on enhancing whatever fun there is to have and less on revenue. In the long run, they influence customer expectations and drive companies to introduce innovative customer-centered mechanisms into action. These people flourish in the social media environment, taking advantages of various platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and social video channels including YouTube to share their thoughts on the customer experience. Influence as a Marketing Tool Not all influencers are published authors or professionals. Anyone who creates ideas and concepts and strategizes on leveraging the customer experience to drive revenue and satisfaction is considered an influencer. For instance, Joseph Michelli, a keynote speaker, focuses on the Wow effect, which is a descriptive designation for a large customer experience goal. He found that 70 percent of customers indicate five main touchpoints for recommending products to others: Engagement: Genuine acknowledgment and care of consumer needs Executional Excellence: Outstanding quality and product knowledge Brand Experience: Ensuring customers believe they’re getting a deal Expediting: Proactively caring about the consumer during the shopping process Problem Recovery: Assurance of satisfaction and compensation Interestingly, engagement and brand experience are the only two touchpoints significantly impacting loyalty. Should a company decide to increase these key performance indicators, it can use techniques such as gamification, an online marketing technique to encourage engagement, or customer support empowerment to feed its culture into the community. This blog was written by Jim Iyoob, EVP Customer Experience and Operational Excellence for Etech Global Services. Connect with me here https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimiyoob
2 Ways Live Chat Services Can Improve Online Customer Experience
Customers everywhere are starting to turn to the internet to conduct their business and shop. Website owners are scrambling to implement tools that will enable them to meet the needs of their customers without investing too much time, money and resources. As more customers start to increase their expectations to improve their experiences, many online businesses are finding it challenging to meet this demand without making some changes to the way they enable customers to contact and interact with them. By adding online customer services, you can improve your business’ efficiency and productivity. Here are some ways that you can enhance customer experience with online customer support. Encourage Feedback Customers are notoriously picky about the way they’ve been treated by a business. When they purchase products and services that don’t live up to their expectations, they are not necessarily going to return to your company to purchase or use those products and services again in the future. To help reduce the rate of unsatisfied customers, you need to implement a system that encourages all customers to leave feedback about their experiences. You need to know how your customers feel about your company and the products and services it offers. Don’t rely solely on surveys, they only tell half of the story. There are far too many factors that can affect the validity and truthfulness of survey results, such as customers rushing, not paying attention and more. Surveys are also far too limited in their scope for you to use to determine how your customers really feel. A more useful approach would be to use qualitative research and analysis to learn more about your customers. This will provide you with in-depth information about your customer’s behavior, attitudes, and experiences so you can make the necessary changes to improve customer experience and satisfaction. Use Live Chat Services to Promote Your Brand Customers are always looking for the latest and greatest customer service experience available. Fine tune your online chat support so that it represents your brand in the most amazing light possible. Every second that customers are on your website is an opportunity to promote your brand. Train your agents to provide exceptional customer service and support to each website visitor they encounter and increase brand recognition and reputation. Online customer support services should include : Agents who are ready and able to answer customer questions. Agents who can correctly identify customer concerns to provide the correct guidance, support, and resolution. Perfection is a hard thing to achieve, but it should always be your goal, especially when fine tuning your online chat support system. There are far too many businesses and options available for customers to choose from. Don’t give them a reason to seek them out. If there are on your sites, then they have chosen your company or brand for a reason. So be prepared to take advantage of the opportunity by doing everything possible to win them over as a customer. Any online chat program that you implement needs to be a good one. Along with researching different chat programs, be sure to look for other ways to enhance overall customer experience to encourage repeat customers and loyalty. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.
4 Ways E-Commerce Websites Can Enhance Live Chat Function
Live chat support is the single most preferred resource for customers in need of assistance online. They’re also an excellent opportunity for businesses looking to win over visitors with outstanding e-commerce customer services. If your chat features are lacking, you may be missing out on much more than help requests. Even worse, you may be turning customers away. Here are four ways to enhance your live help services and turn customers into lifelong brand advocates. 1. Respond in Real Time When was the last time you enjoyed waiting in line for an undisclosed amount of time? The answer is likely, “Never.” The same is true with live chat support. Even if you’re juggling ten other conversations and can’t respond to a new customer right away, it is absolutely essential to let him or her know how long it will be before you can help. Because customers can make purchases online at anytime, they expect you to be able to help them right away if they need assistance. People don’t mind waiting for two minutes if they know they’ll get help, but leaving them wondering if their message was ever received is one of the quickest and easiest ways to lose a customer. Aim for an average response time of 30 seconds for maximum customer satisfaction. 2. Make It Personal Most chat operators have a go-to file of canned or pre-written responses. While these are great for increasing speed and handling more conversations at once, they can be deadly if the message isn’t personalized. Customers want to know they’re talking to a realh2 person who is genuinely committed to helping them, not a live chat robot that’s clearly running out of memory space. This isn’t to suggest you should ditch the canned responses altogether. Instead, find ways to insert personalized touches like: 1. Using the customer’s name 2. Discussing purchase details 3. Relying on past history information 4. Engaging in casual chit chat 3. Find the Right Balance There’s always a balance between responsive support and aggressive assistance. Most customers prefer to reach out to the customer service representative or chat operator on their own terms, rather than field unsolicited, “How can I help you?” pop-up messages. When in doubt, give the customer control. Even if you utilize pop-up chat windows, give your customers the freedom to minimize the message. If you don’t use pop-ups, make your live help feature easy to find on your website. 4. Be Accurate and Efficient It may seem obvious, but an operator’s spelling and grammar count during a live chat. While it’s OK for customers to make mistakes, an error on the operator’s end will have them questioning your legitimacy and professionalism as a brand. It can be tempting to slip into colloquial language and abbreviations in order to save time, but it’s best to stick to formal spelling and grammar rules. A better way to increase is efficiency is to use as few words as possible and deliver the most important pieces of information first. Your ultimate goal is to help the customer by resolving problems and maximizing satisfaction. Don’t compromise either for the sake of speed. With an emphasis on delivering real time responses, personalized touches, accurate and concise information, and giving the customer control, you can transform your live help feature into a wow factor in no time.
Live Chat Services Ensures Instant Query Solutions
The internet has begun to dominate our daily lives to a very large extent. The world has become more competitive with the help of internet. Businesses are able to reach out to more new customers and business opportunities thanks to the World Wide Web. Also the customers are able to seek the services of manufactures easily as internet has made the smaller, closer and more convenient. With the help of online tech support chat businesses are able to offer instant and real time guidance and services to customers without having to rely on direct service. Consumers are able to get quick online remedies to complete their shopping requirements and product associated queries. Naturally, the internet is the choice of millions for business and it has also become to be a way of life. Companies are able to showcase their products and services easily with the help of websites and internet domains. Online live chat services to resolve customer grievances If it can gain business it can retain business too. Live chat services with customers are the easiest way of resolving product and service related issues which otherwise have to be dealt in person by technicians and customer service executives. With the help of internet customers are able to engage in a conversation with the company executives face to face and thus resolve any or all of their problems in an easy manner. These services ensure that the customer continues to remain loyal and attracted to the company for its customer oriented services. Customer service chat ensures that customers are given appropriate treatment and consolation for the losses suffered by them due to inferior service or wrong products. They can set right customer grievance by fixing up a replacement or by giving the right guidance to set right things. The outstanding characteristics of live chat services are: Multiple customers can be handled simultaneously without the need to be hooked with a telephone. Customers get interaction in the form of text conversation from where they are able to gain info for resolving their queries. Customers are able to get their grievances attended even after office hours. Since the whole concept is based on the internet people are able to access and obtain information real time without the restriction of any working hours or holidays. Further, there are options where customers can send and receive solutions in the form of an email without having to indulge in online tech support chat. Further, companies are able to attend to a large number of enquiries without having to employ more staff and infrastructure. This cuts down costs significantly and improves the overall profitability of the business. It is also proven that live chat services are able to achieve more sales since customers are getting their queries about future products solved instantly and graciously. Skilled and trained chat agents can lure more customers and make them buy new products without incurring additional expense. It goes without saying that, customer service chat hence is possibly one of the best ways of enhancing customer satisfaction.
