As you’re considering the different options for your company, take into account the benefits of chatting live with customers. Bringing this approach into your business can increase communication efforts and leave you with happier customers and clients, though interacting with customers in the digital age occurs through a variety of platforms.
Instant Communication
Live chat allows customers to speak with you in a short period of time. In other words, they don’t have to wait on hold for a long time. Customers can simply click a button and start chatting with an agent. At times, especially during busy periods, customers may have to wait a short amount of time. However, your online chat can include a countdown. If customers have five minutes to go before they speak with an agent, the countdown clock can provide them with this information.
Time Zones
Customers can also speak to a representative when doing so works well for them because live chats transcend time zones. For example, the physical location of a business likely closes at some point in the early evening or night. Customers who live across the country or world and purchase products from this business, therefore, lose out on an opportunity to speak with a representative. By hiring customer-service representatives from outside of the time zone, businesses can address the inquiries of their customers at many, if not all, times of the day.
Preferred Mode
It’s also important to provide your customers with what they want. In today’s age, many customers want to talk with business representatives online. Making a phone call is not always a commonplace action anymore. When customers have questions or want to discuss products with companies, they often look for an online chat feature. Therefore, by offering this option to interested parties, you’re meeting customers at a point they are comfortable with.
Professionalism
Plenty of today’s consumers want to connect with businesses online. However, individuals still want to see that companies are professional. For example, many businesses use social media, which is certainly a seriously positive marketing move. Still though, customers may feel that online chats offer a more professional way to get in touch with companies. Businesses who employ live chats are, as a result, providing consumers with what they want in a professional capacity.
Clear and Concise Responses
In verbal conversations, people often use fillers. Even individuals who are trained in professional speaking sometimes find themselves fumbling for words. Live chat features reduce the odds of fillers coming into play. Instead, customers receive clear and concise responses. When representatives have the information for the customers to review, they can send these details right over instead of filling in the time with empty language.
Research
Customer service agents should certainly know how to provide fast and efficient responses to the clients. However, no one is perfect, and looking up information is an action that sometimes occurs in customer-service interactions. Live chats make doing so easy. Instead of having to ask the customer to wait for a protracted period of time, the representative can start to conduct the research online while speaking with the patron.
Record of Information
Another benefit here is that both the company and the client can have a record of the customer service transaction. In a quick verbal conversation, people might forget some of the details. A chat means that the client can copy and paste the information into a document for later. Some businesses may even have the ability to let customers store the conversation for access at a later time. Also, in the event that the representative has to review the chat, perhaps for professional-development purposes, this action is an option.
Professional Development
Even when a team of representatives is working in a seriously superior capacity, integrating professional-development opportunities is an important step for virtually any business. Leaders of these professional development opportunities can use these chats as discussion points in the workshops and seminars. For example, what leaders can do is remove names and any identifying details from the chats. Then, the employees can discuss how the strategies used during the chat might be improved. Printing out and distributing copies to each employee is simpler than asking everyone to follow along with a recorded conversation.
Customer Satisfaction
All of these strategies are likely to leave your business with higher levels of customer satisfaction. When customers are happy with the service that they receive in these interactions with representatives, they may very well tell their relatives or friends about the great service they had. Then, these relatives and friends can turn into new customers for your business.
Links to Review Sites
Chatting online also allows representatives to provide customers with links to review sites. For example, at the end of chat sessions, you might want to ask employees to send customers a link to a site where your business has reviews. You may also have your own internal review system that customers could receive a link to this system in these conversations.
Chatting live with customers is an excellent way to integrate some new and helpful strategies into your routine. Also, you are likely to see a positive response from consumers.
