A Definitive Guide to Live Chat Support

Posted by Khushboo Priya

The industry is getting more competitive with each passing day. And businesses are constantly making efforts to serve their customers with multiple alluring offers. Therefore, it has become highly crucial for the telemarketing companies to keep yourself updated with the latest trends and services so that you can always stay ahead of your competitors.

A few years ago, there was a single channel for customer support. Gradually, new technologies kept on introducing which completely changed the way customers used to communicate and interact.

Today, customers have access to multi-channel support so that they can use their preferred form of communication to interact with call centre agents. Customers always look for the easiest and the most convenient way to reach the company and want an instant support.

Keeping the same into consideration, live chat support was designed to help customers by offering them instant solutions at any hour of the day they need help.

In this blog, we will discuss various aspects of live chat support such as what it is, why it’s necessary and how it can be made more efficient.

So, let’s begin-

What is live chat support?

Live chat support is an instant service provided to customers in real-time through live support application. The service helps customers by introducing them to a web-based live agent who answers every question extending from customer support to sales.

Why outsource live chat support?

Not just one, there are numerous reasons why you should outsource live chat support. Some of them are mentioned below:

1. Eradicates the language barrier

With live chat, you don’t have to deal with the language problem. Unlike telemarketing companies that hire agents specialized in various languages to communicate with audiences across the globe, with live chat the problem has completely vanished. Now, there’s no language barrier. Under this service, customers will only use the official language which is English.

2. Fastest form of communication

I know many of you will raise your brow but it’s true. It’s the fastest form of communication. You might be thinking that the phone is the fastest way to reach. Yes, it is but it takes time in meeting and greeting, taking info of customers etc. However, when the agent is interacting with the customer, there’s no meet and greet part. Agents directly ask customers how they can help them and customers explain their problem. Within a few minutes, the patrons are provided with a very precise and accurate solution, which is definitely not possible over phone or email.

3. Allows to handle multiple agents at a time

Live chat allows an agent to manage multiple customers at the same time. However, while dealing with customers over the phone, an agent can’t handle multiple calls at a time. When agents are able to manage various customers at the same time then there can be an increase in productivity. Additionally, the service can be beneficial in reducing the wait time of customers which in turn, will increase the CSAT score.

Also Read: 4 Hidden Live Chat Mistakes that Support Agents aren’t aware of

4. Provide immediate support

Sometimes customers encounter a problem or some kind of error while making a purchase which can be highly disastrous. In such cases, customers can drop their idea of purchasing from you and will move to your competitors. Whereas live chat support doesn’t give birth to any such problem, instead it provides customers with an immediate support.

5. Offers you a competitive edge

Despite the fact that live chat support is the fastest form of communication, many businesses are unaware of its advantages and are still employing the decade-old techniques. And due to the same reason, the business isn’t doing better. Hence, if you outsource live chat support then your business will get a competitive edge while your customer gets more satisfaction.

6. Cost-effective

When you outsource live chat support, you don’t have to handle any cost of training, infrastructure or any other resources. Your vendor is responsible for handling all the costs. You just need to pay for the service that you avail from the vendor. This way you can save on overall business cost and hence, can increase the revenue by many times.

How to make live chat more effective?

The purpose of the live chat support is to provide a real-time assistance to customers in order to achieve better CSAT score and hence, better revenue. So the purpose must be fulfilled or there’s no use of this service.

Below I have described a few ways through which the performance and efficiency of this service can be improved:

Keep a regular check on conversations between agents and customer so that you can know if agents are delivering the exact solution to the customer’s queries or not.
Those who are underperforming must be trained by quality assurance experts so that they can deliver the expected efficiency.
Encourage your agents to provide short, simple and precise solutions to the customer. Lengthy and complicated answers are difficult to understand and take time to read and write.
Ask your agents to prioritize chats. As you know, live chat support allows agents to handle multiple customers at a time. So make sure that customers don’t have to wait long for replies. Therefore, ask agents to prioritize customers on the basis of who came first or who are waiting for long in the queue.
Train your agents to assimilate the language that customers use. For example, if you have any sale then customers may refer it to as a discount, offer or anything else. Instead of correcting them, agents can use the same term so that customers don’t face any difficulty in understanding.

Wrapping up

Outsourcing live chat support is not only effective for businesses but for customers as well. Businesses will increase customer satisfaction rate as well as revenue, however, patrons will be more satisfied than ever as they will get an instant solution to their queries.

Also Read: Top 5 tips to enhance Customer’s Live Chat Experience

Tags: Outsource live chat support Telemarketing companies BPO comapnies