Creating a positive customer experience is just as important these days as developing stellar products or delivering excellent customer service. What’s the difference between customer experience and customer service? Customer experience is based on how customers perceive your business through multi-tiered interactions, whereas customer service is the quality and level of service you offer to your customers.
Providing consistent customer service is an effective way to positively influence customer experiences with your business. Live chat customer service is a modern and convenient tool that businesses can use to improve their customer service and experience ratings. Approximately 80% of customers report that they prefer interacting with customer service agents via a 24/7 live chat support service because it’s more convenient and faster than calling or emailing.
How Live Chat Can Be Used to Improve Customer Service
When customers need a quick answer to a fairly easy question, the last thing they want to do is to call into a customer service hotline and be placed on hold for an obscenely long time. Sending an email is an alternative communication method, but it could involve waiting a while for a response.
Live chat customer service is the next best solution because it elicits an immediate response for common simplistic questions related to your products, services, or business. Sometimes, a customer simply needs some quick help with troubleshooting an electronic device or they need to make an appointment for a service.
Live chat marries the best of both email and over-the-phone customer service. Customers can get the quick response they’re looking for in writing while speaking to a live agent without having to wait in a long line or on hold. Plus, live chat platforms also give customers the option of having the conversation emailed to them as well, so they have it in writing for future reference.
If a customer is looking for specific information on your website, the live agent can either answer the question directly or send them a link to the exact page containing that information.
What Are the Benefits of Having a 24/7 Live Chat Customer Service Team?
Outsourcing a 24/7 live chat customer support service can effectively help you clear out your customer line and resolve customer issues a lot faster. In fact, live chat is the most preferred mode of communication amongst many customers. Here are a few proven benefits of live chat for customer service and how it can improve your customer relations.
Increase Customer Engagement
Every time that little window pops up asking customers if they need assistance, it immediately grabs people’s attention. Whether they’re just browsing your website to learn more about your business or they have a question that needs a quick answer, the live chat window lets customers know that you’re ready and willing to help them find what they’re looking for.
For more complex issues and questions, you can use technologically advanced digital customer service aids such as co-browsing and video chat. Co-browsing is a live customer support tool that allows you to share your screen with your customer so that you can visually show them all of the steps you’re taking to resolve their issue. Video chat is a video call option that allows live agents to speak face-to-face with customers on a virtual platform.
Both of these tools help to establish a real one-on-one personalized customer service experience that’s fully interactive and engaging in every way.
Boost Your Customer Service Team’s Productivity
24/7 live chat support platforms allow companies to easily track and analyze the productivity and statistics of each agent. Every time a live agent opens or closes a ticket, the data will be automatically updated in the software system to indicate that the query has been resolved.
Following the interaction, customers are presented with a message that gives them the option to rate their interaction with each specific live agent. Customer feedback can then be taken into account as a means and training tool to improve customer experience in the future. Live customer agents can be empowered to handle multiple chats simultaneously without getting overwhelmed. Additionally, they can also use automated responses for simple queries and use their intuitive insights to answer more complex questions quickly.
Provide 24/7 Support
Most online businesses have expanded or are planning on expanding into international markets, which means dealing with different time zones. As your e-commerce brand continues to grow, you’re going to need to expand your hours of operation to accommodate more customers around the globe. Live chat gives you the ability and means to provide 24/7 uninterrupted customer service to all of your customers any time of the day or night.
Improves Customer Experience
Customer service and experience go hand in hand. Live chat services provide fast and easy support immediately when customers need it. Not only can you cut down your call volumes, but you can also use machine learning and artificially intelligent automation to handle all of the simple queries, freeing up your agents to handle some of the more challenging customer queries.
Resolve Customer Queries or Issues in Record Time
Live chat automation is an effective tool businesses can use to quickly close out active tickets and expertly resolve customer queries. Plus, there are usually no wait times. If there is a que, customers typically don’t have to wait for a long time on hold while listening to elevator music. They can either keep the connection open while they do other things or receive an email or messages as soon as an agent becomes available to chat.
Build a Strong Customer Rapport
Providing consistently quick and reliable customer support is a great way to help you build a strong customer rapport. Moreover, it also solidifies your relationship to the extent that you’ll have a lot of repeat customers that are more willing to recommend your products or services to other people they know.
If you need help managing your 24/7 live chat support services, we’re here for you. At 3C Contact Services, we have over 30 years of experience in building and managing strong customer service skills and relationships. We’re constantly adapting our services to adequately represent brands on an international level. Contact us today to learn more about our customer live chat services.
