8 live chat service tips: how to deliver an amazing service?

Amazing customer service is worth the effort. Brand loyalty is something that can bring new customers to your business easily and with low advertising costs. At the end, people are more likely to buy from you and share their positive experience with others, which means your business will be booming. 

In our previous article we reviewed the most valuable live chat features of 2019 you should consider implementing. This article will provide you tips on how to deliver amazing customer service through a live chat on your website.

How live chat can benefit your business

Source: www.superoffice.com

Studies show that customers tend to love communicating with organizations via live chat: a customer satisfaction rating for live chat is 73% while for the email it is 61%, and for the phone it is only 44%. 

For business having a live chat means improving customer service and therefore customer loyalty to your brand. 

It also usually means reducing expenses and increasing sales. With a modern features like intelligent routing and canned answers (Read more: Best Live Chat Features in 2019) your business can lower customer service costs, free up customer service agents’ time, optimize work processes and let your agents focus on increasing sales and providing a memorable support. 

8 tips on how to provide an amazing live chat service

1. Create a pleasant experience

Ask your customer service agents to always greet the client and introduce themselves at the beginning of a dialogue. At the end of a conversation they can ask customers whether they were satisfied with the service. And don’t forget to ask if there’s anything else that they need your help with. 

If an agent doesn’t understand a customer’s question, it’s better to ask it again rather than send a generic answer. Or if a customer service agent can’t answer the question immediately, he or she should let the customer know about that. Don’t let your client think that you've forgot about him/her, communication in such situations is crucial. 

An easy way to provide a memorable experience via live chat is to be personal. A chat is a conversation between two persons, and customers want to know who they speak with. Try adding customer service agents’ pictures and names to your live chat tool. This will make conversations look like messaging with a friend, and the clients will definitely appreciate this personal touch. 

Live chat gives you great possibilities to add personality to your brand, don’t miss this chance. Try using unique conversational scripts or think of something that can distinguish your customer service from your competitors’. 

Our next tip is also about personalization, but from another angle. Keep reading :)

2. Integrate chat with your CRM software

An integration with your CRM software is not only a great way to grow your database, it also helps to provide a personalized and remarkable service. 

For example, by just asking for a person’s email at the beginning of a conversation, you get access to his/her name, previous queries, purchases etc. With this information your customer service agents can give more suitable answers and upsell easier. 

If after solving an issue your customer service agent tells something like “I hope you enjoy your last purchase from our store” the client will most likely be amazed by such a personal touch and share his/her positive experience with friends.

3. Make chat access easy

Don’t make your customers figure out how to use your chat service. Try to review your website and chat window as if you are a first-time visitor. Can you find the chat fast? Does it open easily? Is the chat interface clear to navigate?

4. Be fast

If you look closer at why customers prefer live chat over other ways of communication with companies, you may note that the main reason is live chat speed: 79% of respondents said to like the tool for its ability to provide immediate answers. 

Source: econsultancy.com

The advice here is very simple: don’t ruin customer expectations by not answering fast. If your chat service is unavailable during the night time or on weekends, it's better to make a clear note about it. Or to hide the chat window at all when the service is unavailable. 

It is also a great idea to mention there are real people answering questions and that it may take some time for them to handle the query.

5. Improve conversion with a customer service chatbot

In case you aim to provide an instant 24/7 support, a customer service chatbot integrated to your live chat tool can significantly improve customer satisfaction score while lowering the workload of your customer service agents. 

When working together, a chatbot lets agents focus on more complex questions and developing sales. For example, take a look at the results If P&C Insurance achieved by adding a chatbot to their existing live chat tool. 

But can you actually save money with a chatbot? Based on our experience, yes. It allows you to optimize customer service agents work, increase sales and customer retention, improve employee experience and prevent customers from being underserved. 

Learn more about ROI of chatbots by watching our latest webinar recording. You will get an actionable insights and real-life examples on calculating ROI of a customer service chatbot for your organization.

6. Use The ELI5 Technique

Even if the answer is obvious for you, it can be confusing and unclear for your customers. If you need to explain a complex topic to a customer, never use professional language and complicated instructions as if you were talking with a colleague. 

Instead, use ELI5 (“Explain It Like I’m 5”) technique that says: before sending technical instructions to a customer, read them as if you were a five-year-old and make sure you can follow them. 

It’s actually good to use this technique not only in your live chat, but in every channel you communicate with your customers. 

To fully understand this technique I recommend you to take a look at ELI5 subreddit where professionals explain complex topics as if the reader was a 5-year-old. 

7. Always stay on topic

Do you remember what makes customers prefer live chat over other ways to contact with business? Right, it’s its speed. 

Teach your customer service agents to always stay on topic. Every question should get straight and short answer. 

It’s good to remember, that a chat window is usually small. So, if the answer is too long and has several action points, it’s worth including it to a FAQ section on the website and send customers a link to the answer.

8. Create a positive post-service experience

Your communication should not end when the chat window closes, that’s why it’s important to have a workflow for a post-service communication. 

One great idea is to give your customers an option to send a transcript of chat conversation to themselves. In this case they can always access the conversation and find answers there instead of calling or writing you again and asking the same questions. This is also a very natural way of collecting emails and growing your contact database. 

Also, make sure that your chat window keeps the current conversation while the client is browsing your website. A chat window that starts the conversation from the very beginning and clears all chat history every time a visitor reloads the page is so annoying that you can easily lose the customer. It may be hard to believe, but still many companies make this mistake when setting up their live chat tool.