A comprehensive support system is one of the most important components of customer service. While a local shop or a company branch can rely on more personal face-to-face contact, as well as phone calls and emails, to answer customer questions and solve problems, online shops don’t have such luxury. But, in recent years, live chat has established itself as a viable alternative support service. Although it doesn’t quite replace a real, face-to-face conversation, this personal support system can have a similar effect on users looking for help. However, a fully-blown live chat support is known to be very expensive to implement and maintain, so the question is: who can benefit from developing a virtual communication system?
In order to add a live chat to your homepage or your online shop, you’ll need to get hold of the corresponding software first. There are a number of suppliers of live chat solutions – you can find an overview of the best programs available today, both free and subscription-based, in our guide to live chat support software. These can be embedded into your web project using a specific code that you can copy into the designated area of your site’s HTML file. There are different forms of live chat support, such as on-site chats for example, which operate on the actual web page of your site and therefore are always visible for the visitor. Off-site chats, on the other hand, work separately and open in an external window.
Depending on the type of live chat software you opt for, there are a variety of functions for communication, including contact approach, request processing, chat box layout, and evaluation of results. Programs like LiveZilla, for example, also offer triggers for automatic chat invitations when your site visitors search for certain things or request for help. Some applications even feature remote access to customers’ computers, meaning that technical support can be offered immediately, precisely as the issue is taking place. Other features include transferring data, autocorrect for spelling and grammar errors, a queue system with waiting times, and the automatic archiving of commonly asked questions.
Whether you’re operating an online shop or a company homepage, a live chat is a great way to react to the questions and concerns of your customers in real time, much more so than a traditional email support system. Here are some other notable advantages:
In principle, it’s recommended to extend your support network through the option of a live chat. The additional options that live chat support enables (compared to the more traditional email and telephone service) can mean a reduced exit rate and/or bounce rate and increased customer satisfaction. Nevertheless, the increased costs and time constraints of running a support chat system in real-time should not be underestimated. If the live chat is online and available, customers will expect their queries to be handled immediately and in full. For this reason, it’s crucial for small businesses and online shop owners to calculate the additional costs and staff working hours needed beforehand, to know whether you have the necessary resources at your disposal to make a live chat service worthwhile. We recommend you consider the following points:
If you’ve considered all of the above points and decided to opt for a live chat software, your first step should be to create a clear concept for your service. A particular point to pay attention to will be yourapproach to customers. If the support your customers require is likely to be complex and technical, then you’ll need to hire or train experts to run the live chat service. If your service operates in multiple countries, you’ll need to hire linguists capable of communicating in several languages. Pay attention to the way your staff address your customers too: does the type of service you offer and your target market mean you should take a formal approach when handling complaints and queries (Good afternoon Mrs. Smith, how may I assist you?) or an informal approach (Hi there Jenny, what’s the issue?). If you form a detailed plan, you stand a good chance of running a reliable, competent, and helpful live chat support service that will improve customer satisfaction and help push your web project to the next level.
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