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To establish lasting relationships with customers, mastering effective communication is essential.
Numerous companies have incorporated live chat support as one of their key communication channels for customer service.
This comes as no surprise, given that a study by Forrester indicates that 42% of consumers favor companies that have a live chat option on their websites, a significant increase from 27% in 2019.
So, what steps should companies take to fully leverage their live chat support feature? What do they stand to gain from integrating one into their customer service?
In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of live chat support, share some best practices for implementation, and showcase real-world examples of how businesses use live chat to achieve success.
What is live chat support?
Live chat support is a way for customers to instantly communicate with a customer service representative to have their questions answered and concerns addressed.
The live chat tool can be embedded in the following:
- Website
- Mobile apps
- Social media platforms
- Customer support portals
Businesses utilize live chat support for immediate engagement and to deliver real-time assistance to customers.
Key characteristics of a live chat solution
The following are the major characteristics of live chat support:
- Real-time interaction: Live chat facilitates immediate communication, allowing instant engagement between customers and agents for quick problem-solving.
- AI assist features: Supports AI-powered tools like AI Copilot that empower agents to provide quick, accurate, and personalized responses.
- Seamless integration: Live chat programs smoothly connect with other support systems, such as payment gateways, contact management, analytics and reporting tools, and knowledge base systems for efficient workflows.
- Proactive engagement: Live chat makes it easy for users to initiate conversations with businesses. This makes it more likely that the support team can resolve their issues before they complain in feedback mechanisms like reviews.
- Accessibility: Live chat can be accessible from any device with an internet connection, providing customers with convenient and flexible communication and customer service
- Automation: Through automation, a live chat can efficiently handle routine queries, gather initial information, and streamline the customer support process, enhancing overall efficiency.
Live chat best practices for exceptional customer service
Adopt the following strategies to maximize the potential of your live chat tool:
Integrate the live chat button in the right place
Contemporary clients often lack patience and may leave your website if they run into a problem and struggle to locate help.
Examine your customers’ browsing habits to identify areas within your website or application that may require assistance and conveniently position the live chat feature there.
Speed up responses with canned responses
Quick responses are one of the main reasons customers prefer live chat over other communication channels. Craft canned responses to provide uniform responses and significantly improve your response times.
Collaborate with your team to create a detailed collection of canned responses tailored to the typical situations they face in live chats.
These replies should be crafted to sound conversational and warm, helping to establish a personal connection with your customers and boost customer satisfaction.
The canned responses should be customized where appropriate to retain a natural tone that doesn’t make customers doubt the presence of a human on the other end of the conversation.
Train your agents effectively
Provide your live chat agents with extensive training on your products, services, and company policies.
Equip them with essential customer service skills like active listening, problem-solving, and expressions of empathy to enable them to go the extra mile to achieve customer satisfaction.
If your support strategy includes AI Agents, it’s essential to train them on your business goals, product details, and escalation protocols to ensure they interact appropriately and align with your brand’s service standards.
Offer support in multiple languages
If you serve a global customer base, offering live chat support in multiple languages caters to non-English speaking customers and improves their experience.
Use translation software to demonstrate your commitment to inclusivity and global reach.
Add a human touch to personalize the chat
Even though live chat is a text-based interaction, the use of a personal touch can make a big difference in shaping customer perceptions.
Always greet customers with their name and refer to their past interactions whenever possible to ensure they know you are up to speed.
Tailor your communication language, tone, and style to meet the customer’s preferences. You can also use appropriate emojis to create a warm and friendly atmosphere for the customer.
Add video to the live chat support experience
For more involved conversations, face-to-face interactions tend to be more engaging and satisfying because customers can see the agent to whom they are talking.
Apart from cultivating a sense of trust, video chat can also help explain complex issues or instructions that would otherwise be challenging to explain via text alone.
Agents can also share their screens or use co-browsing features during the chat session to guide customers through technical step-by-step procedures.
This improves team efficiency and saves time for both parties involved.
Establish clear criteria for intelligent chat routing
Live chat software can support the use of intelligent chat routing so customer inquiries are sent to the appropriate agent or department according to set criteria.
Establish clear protocols for directing, transferring, and escalating chats to guarantee that each new chat is picked up by an appropriate agent quickly.
Monitor performance and continuously update the live chat tool
Treat live chat software as an evolving tool. Examine key live chat metrics like response times, chat duration, resolution time, and customer satisfaction scores.
Regularly review and update your live chat strategy to ensure optimal performance
Furthermore, ensure that you stay updated with new technologies and trends in live chat support to continuously enhance the customer experience and stay ahead of the curve.
Use tags for proper categorization of chats
Categorizing customer interactions through tags is considered a top practice for managing live chats.
This function allows agents to classify chat sessions according to their subject matter or other parameters.
Assigning labels such as product inquiry, technical issue, or pricing to ongoing chats enables you to sort these issues and refer to them in the future.
This practice streamlines the monitoring of particular interaction types, aids in recognizing frequent concerns, and helps in the training and onboarding of new team members.
Integrate live chat with other third-party tools
Connect your live chat platform with your customer relationship management tool, help desk ticketing system, knowledge base software, or other customer data systems to allow agents to access vital information quickly and provide seamless support.
You can also integrate live chat with other support channels so that agents can seamlessly switch between them, if necessary, without losing context or having to repeat information.
For example, an agent can ask a customer to switch to email to attach a file following a conversation they just had in the live chat window.
Request customer feedback after every conversation
The live chat feature is not solely for addressing inquiries and providing information. It’s an avenue for gathering customer feedback.
Include a customer satisfaction survey at the end of each chat session to collect feedback on the quality of the interaction.
Solicit ideas on how you can improve the effectiveness of the live chat tool.
Optimize the live chat tool for mobile use
A significant number of users access websites via their smartphones and therefore expect to access customer support on the move.
Ensure that the live chat features on your website are compatible with mobile devices.
By enhancing your live chat for mobile compatibility, you unlock more accessibility and convenience, enabling customers to reach your support team whenever and wherever they have a need.
Benefits of live chats that businesses should know
With the use of a live chat tool, businesses can have real-time conversations with their customers. This has many advantages.
Enhances customer engagement
Live chat allows businesses to engage with customers and provide them with instant answers and resolutions. This improves response time, personal connections, and reduces cart abandonment.
By providing convenient and accessible customer communication, live chat support helps businesses build stronger relationships and encourages customers to return.
Improves customer satisfaction
The immediacy and efficiency that live chat provides make customers feel their time is valued and that the support teams take their concerns seriously.
A live chat can help create a loyal customer base that knows it can rely on quick support from your company.
Increased efficiency for business
When evaluating different support options, a live chat solution allows support agents to:
- Handle multiple conversations simultaneously
- Respond swiftly to customer inquiries
- Resolve issues efficiently
- Finalize transactions successfully
This heightened efficiency not only reduces operational costs but also enhances overall business effectiveness, driving increased profitability and sustainable growth.
Provides valuable data insights
Through live chat support, you can get real-time data on customer interactions in order to evaluate:
- Customer behavior
- Agent performance
- Customer feedback
- Conversion rates
Analyzing this data can reveal trends, identify customer needs, and give you ways to optimize product offerings.
Additionally, live chat data can contribute to important performance metrics like response times and resolution rates, providing insights into operational efficiency.
Boost in sales and conversions
Live chat software helps guide customers seamlessly through checkout, answering questions before they become irritated, making recommendations based on the customers’ needs, and guiding them to the best option for their situation.
It’s like having a personal shopper to give them tips whenever they want them, resulting in a win-win for both the customer and the company.
This proactive customer support and guidance have proven to boost online sales and conversions.
In fact, according to Zippia research, live chat is known to increase conversion rates by 40%.
Provides accessibility and convenience
Live chat can allow customers to receive immediate assistance at any time, irrespective of the device used and their location, eliminating the need to wait on the phone or for email responses.
If a company can offer 24/7 services, it’s particularly helpful for customers in different time zones or with busy schedules.
Builds trust and credibility
Live chat is a powerful tool that builds customer trust and credibility by providing immediate assistance and demonstrating a business’s commitment to customer service.
This real-time interaction assures customers that help is just a chat message away.
Ultimately, a trustworthy and credible business attracts loyal customers, contributing to long-term success.
Competitive advantage
Live chat support helps businesses deliver a high level of responsiveness in a world where consumers expect quick and efficient service.
This responsiveness can distinguish a business from its competitors, many of whom may still rely on slower, less interactive forms of customer service.
Offers personalized customer experience
By providing real-time, one-on-one conversations, live chat can address individual questions, offer personalized product recommendations, and deliver customized solutions.
This level of personalization enhances the customer’s experience, making them feel valued and understood.
Reduces support costs
Unlike traditional phone-based systems that restrict agents to one-on-one conversations, live chat platforms let them manage several interactions concurrently.
This multitasking capability cuts down on the necessity for a larger support team, which in turn translates to cost savings for businesses.
Companies can optimize their support operations, delivering prompt, efficient service while maintaining a lean staffing model.
Live chat support examples from real brands
Here are some real-life examples of live chat support:
BoldDesk®
BoldDesk provides businesses with customer service software to manage their customer support operations.
It offers a live chat support option that allows customers to seek support right from the help page. BoldDesk tracks customer browsing behavior before they initiate a chat to help agents understand the context and provide tailored customer experiences.
For transparency and future reference, records of chat conversations are sent to customers via email after each interaction.
Complex customer inquiries that cannot be resolved quickly can be converted into tickets for thorough resolution. Customers will be notified of the tickets that have been created.
Bank of America
Bank of America provides live chat support as part of its banking customer service. Customers can chat with a customer service representative to:
- Discuss account details
- Report lost or stolen cards
- Get help with online banking
- Receive guidance on financial products
The live chat feature is particularly useful for customers who need immediate assistance but do not wish to visit a branch or wait on hold for a phone representative.
The bank ensures secure and private communication to protect sensitive financial information during the chat sessions.
Amazon
Amazon, the largest e-commerce platform in the world, offers live chat support to assist customers with inquiries regarding product details, ordering, shipping, returns, and refunds.
When a customer visits the Amazon help section and selects an issue they need help with, the website often proposes the option to chat with a representative.
Amazon’s live chat support is known for being responsive and helpful, allowing customers to resolve their issues quickly without the necessity of a phone call.
Microsoft
Microsoft offers live chat support on its support website for a variety of its products, including Windows and Office.
Customers can use this support when they are experiencing technical difficulties, need help with software installation, or have questions about product features and licenses.
Integrate live chat support to enhance the customer service experience
Live chat is not just a communication tool; it’s an opportunity to cultivate real-time engagement and build enduring customer relationships.
By implementing best practices and using the right software, you can create a seamless and personalized live chat experience that keeps your customers returning to your brand.
Ready to redefine customer engagement?
BoldDesk offers top-of-the-class live chat software for diverse business needs. Contact us to see how our live chat software can enrich your customer engagement strategy.
I hope this article is valuable for your live chat support journey. Do you have any questions or additional ideas?
Feel free to share your feedback in the comment section below.
Related articles
- Next-Level Customer Care in BoldDesk: Live Chat and Omnichannel Support for Seamless Service
- The 11 Best Live Chat Widgets for Websites
- 41+ Best Live Chat Script Examples and Templates
Frequently asked questions
Live chat support connects customers with support agents in real time through a chat widget embedded on your website or app.
It streamlines issue resolution, enhances personalization, and creates a seamless support experience that keeps customers coming back.
Chatbot vs live chat is a key consideration when choosing the right support solution.
Live chat connects users with real agents for personalized, human-centered assistance, which is ideal for complex or sensitive issues.
Conversely, chatbots handle repetitive, simple tasks with automated responses, making them perfect for quick, routine interactions and helping businesses improve efficiency.
You can measure the success of your live chat support channel by tracking key metrics such as response time, customer satisfaction scores, and resolution rates, which indicate how effectively your team is assisting users.
Additionally, analyzing metrics like chat volume, conversion rates, and customer feedback helps evaluate overall performance and identify areas for improvement.
Adding the web chat widget is simple, just copy the provided embed code from your service provider and paste it into your website’s HTML.
In just a few clicks, you’ll unlock real-time customer engagement that boosts satisfaction and drives conversions.
Yes. Live chat software can seamlessly integrate with popular platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, and SMS.
This omnichannel approach centralizes customer interactions, ensuring a smooth and consistent support experience across all touchpoints.
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