Most of us, as customers, are familiar with visiting a website with a question and being unable to find an answer. Or call the customer service hotline and spend an eternity waiting on hold. As a business, you might have struggled to be apace with the rising demand for customer service.
If you answered yes to most of these questions, then Live Chat is the solution you’ve been looking for.
What is Live Chat?
A HubSpot report highlighted that 90% of customers expect a quick reaction from customer support, an essential part of customer experience.
Live Chat is a customer support channel that enables a seamless experience by allowing businesses and customers to connect in real-time. It allows agents to reach out to customers proactively. Embedding live chat support on your website makes it easier for website visitors and customers to discover more about the brand, ask questions, and receive immediate assistance from support agents while browsing through the web pages.
Live Chat has come to be preferred by more and more companies owing to its efficiency and immediacy of the customer experience.
A US customer Care performance study put this into numbers:
“Within the online channel, the chat feature has become the leading contact source, as 42% of full-service customers indicate using a live online chat feature vs. email (23%) or other social media forum (16%). Additionally, online satisfaction is highest among customers who use the chat feature.”
Read this comprehensive guide to know which live chat solution is the best for you
How Live Chat Overcomes Contact Center Challenges?
Live Chat overcomes support challenges that contact centers face when reaching out to customers and sustains customer faith and loyalty in your brand.
| Challenges | Live Chat Solution |
|---|---|
| High Call Volumes | Several chat sessions can be handled at once, allowing businesses to take call volumes without increasing staff |
| Longer Wait Times | Allow businesses to respond to customers quickly & effectively, reducing customer frustration |
| High Operational Costs | Live Chat does not require any specialized requirement |
| Ineffective Communication | Reduces communication breakdowns, misunderstanding, and frustration. Agents can also double-check their responses before sending |
| Limited Availability | Extends support to customers outside of regular business hours |
Features of Live Chat
Live Chat enables businesses to provide a fast, efficient, and personalized customer experience via its key enabling features:
⦿ Agent Sneak Peek
This feature enables agents to preview what a customer is typing even before they hit the send button. Agents can thus start preparing for their response before the message arrives on the chat window.
⦿ Canned Messages
This allows agents to save pre-written answers for commonly asked questions. This saves time from typing answers again from scratch and ensures consistency in answers, especially FAQs
⦿ Self & Team Notes
Agents can add private notes to the chat conversations for their own reference or other agents in the team. This allows them to deliver contextual responses to the customers.
⦿ Channel Escalation
Customers can escalate their chat conversations to a higher priority channel or support team in case they are not getting the necessary resolution. This can be particularly useful in handling complex queries.
⦿ Pre-chat & Offline Forms
This feature allows businesses to collect customer information and questions before the chat session begins or even when their live chat is offline.
⦿ 360-degree Interaction History
Agents can access the entire history of a customer’s interaction with their company across all channels, including email, phone, social media, chat, and much more. The complete timeline of customer interaction helps better understand the customer’s needs and preferences.
⦿ Page-specific Chat
Businesses can customize the chat experience for customers based on the page they visit on the company’s website. It offers more relevant support and personalized experience to customers.
How do Live Chat Solutions Impact Your Business?
Live Chat solutions have found wide adoption across businesses of all sizes. They can improve customer satisfaction and increase sales by offering real-time support and personalized interactions. Additionally, live chat provides valuable customer insights, helping agents to better understand customer needs and preferences.
⦿ Improves Lead Generation & Sales
An ICMI report found that for customers who chat before making a purchase, there is a 10% increase in average order value, a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour, and a 40% conversion rate
Live Chat helps you to generate and nurture leads by reaching out to them proactively and addressing their concerns in a personalized way. Through a holistic analysis of past customer behavior on the website, a live chat offer at the right time can inspire customers to remain on the site. When the customer’s mind is focused on discovering the product, live chat can engage the prospect effectively. This saves time and increases the likelihood of conversions.
⦿ Identifies Cross-sell & Upsell Opportunities
The correct use of Live Chat not only helps capture qualified leads effectively but also empowers you to figure out the right cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Integrating your Live Chat solutions with a powerful CRM makes it easier to access every visitor detail within seconds. This enables them to offer product recommendations before the visitor is ready to checkout.
Personal product recommendations tend to impact your customers, and even when they avoid the offer, they might find your approach conducive. This simple act engages your existing customers and prompts them to bring in more business with seamless service.
⦿ Increases Customer Engagement
Some estimates suggest that customer service would take over quality and price as the leading brand differentiator. Regarding customer service, speed is the customer’s number one priority. Live Chat here can offer a tremendous competitive advantage, going by these parameters, as it immediately connects customers with agents.
It reassures customers that support is just a click and messages away. This comfort would make them want to return to your business, enhancing loyalty.
| Learn why you need a Live Chat for your business today! |
Wrap-Up
Overall, Live Chat makes the future of customer support look bright and offers the most significant opportunity for your business to grow. Proactive engagement has immense potential to drive more leads, win new customers, and help boost revenue by smartly engaging customers with relevant and personalized messages at the right time. Consider switching to Live Chat before the window of opportunity shifts.
