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In the last article we discussed 3 ways live chat can help improve your business. Now we will go over some the important things to consider before setting up a live chat.
• Make a Plan
This means have a guideline for how your chat will work including which issues can be handled via chat and which ones need to be moves to a different customer support channel such as a phone call or handled in person. It also means setting up procedures to deal with both those issues that can be handles through chat and those that cannot.
Your plan should also include deciding when live chat will be available based on peak shopping hours and staff ability. You might have to hire customer support individuals in different part of the country in order to cover all of your site’s peak traffic hours.
• Training
Chat representatives should have expert knowledge of the website map and the products as well as operating procedures to handle any customers service issues that may come through.
This may seem like common sense, but representatives should also be trained in chat courtesy. Nothing can as off putting to a potential customer as mush as rudeness or intelligibility.
Representatives should also be trained in handling multiple chats at once in order to increases productivity and decrease wait times.
• Scripts
Having scripts available can help ease new chat representatives into managing multiple chats at once. It can also be helpful to have a list of easy responses for some of the most frequently asked questions. This can help seed up wait times. But be warily of having your representative’s sound too robotic. The point of offering live chat is allowing customers to talk in real time to real people. You don’t want them to feel like they are just part of an assembly line or lack the personal connection they would get through a phone call. During a chat, the end user should never have to wonder if they are speaking to a real person or a bot.
• Low Wait Times
The appeal of Live Chat is no wait time. If customers are faced with a long queue, they will most like so one of 3 things: abandon your site, wait in mounting annoyance, or seek out another channel for assistance already disappointed.
• Features
Consider the features your chat will have such as the ability to attach images, make the font larger, and offering downloadable transcripts. All of these are important for ease or use, but offer challenges too. It is important to consider not only your target customer, but your website and the products it offers. Some features are important regardless, such as offering transcripts, but others can either make or break the experience.
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