Using Live Chat on your Web Site Responsibly
Executive Summary
Like every other technology, the manner in which you deploy live chat on your web site will eventually define the user experience of your customers and site visitors. If used judiciously, live chat can go a long way in positively shaping the nature of this user experience.
The Tale of Two Web Sites
As a preamble to our discussion of this rather important topic, let us learn what an entrepreneur like you has to say about live chat service that leaves a lot to be desired. Frank Ross is an online entrepreneur with two e-commerce sites. Here is his experience:
"We have two sites hosted on the MonsterCommerce Shopping Cart Platform.
Lately they have been touting their partnership with the Google Checkout system, charging $99 per month to use this service. I was trying to justify this added expense so I thought I would try discussing this with their live chat.
Chat Sales Rep: Good Afternoon & welcome to MonsterCommerce. You have reached the Sales department. Is there anything I can help you with?
Me: We have 2 Monstercommerce sites and I would like to better understand what benefits Google checkout would give us.
Chat Sales Rep: Technical support will be the best option for immediate assistance. They can be reached toll-free at 1-888-252-3266.
Me: I was asking about product benefit, not about technical support.
Chat Sales Rep: MonsterCommerce is proud to announce we are among the first e-commerce providers to be aligned with Google Checkout!
I won't bore you with the rest of the chat session but suffice to say that I didn't get my answer from this individual. I ended up calling their sales group
on the phone instead.
I was reminded of a wonderful book I've read recently called
Waiting For your Cat to Bark?.
It has a fictional live chat passage which is supposed to be an extreme example of a non-relevant chat session. But oddly enough, it happens to mirror this
real conversation very closely.
Organizations that do live chat on their web site - please make it meaningful to the people asking for assistance rather than just pasting answers from
a script. Obviously scripted answers save time, but it helps to read what the customer is saying before just 'plopping' something into the chat window."
So there you have it…live chat that didn’t deliver the promise. Using prewritten messages to answer routine questions is a viable approach to providing accurate and consistent information to your customers. However, they need to be relevant to the questions posed and shouldn’t be automated even remotely.
Ten Tips Toward an Improved Chat Experience
Here are ten self-explanatory tips you could consider to generate a fruitful chat experience for your customers and site visitors:
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Used canned responses that are accurate, relevant and do justice to your chat customers
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Keep the wait time for your live chat customers to a minimum by employing additional chat operators during peak season
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Ensure that your chat operators always log out after their session ends
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Activate Live2Support’s offline messaging system by logging out and check for offline messages in the Live2Support Control Panel
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Train your chat operators to be well-informed, polite and courteous at all times
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Inspire your chat operators to use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation when responding to chat queries
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Develop a customized training program for your chat operators so that their product and domain knowledge is of exceptional quality
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Use Live2Support’s rating feature so that your customers can rate their chat experience
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Use chat transcripts to regularly profile your customer community
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Ask your chat operators to use proactive chat whenever possible to add another dimension to your customer support endeavors
Conclusion
Technology never determines success or failure. It is how you leverage technology that does. Live chat is no exception. If you develop a Customer Service Operation Plan that is of superior quality, customers will not only beat a path to your cyber door—they will keep coming back for more.
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