Consumers want to live chat, voice, email and social means to interact with a company and its support team – and they still expect each to deliver a personalized experience. A whopping 75% of them expect a consistent experience wherever they engage, reports Salesforce.
Today’s consumers have busy lives and would rather not spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to get their matters resolved. Hence, it’s crucial for live chat agents to provide solid resolutions during the initial interaction.
While offering as many channels – including live chat – to communicate as people demand is essential, it’s probably more critical that the communication between the support team and the customer is agile and seamless.
For instance, when customers contact you via email, then choose live chat to follow up, reps need to know what they requested/asked during the previous engagement, what’s pending as a resolution, and what expectation the customer currently else.
They can then manage the follow-up chat in the most suitable way. You can assign messages for clear ownership of every conversation, or even use rules to have them routed automatically.
For instance, if someone emails your support agent inquiring about your live chat availability, you can route the message toward your live chat rep.
Your reps should be able to determine their next steps immediately through shared drafts and real-time comments – not confusing inbox threads. Reps should also use the options to snooze messages for later and create a response time limit, so you never forget to follow up with a customer.
At a glance, live chat reps get the ability to see what was asked for, discussed or if any special circumstances need to be mentioned in the future. This helps them provide a far more tailored and personal experience to the consumer.
Final Thoughts
Your live chat support team is the sounding board of your customer experience. They hear it all, and they hear it every day. While your agents hear the same complaints repeatedly, for customers, this is important and it is personal. The impersonal nature of live chat makes it easy for us to neglect this.
Train your reps not to be reactive. Instead, cut down the wait, communicate in an authentic tone, empower the team and then take a proactive stance towards merging your support channels. Efforts like these will pay off in dividends in the long run.
