Top 11 Live Chat Tips to Improve
Customer Service
The way you provide customer service in a live chat on your website has a huge impact on the reputation of your company. Competent communication with site visitors contributes to increasing brand loyalty, spreading positive feedback, and increasing sales. Poor communication, on the contrary, reduces customer satisfaction rate and adversely affects sales.
Many of our customers pointed out the high level of customer service provided by operators at Chaport. So, today we would like to share with you a few simple rules we follow to improve our customer service.
The first rule of providing quality support is not to transmit your negative emotions to clients. Everyone is facing some difficulties in life, so you need to learn to enjoy simple things. Recollect some happy memories, your achievements at work and smile. Starting a chat in a good mood will help you be calm and confident when a client comes to you for help.
Live chat is a tool that allows website visitors to talk to operators in real time. That’s why customers expect an instant response from you. If you fail to meet their expectations, they leave. Remember that in most cases, customers wait for a reply no more than 2-3 minutes. The faster you respond to messages, the higher customer satisfaction is. Do your best to answer as soon as a new chat is received. If you know you need some time to prepare a detailed reply, let a client know about it.
When working with many queries simultaneously, learn to prioritize chats in the queue. Look through the chats and reply to the customers who are online, then, answer the offline messages. If you see that you require more information to help a customer, ask for it right away. Pay attention to major issues that require some time to be resolved or that may negatively affect other customers. You should respond to such messages first.
Create templates for greetings and answers to the most common questions, and save important instructions. The saved replies feature will let you respond to messages in a few clicks and will be especially useful when working with many customers simultaneously. At the same time, remember that each chat is unique, so don’t forget to add a personal touch to your answer before sending it.
Did you know? This feature is available in Chaport. Sign up and try it for free or chat with us for more information.
Customer relationships should be built on mutual respect. Friendly and polite attitude will help you win even angry and frustrated customers over. While answering messages, remember that you are talking to real people. Ask yourself what you would feel if you were on their place, try to sound natural and avoid template phrases. Greet a customer when starting a chat, show them you care, and thank them for the conversation at the end of the chat session.
Be patient, figuring out the things a client is having difficulty with. Do your best to understand their real problem, ask for additional information. Listen carefully to what they say, even when you understand the issue from the first words. It is necessary to allow clients to explain everything in their own way and get rid of negative emotions. Then show them that you are on their side and you’ll help them resolve the problem.
You are a human, and like any other human, you make mistakes. Whatever happens, be honest with your customers. If you know something is your fault, take responsibility, apologize, and explain what you will do to fix the situation.
Chatting with customers in real time requires quick answers, and nothing is easier than making a few typos. Some of them may remain unnoticed, while others will significantly affect the meaning of a text. Foreign customers may find it especially difficult to understand a message written with mistakes. Remember that a grammatically correct answer is also a way to show your customers you care. Do quick proofreading before sending your message, make sure that there are no spelling and punctuation mistakes and the “Caps Lock” key is not active.
Your clients are talented specialists in their fields, but they don’t know your product as well as you. Besides, not all of them understand the specific terms you use every day in your work. That’s why you should be able to explain complex things using simple language. Carefully observe your clients’ speech and try to avoid jargon if they are not familiar with it.
Live chat has one drawback — unlike during face-to-face communication or phone conversations, your interlocutor neither hears the tone of your voice, nor sees your facial expression, gestures, or body language. Therefore, common phrases may seem rude, and a client can consider your behavior cold and impersonal and get offended even if treated with respect. In such a situation, emoji come to the rescue. They help you add warmth to your messages and create an emotional connection between you and your customers.
Before you close a chat, make sure you’ve answered all the questions of a customer. Ask if there is anything else you can help them with. Thank them for contacting customer service and wish them a great day.
As you can see, the principles of customer communication via live chat are similar to those of face-to-face conversation. However, digital customer service channels have their own nuances. Use our tips to improve your live chat support and make your customers happier.
