Are you looking for a way to improve your customer service and take your business to the next level? If your answer is yes and you don't have live chat customer service yet, you need one right now.
Live chat customer service is exactly what it sounds like. It's a way for your customers to chat with your business in real-time, typically through a chat window on your website. Calling a customer service hotline or sending an email can take time. With live chat customer service, your customers can immediately get the help they need while browsing your site.
Can live chat customer service help your businesses? Yes. For starters, It lets you interact with your customer in real-time. If your customer has a question, they can get an immediate response from you, and you can address it right away. Your response speed improves the overall customer experience and increases the likelihood of a sale or conversion.
Live chat customer service is a great way to improve your customer's experience, increase your sales and conversions, and streamline your customer service process. In the following sections, we'll discuss how to implement live chat in your business and make the most of its benefits. Stay tuned!
Here are seven benefits of using live chat customer service for your business:
1. Live chat offers real-time engagement
As mentioned earlier, live chat allows for real-time engagement with customers. If your customer has a question about a specific product, they can get an immediate response from you or your chat agents and have it addressed immediately. You can make your customers happy and increases the likelihood of a sale or conversion.
Image taken from Strikingly
2. Live chat customer support improves customer retention and loyalty
Customers who feel they can easily and quickly get the help they need are more likely to trust you. They will stick around and continue doing business with you. Plus, live chat customer service can help build customer trust and credibility, leading to repeat business.
3. Live chat customer support is cost-effective
Live chat is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional customer service channels like phone and email. It doesn't require dedicated phone lines or hardware and can be easily integrated with your existing systems and software, even your website.
4. Live chat increases efficiency and productivity
Live chat customer service allows your customer service agents to handle several live chat conversations simultaneously, making it a more efficient use of their time than traditional channels. Depending on your live chat platform, chat logs can provide your business with valuable customer data and feedback that can help improve your business.
5. You can offer 24/7 chat support
With live chat customer service, your customer service team doesn't have to be available 24/7, but your customers can still reach out to you whenever they need help. On your chat box, they can leave a question, and a bot can inform them that you've received their message and will you'll get back to them in a few hours. Of course, it would be best if you have an actual 24/7 chat support agents online to respond to your customers--like Strikingly does.
6. It's easier to offer multi-language support with live chat
Customer service reps can communicate with customers in multiple languages, which can help to expand your business and reach new customers.
7. Live chat support is easy to personalize
Customer service reps can learn more about individual customers and their needs via chat, leading to more personalized and effective customer service. It also leads to more human-like communication as compared to automated bots.
Live chat customer service is a powerful tool that can help businesses of all sizes improve customer service and grow their business. It's cost-effective and efficient. It can also increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can help drive sales and conversions.
The Importance of Good Customer Service
Good customer service is important. According to Salesforce, 52% of customers will abandon online purchases if they can't find the information they're looking for. But more than that, it can also impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.
When customers feel like they're being taken care of and their concerns are being addressed in a timely manner, they're more likely to be satisfied with your business and continue doing business with you. On the other hand, poor customer service can lead to unhappy customers and lost business. Remember, happy customers tell 4-5 of their friends about their experience, while dissatisfied customers tell 9-10 people about their bad experience.
You also build trust and credibility with customers by offering good customer service. Additionally, good customer service can lead to positive word-of-mouth marketing, bringing in new customers, and retaining old customers.
Grow Your Business with Live Chat Customer Service
Image taken from Strikingly
Good customer service should be part of your business' DNA. Today, it's not enough to have a great product--you should also have the best customer service to grow your business. Meeting your customers' needs is just as important to your business growth.
- Increase sales and conversions through real-time engagement
One of the most significant benefits of live chat customer service is increasing sales and conversions through real-time engagement. By providing your customers with immediate assistance and answering their questions or concerns in real-time, you're more likely to convert them into paying customers. Plus, live chat allows your customers to ask questions and get clarification when needed, which can help overcome any objections and increase the likelihood of a sale or conversion.
- Improve customer retention and loyalty
It costs more to acquire customers than retain your current customers. Providing good customer service is even more important for small businesses with limited budgets and resources. You simply can't afford churn. The U.S. Small Business Administration reports that 68% of customers leave because they're upset with the treatment they've received. Offering fast, helpful customer service is critical to retaining customers. Not to mention that happy customers and word of mouth can also be some of the most influential drivers for new business.
- Improve the products and services you offer
Your frontline agents are your crucial link to the outside world. Your customer service reps talk to your actual customers all the time, unlike your product management team or marketing teams. If you have a great CRM system, you have a huge source of customer data right at your fingertips. You can learn how your customers interact with your product and when and where they're having problems. You can create great product decisions when you have these types of data.
The chat logs can provide valuable insights into customer needs, concerns, and feedback which can help improve your business and tailor your marketing and sales strategy. With live chat, you can collect data on customer demographics, purchase history, and preferences, which can help you better target your marketing efforts and increase sales.
If you train your customer service reps well, you can also see what modifications and improvements your customers would like to see on your product. Insights from your customer service are very crucial in every aspect of your product decisions.
- Increase efficiency and productivity for customer service teams
Live chat customer service can also increase efficiency and productivity for your customer service teams. Good customer service reps can handle several live chat conversations simultaneously, which is a more efficient use of their time than traditional channels, like a phone. For example, customer service representatives can speak to 3-5 customers at the same time versus a one-on-one conversation with your customer rep and your customer over the phone.
Implementing Live Chat in Your Business
There are several steps involved before you chat with customers. You need to have the right live chat software to chat with customers, and train your customer service reps so their tone and handling match your brand values. To achieve this, you need to set up a quality assurance, and training process that will guarantee your visitors receive consistent, high-quality service.
Obviously, you need to set up key metrics to measure the success of live chat. Failure to measure your key metrics will render all your quality assurance and training process moot.
A. Choose the right live chat software
When choosing the right live chat software, there are a few things to consider.
First, you'll want to ensure that the software is compatible with your website and any other systems you already use. It's also crucial to consider different software features like automatic greetings, away messages, and the ability to transfer chats to different representatives. Additionally, you'll want to consider the pricing and how it fits into your budget. It's worth trying out a free trial or demo to see if it works well with your team and customers.
B. Train customer service representatives to use live chat effectively
Image taken from Strikingly
Once you've chosen your live chat software, it's time to train your customer service representatives on how to use it effectively. Specifically, you need to train them on the following:
- How to use your live chat software
- How to handle common customer questions and concerns
- How to handle customer complains and angry users
- How to handle product suggestions or requests
- Handling multiple chats simultaneously
- How to multi-task
- Any company service policy and guidelines, including refunds (if applicable)
During your training, you can provide your customer service representatives with examples and role-playing exercises to help prepare them for actual customer chats.
C. Integrate live chat with other customer service channels
Integrating live chat with other customer service channels you already have, such as email and phone, is also essential. You should provide your customers with several channels to reach out to you through the channel they prefer. Your customer service reps should be allowed and know how to switch between channels as needed to assist your customer best. Integrating live chat with your CRM system can also help you track customer interactions and purchase history.
D. Create a customer service policy and guidelines for live chat interactions
Finally, creating a customer service policy and guidelines for live chat interactions is essential. You should include information on how to handle common customer concerns and questions and how to handle difficult and demanding customers.
It would help if you also established guidelines for chat escalation and the transfer of chats to different representatives. More than that, you must ensure that the policy is easily accessible to the customer service reps and is updated regularly to align with your company's changing needs.
Add Live Chat to Your Strikingly Website
Strikingly's live chat feature is great for interacting with your website visitors. Using Strikingly's live chat feature, you can also engage with potential customers and encourage them to purchase or sign up for your service. Additionally, you can use the feature to gather customer feedback and use it to improve your products or services--just like any live chat tool would.
You will first need to log in to your Strikingly account to activate the live chat feature on your Strikingly website. Once logged in, go to the "Settings" tab in the sidebar. Under the "Settings" tab, you will find the "live chat" option. Click on it, and then you will be taken to a page where you can set up and customize your live chat feature. Note, though, that you need to have an Audience Plan to activate live chat.
If you're having issues setting up live chat, you can chat with Strikingly's Happiness Officers. They are available 24/7 and were rated as the best among their website builder competitors.
Image taken from Strikingly
Alright, let's wrap things up with a quick conclusion on live chat customer service.
We've covered a lot of ground in this post, but to sum it up, live chat customer service is a powerful tool that can help businesses of all sizes improve customer service and grow their business. It allows for real-time engagement, building trust and credibility, availability 24/7, multi-language support and personalization, cost-effectiveness, increased efficiency and productivity, and the potential to gather valuable customer data and feedback.
If you haven't already, you should consider implementing live chat customer service for your business. It's a cost-effective and efficient way to improve customer service and drive sales and conversions. Plus, it can help build customer trust and credibility, leading to repeat business.
If you're ready to take your customer service to the next level and grow your business, why not give live chat a try? It's easy to implement and can make a big difference in how you serve your customers. Don't wait any longer. Start looking into live chat software options and see how they can help your business.
