There are many modes of customer service (phone, in-person, email, etc.). But, when done well, chat is by far the best.
It reduces customer effort, increases customer satisfaction and answers customers’ questions quickly. Plus, it’s less costly than the phone, is more immediate than email, and it amplifies conversion by showing up on your website just when customers are about to bail.
The thing is… usually chat is NOT done well—meaning these advantages are rarely realized. As antidote, here are 5 things that chat masters always do to ensure their chats are profitable and lead to customer experience success.
Customer Service Chat: 5 Ways to Improve
- Skip the empty questions. Customers are chatting for answers, and while chat can be conversational, get to the point. “How are you doing today?” and other space-filler questions are usually read as tedious hurdles the customer must endure, rather than niceties the customer enjoys.
- Be specific and reference the customer’s situation immediately. If the intake form shows why the customer is chatting, don’t ask the customer to repeat themselves; instead move into relevant, clarifying questions that show listening.
- Use the customer’s name; it’s a small way to show the customer you care and are focused on them.
- Make sure the customer has all the facts they might not have thought to ask about. This could include information about timeframes, what to expect next, or how to customize the product.
- Tell the customer you’re following up with an email and then do it. This gives your customer a reminder of where they were and gives you a way to add context and value; it’s a win-win. The value you add could be links to other resources, interesting facts about social trends in your industry, etc. The point is to bridge the customer’s initial inquiry to the products and services your company provides.
Of course, your associates can have the best tips and tricks along with the most extensive training but if you don’t measure how often and how well they act on that information, you can’t prove (or disprove) the quality of your customer service. And let’s face it, the world is full of good intentions and terrible execution.
At Interaction Metrics, we provide robust, highly accurate customer feedback programs and customer service evaluations with optimizations. With meaningful metrics and elemental analysis, we remove the biases and other flaws that obstruct customer experience success.
Say hello to get the 1 number you need for customer experience success. Or, just say hello because you’d like to exchange ideas about how to improve the customer experience.
