Customer service has traditionally been handled over the phone or by email, but now integrating live chat is giving customer service a face lift. It’s essentially free for customers and it provides a cheaper form of support since there is no need for expensive telephone equipment especially when dealing with global customers.
Connecting with live-chat in real-time is simple. There are two text boxes; one to type intended responses and another box to receive replies. What a great way to engage customers in conversation with timeliness and informality. There’s not even any worries about understanding agents with foreign accents. It’s an immediate solution, and there’s rarely “on hold” waiting time. Customers feel confident they are receiving immediate help, and someone is actually on-line helping them. Conversations are easily transferred from one department to the next when complications indicate management intervention, and an efficient customer service representative can handle more than one customer at a time. Supervisors can even use live-chat conversations in training sessions and easily oversee multiple live chats occurring at once.
Customers also find the convenience of the live chat widget embedded on a web page an immediate conduit to the organization. There’s no need to look around for a phone number or wait for an email to be answered and returned. The widget is right there, and a customer can ask that burning question the moment it pops into her mind. Who knows; just the thought of knowing that faux fur is the trimming on the collar of that dress instead of real fur, and given the chance to communicate the customer’s thoughts about a humane choice could cement the sale, and at the same time invite customer loyalty.
There are many live chat software solutions available. A business can actually watch visitor activity in real-time to help deliver a higher level of customer service. Chat software can spot location, city, state and country of your visitors. It can show you the key words that bring visitors to your site. Subscriptions are available monthly or yearly, and some software companies are offering a pay-per-use plan.
photo credit: phylevn
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Good article on the benefits of live chat software. The usual form of contact for any given website is a ‘contact us’ page that usually requires the name, email, and phone number of the website visitor.
What owners don’t understand is that many visitors are leery about giving up personal information, especially if they have a quick question. That’s the benefit of live chat – the visitor can click the ‘chat now’ link and engage in a conversation with a website representative without having to give up too much personal info (at least until they’re ready to do so).