Customers may interact with a business before, during and after a purchase, whether it is to inquire about the availability of a product or lodge a complaint about delivery delays. From customer support hotlines to emails and more recently, social media, there are several channels that can be used for customers to interact with a business.
One of the latest tools used today is live chat customer services, which makes it easier for website visitors to engage with a business. Within seconds, a customer can make an inquiry and receive a response and there are many ways a business can use live chat support to improve customer services.
Contacting a business outside working hours was once an almost impossible task. Some businesses would shut down during the weekend, leaving customers with no way of contacting customer support.
This has changed today and live chat support has had a lot to do with it. A customer can now have their questions answered at any time of the day, with call centres operating around the clock and providing high quality live chat support 24 hours a day.
However, this level of availability is not just about convenience. Accessibility is a key consideration when it comes to customer support and a customer or potential customer who can either access live chat support or support documentation at any time of the day is likely to be more satisfied.
The customer support experience is one that any business would want to perfect as it has such a significant impact on the overall customer experience and can either solidify or end the relationship between a business and a customer.
A customer can expect to be put on hold several times when they call a customer care hotline or wait hours if not days for a response to an email.
However, live chat support can be useful when improving the customer support experience, as it is an easy-to-use tool that is accessible and quick. Live chat support services typically answer queries as soon as they are received, resulting in customers who need not wait hours for a response from the business.
This is another way in which live chat support can improve customer services.
In the business-to-business or B2B process, one business may have various inquiries from the other. However, when engaging with the customer services team, the business may find that they are required to repeat the inquiry, product information and support history as they are passed from one agent to another.
With live chat, this repetition can be avoided because most software used for live chat for B2B or B2C allows the agent to access both the inquiry as well as any other relevant information. The customer can easily share images and other information through the live chat software that the customer support agent can review in order to help the customer with their inquiry.
At a call centre, KPIs like average resolution time and first response time are monitored to ensure efficiency and productivity. Call centre agents may also have access to tools and software that allows agents to resolve customer inquiries quicker.
However, customer service agents can only handle one call at a time, which limits the number of customer inquiries they can resolve within a given time.
With live chat, however, the customer care agent can handle multiple inquiries at once, thus increasing their productivity. With inquiries resolved in a shorter time and customers not having to spend hours engaging with customer support, there is no doubt that a business can improve support with the use of live chat for B2B or B2C.
Live chat support is a relatively new technology that businesses are still exploring. There are still many businesses that have not added live chat customer support tools to their websites, which means that any business that does use the technology is immediately at an advantage compared to their competition.
By using live chat support, a business will be offering their customers an experience and level of support they cannot find elsewhere. This improves the customer support experience and increases customer satisfaction.
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