Live chat has become one of the most widely used tools for customer service today. 75% of customers find live chat the most satisfying way to communicate with a business. While using live chat customers can multitask and get assistance without wasting their time waiting in a queue for phone support.
On the other side, live chat agents can also multitask, handle several customers concurrently and this way assist faster and more efficiently. Both website visitors and businesses benefit from using this tool. However, for customer service agents it is important not only to reply promptly but also to stay professional, use positive language, and possess certain customer service skills. In this blog post, we prepared 10 best practices for handling live chat as an agent. Our recommendations are based on the rich experience of our customer service team and the experience shared by our customers who use Provide Support live chat software on their websites.
Start with a friendly greeting
A friendly greeting is your recipe for putting the conversation on a positive track. Just a short friendly greeting can make a positive impression and improve customer satisfaction rate. At Provide Support we offer several ways to greet customers.
- First of all you can update system messages which appear when your customer opens the pre-chat survey or offline form and starts the chat. You can add there a greeting text, information about your opening hours, details of available promos, etc.
- You can also use canned responses and add there some polite scripts for greeting customers like:
- Hi, and thanks for reaching out to [company name]!
- Hello [Customer Name]! Thank you for reaching out. How can I help you?
- Hello, [Customer Name]! Thanks for reaching out. Give me just a moment to read your message and I’ll do my best to help.
- Hello [Customer Name]! Let me quickly read your message and I’ll do my best to help.
- You can type your greeting manually, making it personal. To avoid mistakes in spelling your customers’ names you just need right click on the chat room tab in your agent app and select the option “Copy Nickname”, then paste it into your greeting.
Avoid spelling mistakes
Spelling mistakes create an atmosphere of unprofessional assistance. They spoil the impression of the conversation and reduce the customer satisfaction score. To avoid spelling mistakes, Provide Support offers a spell checker and the ability to edit and delete messages sent in chat by agents. The spell checker supports various languages and will underline misspelled words. However, if you have already sent a misspelled word, you can edit or delete the whole message.
Respond promptly
A customer’s response time is a key metric that can directly impact customer satisfaction and the way the brand is perceived. Prompt replies foster positive relationships with customers and can enhance retention rates. On the other side, delayed response times can damage trust and loyalty, potentially leading to lost sales. 90% of customers consider instant customer service crucial or very important. Thus, for live chat customer service, it is important to accept chats without delays. In Provide Support it is possible to activate an automated chat acceptance feature both in desktop and browser-based agent apps. This feature will work perfectly for live chat workflows with round-robin and random chat distributed methods. For the “To All” chat distribution method where chats are directed to all agents and any of them can accept, auto accept chats feature will not work well and will create a mess instead.
Use positive language
Positive language helps to make customer relationships stronger, improve customer satisfaction, and make customers feel valued. Certain phrases can either make or break the whole impression of interaction with a live chat agent. Check our list of the most powerful phrases in customer service.
Keep the conversation personalized
To keep your live chat conversation personalized you need to tailor your responses to the preferences and context of the person you are chatting with. Here are a couple of tips which will help you to achieve this:
- Show your interest
- Call your customer by name
- Share relevant information
- Be polite and empathetic
With Provide Support live chat service, you can collect important information about your customers with the help of a pre-chat survey or pass from your database if your users have accounts on your website.
Stay professional
Staying professional is crucial for live chat communication. It’s not just about avoiding the usage of informal language and abbreviations. To be professional you need to remain calm in any situation, show empathy and understanding, be clear and concise, and stay on topic.
Be careful with canned responses
If you overuse canned responses your live chat conversations may look robotic and lose their personal touch. However, you can use quick replies to send short instructions, share links, or give answers to the most frequently asked questions. With Provide Support live chat service agents can create canned responses directly from the agent app. Such responses will be available only to the agent who created them. This helps develop an individual approach for each agent. At the same time, canned responses can be created on company and department levels. In this case, they will be available to all agents in the company or department.
Invite experts if you need assistance
Being transferred is quite a painful and unpleasant experience for many customers. If they realize that they are being transferred, they prepare for a long problem-solving process and the necessity to explain their issue several times.
In Provide Support live chat agents can invite their co-workers to an existing chat or a supervisor can join any chat with a click and assist customers further. In this case, the agent who joined the chat will see the whole history and will be able to get into the swing of things rather quickly.
Ask to leave feedback
Feedback is an important part of any customer service workflow. It helps to improve customer service and product quality, analyze customer expectations, and build customer loyalty. In live chat, the best way to ask for feedback is to offer a post-chat survey with scores and the ability to leave a comment.
Don’t forget to follow up
Regular follow-ups help to build relationships with customers and win their loyalty. Follow-ups can be very useful for problem-solving cases to ensure the issues have been solved or to gather customer feedback about their experience. At Provide Support we normally send follow-up emails after live chat conversations where customers reported issues or requested new features. A follow-up email or phone call is a great way to collect feedback or just say “thank you” to your customers.
We hope our 10 practices for handling live chat as an agent will help you train live chat professionals who will provide excellent service to your customers.
Olga is a Head of Customer Service Advocates and Social Media Coordinator at Provide Support, LLC. She is a writer and blogger on customer service innovation, customer service excellence and customer support technology.