How to Deliver Personal Customer Service Online

Online customer service whether it is delivered via live chat or help desk lacks some important things that make communication personal. I am speaking about eye contact, voice tone and body language. Still there are few things that will help you deliver personal customer service.

 

1. Use photos and real names of your agents.

I hope you agree that chatting to a Service_Agent_003 makes you feel like you are talking to a robot. And you do not expect personal customer service from a robot, do you? If you are using HelpOnClick live chat on your website with such nicknames, just go to the admin panel, click on Admin tab > Setup > Operators, double click on operator, edit the names and upload photos. This small change will make your chat representatives sound human and create better personal customer service impression.

Personal customer service

Personal customer service

2. Avoid promotional tone.

When a visitor asks you to tell about a product, the worst thing you can do is to come out with the complete product description as it states on your website. Even if you have added a shorter description to canned messages, this will not help you to sound natural. If you have ever experienced such a situation in a regular store, you might remember that it feels like an assistant does not care about your needs and you get bored and start yawning quite soon.

When we talk about online stores, you can be pretty sure, that the website visitors have already gone through at least basic product description, and they will not be happy with your quick standard reply. If they ask for your assistance, they definitely have a few particular questions and your first priority is to find them out.  Do not be afraid to ask questions to provide better help. Your customer service can be personal only if you address visitors’ particular questions, not just provide quick general replies.

 

3. Mind what a visitor asks, not what you want to tell.

Again I would like to mention using canned messages. It is very appealing to create one-fit-all replies to common questions and use them as they are. Let’s take an example. You sell software that is localized to several languages, for example, it can be used in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. I can expect that for faster help you will create a standard message that names all the supported languages. Let’s look at possible script now.

 

Variant 1:

Visitor: Does your software support Spanish?

You: ‘Our brand’ software supports English, Spanish, French, German and Italian for now. And more languages will be added next month.

 

Variant 2:

Visitor: Does your software support Spanish?

You: Yes, it does support Spanish.

 

Which one sounds more personal? To me it is the second one, because it addresses the visitor’s particular question. In the first variant we have used a quick canned message as it is, and provided excessive information, that the visitor is not interested in.

 

These tips will help you add personal touch to your customer service and deliver great experience to your customers. What other methods do you use in your service? We will be glad to discuss it in the comment below.