A major advantage of online chat support over the many other approaches used in sales or customer service like phone calls or email is the ability to handle multiple customers quickly and satisfactorily.
Still, you must be proactive if you are going to deal with the inflow of messages without compromising on customer experience.
Here’s how to deal with your day-to-day chats with customers and would-be customers.
The 7 Tips to Help You Stay on Top of Your Live Chat Support
The following tips will help you have productive live customer support chat with any website visitors you meet at any point of contact.
1. Prepare yourself
Most customer reps or sales reps ignore this step. Yet it is the most important tip of all. You cannot respond adequately to your client needs if you are not composed. Preparation starts by doing away with all potential distractions.
If possible, wear some headphones to reduce the noise and prepare any tools or resources you’ll need to use during the chat process. After you’re set to go, you can start accepting chats.
2. Limit the Number of Chats to take part in at once
Participating in too many conversations at a go will not only divide your attention but also make each convo last longer than it should.
Your chat tool should allow you to set a chat limit to your desired number. Depending on the nature of customer support your business needs to offer, you can choose to chat with as many (or as few) prospects as you wish at a go.
However, be warned that tackling many chats at a go may affect the quality of the live chat customer support you offer because that means you’ll have too much to handle at a go on your plate
3. Make Use of Shortcuts where Applicable
Let’s face it, you want to follow the same procedure in handling customers with the same problem, but it would be redundant and time-wasting to type the same thing from time to time.
The best live chat support software feature inbuilt shortcuts that enable online chat support teams to respond to frequently asked queries or send essential links on the spot.
If you like, you can even design standardized responses for the whole team and allow individual agents to customize their shortcuts based on their day-to-day needs.
Shortcuts are also an excellent way to handle multiple conversations at a go. Chats end successfully and much faster when you don’t have to type everything you want to say.
4. Use Visual Aids where necessary
Like we’ve said in the above point, you don’t have to type everything you want to say. Besides, some online chat support problems are better solved with the aid of a visual, e.g., a screenshot. Some tools have a co-browsing feature that can help you solve a customer’s queries without necessarily texting an entire paragraph.
Showing a customer what they need will reduce the back and forth texting required to solve their problems.
5. Seek Assistance when you don’t have a Remedy
There’s no embarrassment in letting a customer know you don’t have the best remedy to their problems, and you’re consulting your team for assistance.
Request the customer to clarify their questions to make sure you understand their needs and gather any supporting info, e.g., screenshots to try following up on the visitor’s problem before seeking the assistance of a team member.
Playing hit or miss can complicate the issue even more and prolong a conversation. You also risk losing a customer‘s confidence in the ability of your online chat support solutions to solve their queries.
On the other hand, seeking assistance will help increase the possibility of coming up with an immediate remedy instead of shifting to phone calls or email.
6. Avoid Multitasking
The demanding nature of initiating live chat means that you will need to divide your attention when handling more than a single conversation. You don’t want to reduce further your ability to focus by taking on other duties like responding to emails while chatting.
7. Do a Follow up if needed
At times, a customer wishes to address an issue that doesn’t have an immediate solution. In such cases, it helps to let a customer know that you’ll follow up with them via phone or email.
However, transferring the conversation to a team member with a solution at their fingertips can also help resolve the issue quickly.
Conclusion
Now you understand that live chatting isn’t just a side activity you can assign to anyone. You must designate the task to specific people in your organization if you want to witness the real benefits of live chat support.
