5 Tips For Better Live Chat Experiences

If you’re like me, the mere sight of a pop-up box asking for a conversation is enough to make you run for the hills. Or simply close the browser tab.

Either way, “click to chat” has never particularly inspired me. And, from the analysis of websites that do have these options, it has never particularly inspired anyone else.

Or am I just being cynical? A number of times, I’ve used these live chat facilities of my own volition – I’ve found them, I’ve activated them, and I’ve benefited from them. Almost every time, I can say with conviction that the customer service was excellent.

So perhaps it’s our application of “click to chat” strategies that isn’t working. Let’s look at some best practice, and see how we can actually change live chat from an annoyance to a lead generation tool.

Trigger it, don’t push it

As web users, we have developed our behaviour over the years. When the Internet began in the mid-90s, we were relatively slow and laborious – much like our internet connections at the time. We researched, we browsed, but we were quite patient.

As technology, and therefore websites, have developed, so has speed. The speed of load, the speed of technology behind the sites, the speed of browsers – everything has combined to make our online experience quicker and smoother. Therefore, we’re more impatient. If we don’t find what we need, quickly, we tend to leave a website.

User experience, therefore, became more of a focus as technology allowed for wandering minds and attentions. UX experts consider every aspect of a website, from palette choices to navigation, structure, page load speed, fonts and even choice of words.

The ultimate aim of pushing through enquiries or purchases can often take over a website. Big Orange Buttons (BOBs) proliferated for a while – and many sites still have them. At least you know how to get in touch with the business… but many businesses have a more complex product or service. They have a more complex buying cycle – so obtaining a simple enquiry can be hard.

Pushing out a live chat is delicate. You don’t want to distract the visitor from what they’re doing, so why bring up live chat as soon as they enter a page? If you owned a shop, you wouldn’t have people waiting at the door asking them if they need help finding what they want. Why do it online?

Set triggers for when you think live chat is appropriate. Again, think of the shop – when would a shop assistant approach someone? When they’re showing signs of frustration or looking lost? When they’ve been around the store twice already?

Triggers could be:

• 3 service / product pages viewed


• 3 minutes on the site


• Enquiry page viewed, but form not filled in


• Products added to basket, but purchase not made

Think about your customers first, and put your live chat out there afterwards.

Personalise it, don’t whitewash it

There’s so much you can do with live chat these days – you don’t have to have a blanket approach to customer care.

Let’s go back to the physical shop. If a customer is in the menswear department, would you ask him whether he’s interested in your latest women’s lingerie?

Let’s refine that – if he’s in the menswear section, would you say “could I help you” or would you say “are you looking for any particular style of shirt today, Sir?”

You certainly have enough information online to be able to profile your customers while they’re online, so don’t think that you should just have one approach to live chat – you should have many, multiple options that can optimise the interaction and stimulate a response from your site visitor. People always appreciate the personal touch.

This resource carries a wealth of information about setting up live chat & making it more effective.

Be online, or not at all

Back to the shop. You’re hunting around the menswear department, and you’re desperate to find a pair of brown corduroys. I realise I’m stretching your imagination to its limits here, but bear with me.

You can’t find the brown corduroys, but you’re pretty sure they’re here because your friend Keith always buys his brown corduroys from this shop. So you need help (in more ways than one).

There’s a customer service desk, but the sign says “gone to lunch”. It’s 10 in the morning. There’s nobody around. So what do you do? You give up.

It’s better not to have the customer service desk at all.

The worst thing you can do with live chat is tell people that you’re not around. If you’re not around, don’t leave people with the idea that you could have been around.

Learn chat etiquette

Live chat is no place for vagueness, and is no place for impoliteness – even if the customer disengages quickly without a by-your-leave or a thanks. Ingratitude may be coming your way, but that’s no way to treat a potential customer.

There are three golden rules:

1. Introduce yourself by name, and ask how you can help


2. Respond quickly, with an efficiency of language


3. If you promise to do something – do it

Be efficient with your use of language – people are impatient, they’re using the live chat because they want something specific. So don’t be overly wordy, don’t waffle – get to the point quickly and concisely.

And if you say you’re going to do something – do it. Never break a promise. You are the brand. It’s like the upmarket supermarket whose staff always promise to take you to the product you’re looking for. It’s an unspoken contract – you break the contract, you damage the brand.

Record your conversations

You think Live Chat is the domain of the specialists? Think again – look at the acquisition of Parature by Microsoft Dynamics – what was their intention here? To integrate online customer care into the wider CRM package – and make it easier to link online chat conversations to CRM cases.

Why the imperative? Why did a company like Microsoft spend so much money on a theoretically small business such as Parature?

It’s because live chat cannot be disassociated from everything else. Imagine that you have a regular customer on your site, who has a record on your customer database / CRM, who already has specific products from you and potentially a recurring contract. If they’re chatting with your live chat operatives about a different product or service – how is that being fed through to the account manager?

That’s why the likes of Microsoft and Salesforce are so keen to bolster their products with more features built around live chat. It’s about intelligence. If you’re not recording your conversations, you’re not going to take advantage of the potential business intelligence that springs from those conversations.

Live chat is not much different from personal interactions in a shop. You approach a potential customer at the right time, with the right message, and you maintain a professional level of etiquette and efficiency.

The extra level of business intelligence on top of that is the bonus. You can’t record conversations in a shop – but you can record online chat and you can allocate against customers or prospects on your database, if you have one.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/O050Cn