Live chat is a quite popular means of communication between the organizations and the customers where both live agents and chatbots are used simultaneously. There are many organizations that struggle to implement chat support properly and are often treated with less priority than other modes of communication. It leads to customer frustration and fewer opportunity to create customer loyalty.
There are a few best practices when followed properly live chat can provide an amazing customer experience and can be a valuable communication channel. Here are the best practices followed by BPO chat process –
Right Timing
Many organizations give proactive chat sessions and display pop-up bubbles when the customers start doing research on the websites. This is indeed a beneficial strategy to raise the customer experience and awareness using alternative communication ways with the organizations.
It would be more helpful if the organizations display the pop-up chat invitations at the right time otherwise it would be very annoying.
Relevant service goal
The customers who want to contact the call center through live chat should not be made to wait. Similar to the phone calls for customer service and support, with live chat also the customers expect to get instant results. Organizations need to have service level goals set for the initial response when it comes to live chat as the service level goals of making phone calls. A reasonable response time would be 20 seconds against a chat request.
Canned responses to common questions
There are a few common questions from the customers’ end. This is a sheer waste of time for the agents to create different responses every time for the same queries. Some of the questions might include –
-
- How to return an item?
- How to perform diagnostic on a tool?
- What are the operational hours of a store?
- How to set up an automated process?
The organizations should create canned responses for the customers to keep the answers consistent and to help the customers instantly.
Automated Customer Reminder
Inefficient implementation of chat software in an inbound contact center in the USA can make the communication method inefficient for organizations. It frequently happens when an agent is waiting for the customers’ response and other customers are waiting to get a response from an agent.
Customers may get involved in other activities in between a chat session and get distracted and may also leave the chat. The agents, on the other hand, keep waiting for the customer to reply. The organizations should reach out to the customers at regular intervals to assuring they are still available for the chat session. If there is no response within a reasonable timeframe, the live chat session should be terminated with a reasonable warning.
Set Customer Expectations
For a customer, live chat can be challenging sometimes. The customers may wonder if the agents have received responses from them and what activity they are doing. In many cases, the agents might work on the process, but the customer fails to understand what is going on. The organizations should set the appropriate expectations with the customers regarding how long it would take for the agent against a query or a specific question.
Aligning Live Chat Hours
The customers might have questions that are not possible to answer in a live chat session, therefore, it is easy to speak with an agent to resolve them. However, for the customers sometimes it is frustrating for the customer to leave the chat session just because an agent is not available over the phone. Sometimes, the customers might have to leave the interaction because the call center is closed. That is why the call centers should align the chat hours with the operational hours of the call center.
Capture Customer interactions
The customers usually initiate a chat session while roaming on a website. Once a chat session has been initiated already, the customers would not like to repeat the steps. And they expect the agents to have the knowledge of what they have done. Henceforth, the organizations should capture every interaction, both automated and human in a CRM system.
Use Chatbots Accurately
Chatbots play a crucial role in chat process automation for organizations. Some people believe that chatbots are going to be the replacement for human agents in the next coming years. The chatbots still are taking the baby steps and are efficient when it responds to simple and straightforward inquiries. Organizations must understand the restrictions and limitations of the chatbots and should implement them in a way where they are proven to be the most helpful.
With the constant growth of live chat, the best practices of the same would provide the organization to assure outstanding cx.
Being Transparent
The agents of the BPO chat process would be transparent enough when they do not have answers to any query. Everyone cannot know everything. Therefore, setting up a call schedule with a knowledgeable agent would satisfy the customers and make them feel valued. It will also help the contact center to gain customers’ trust and create brand credibility.
Type Conversationally
Do not be formal overly and communicate with the customers in a friendly manner. Live chat is thought to be one of the least formal ways to connect with the customers. Set a tone of communication so that customers can connect in the same tone they talk over messaging apps.
Do not leave too early
The agents should not impose a thought that the customers feel they are not willing to carry forward. Chat often is often taken as less important than the phone calls but when you are taking this customer communication on a serious note, be conscious on it to provide the right treatment to the customers.
The agents should be proactive to communicate with the customers and give their best to reply them and their queries.
