Web chat is one of the fastest growing contact centre technologies. Read on to get your spidey senses tingling about how it can be used for your business.
Is web chat good for my businesses?
Web chat is good for multi-channel brands and those with a high volume of general enquiries and can be useful for those with queries that can’t easily be answered by FAQ pages.
Well managed web chat can reduce unnecessarily high call volumes and keep down call durations, to the satisfaction of everyone.
Financial services or account-sensitive queries can be tricky as web chat is not a secure channel. First line enquiries are manageable via web chat with the customer moving to a secure, logged-in portal when necessary.
Web chat is still possible if your product or service is complex or requires considerable guidance. We don’t advise using web chat for everything, always chose the best medium for customers.
Why we use web chat for our clients
In its 2014 Contact Centre Decision-Makers’ Guide, Contact Babel reported a 60% increase in the volume of web chats handled by UK contact centres. The resulting 250 million web-based conversations provided customers and brands with a convenient, low-cost forum to give and receive services.
We use web chat for our clients so they can be there when their customers need them, in the channel that suits them best. Accessibility is an over-used noun but is undeniably appropriate for web chat.
Show me an argument for contact centres providing less access to services and I’ll agree not to use buzzwords for, well, a week at least….
With web chat, businesses can nurture customers throughout the lifecycle of their purchase. Web chat provides a proactive, consultative service which facilitates up, cross-sales and identifies any problems for swift resolution.
Web chat is designed to be a seamless extension of a user’s digital activity and, coupled with timely responses, amounts to an excellent customer service experience.
How do I make it work for my business?
Forward planning
As with all aspects of your business, hurtling in without a defined strategy will likely end in tears. You should ask yourself some questions first:
- Who will this new platform serve?
- how will it work and what do you want to achieve?
The latter could be reductions in call volumes, quicker response times, greater accessibility or, indeed, all of the above. The general expectation for web chats is that they are done in real time. If this isn’t possible, clearly state your response times and adhere to them.
Be personable
Tone of voice is vital in web chat communications. Consider a time when you misconstrued the tone of an email or when you fired off a memo in haste and received a poor reaction. Managed badly, digital conversations lose warmth and can mislead – and that’s before we even get on the subject of bad grammar (spell check!!). Select staff for their aptitude in written communication and their ability to present themselves fluidly in your brand tone of voice. A certain level of informality sits well with web chat but professionalism should always be maintained.
Be accessible
That word again. There’s no use having the web chat option if it’s buried in the underbelly of your site. The ideal position will depend on the nature of your site and user behaviour so keep an eye on your site analytics and if utilisation stalls get testing some other options. Make sure the chat window automatically scales to fit every device and is compatible with all relevant operating systems.
Best practice
Most web chat systems store transcripts of conversations so all your interactions should be auditable, mirroring your call recording procedures and giving you control over quality standards.
Get better
Adding a brief customer satisfaction survey to the end of a web chat will give you invaluable insights and allow you to address any problems. Granular information on demographics would also be useful here. Be prepared to amend and update your operational strategy. Our experience has shown us that client expectations on query types and volumes often differ in reality – though we are yet to meet any who deny its benefits to their business and customers.
Get Help
If you aren’t confident in using it, but know you would benefit from having web chat on your site, outsource to an expert that knows what they are doing. This will remove the hassle of doing it yourself. Now watch your customer service sling its web in the right direction, meaning increased leads and profits for your business.
