You may ask, “Why do I need a live chat when I already have phone support and email contact options”? There are numerous live chat benefits; however, the key driver is that a majority of customers (41%) would rather reach out via live chat than via other platforms, including social media.
Today, digital natives are abandoning traditional customer support tools, in part because there are newer, more modern ways of communication, and in part because those ways are far more efficient.
Another live chat benefit lies in the ownership of this communication channel. If you utilize the latest customer support software, the live chat belongs only to you. It gives you the opportunity to build your brand identity according to your own standards.
Live chat design and support reps’ reactions can represent your company in the best light while providing a completely personalized customer experience. Also, as the only owner of your live chat you can take full control over your customer data security. Thus, why wouldn’t you add this fantastic support tool?
Let’s discuss the top live chat benefits in a greater detail!
1. Brand Personalization
Having a Facebook and LinkedIn presence for your customers is certainly relevant, but not the highest live chat benefit. Your customers are on social media and you should absolutely be there; however, your website is your brand identity.
Your website is the true representation of your company. In other words, it is an online image of your organization, your virtual office, or company building, so it needs to look spotless as well.
If you operate in the e-commerce industry or you provide online-only services, then your website appearance is of the highest importance. During the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, your online reputation has become even more relevant, as your customers will likely shop online for your product or at least check digital, contactless options first.
On your website you can put your agent’s picture or add a logo that will be only visible to your customers, which can help to streamline brand personalization.
Here, your support reps communicate according to your rules, leaving no space for delivering unbranded information. Social media just doesn’t offer the same level of brand customization.
2. Better Customer Support Management
With the right customer support software, your live chat experiences are easier to track. You can increase the quality of the overall interaction and solution processes by assigning a certain customer request to the most qualified support rep.
In doing so, you can increase your support team’s efficiency while reducing the downtime and churn rate. With chat transcripts, you can determine whether your rep did a good job or if there are certain practices that need to be improved so they don’t repeat the same mistakes.
Not only do your customers like trendy support channels, but your support reps prefer them too. Live chat makes the whole conversion less dull and repetitive, and it allows them to communicate in a more informal and casual manner.
For instance, using emojis creates a more friendly vibe, thereby deepening the relationship with your customers in a pleasant atmosphere. This will only further increase their motivation to deliver superb work over time. And we all know that working in a customer support department can be quite stressful.
Consider that while on the phone, your agent can’t even try to multitask with talking to two customers at the same time. As such, the waiting queue increases rapidly. Conversely, while on live chat agents can juggle between five or more customers with a similar problem while following your company’s best practices and procedures. How many work and customer hours can you save with this live chat benefit?
3. Trendy Human-Like Communication
Industry leaders such as Betterment, an online financial advisor, and Canyon, a global bicycle business, have already recognized the live chat benefits. These early adopters set the customer support standards in the business world.
Betterment utilizes proactive targeted chat invitations to engage with top-tier clients who signed up for their platform, which helps them to increase their credibility and client trust at the same time. Canyon has established automatic language translations to help their support reps communicate with customers around the globe, regardless of what language they speak. On that note, customers who don’t proficiently speak your language would rather use chat than struggle to converse over the phone.
These key market players formed the expectations of your customers, who would like to chat quicker using the latest tech advancements instead of opting for a phone call. This is especially the case, as you may assume, with younger generations such as Millennials and Gen-Zers, who grew up chatting on various messaging platforms. Making a phone call is a thing of the past. Thus, to stay competitive, you need to embrace the newest solutions as products of the customer support evolution.
Despite its decrease in popularity, it’s important to learn from what initially worked for the phone call option: it has a human-like quality which makes the whole conversation more trustworthy. Now the live chat capability is taking over that role, enabling people to have a modern support conversation with a human touch.
4. 24/7 Support
Another point of contrast with the previously popular phone call is that live chat is always there! It offers the ability to have support reps from different time zones, creating 24/7 support. However, if you don’t want round-the-clock staff then the more appealing option may be to have a live chat with an email option.
This will send your customers a live chat request in the form of a ticket if the request is outside of working hours and your customers will be assured that their questions will be answered as soon as possible. You can also, in that situation, send them to browse through your helpcenter where they may be able to find the answers they need. How great is that? Of course, you need an all-in-one customer support software to make that happen!
5. Makes Customers Happier
Keep in mind that a personalized customer experience is preferable among almost everyone, or precisely 80% of customers! Live chat enables exactly that. With the customer pre-chat surveys and easily accessible customer history, your support reps can tailor the conversation to your customers’ specific needs and desires. Additionally, it solves customers’ main support frustrations that have plagued them for years.
Live chat is a winner in terms of:
- Speed: Today, 79% of customers want immediate live chat answers and not to be left hanging by someone not picking up the phone.
- Anonymity: Live chat is the only channel that guarantees complete anonymity. Due to email and phone number recognition that require more formality, customers often avoid contacting you, which eliminates the possibility for potential cooperation.
- Inclusivity: Discrimination is present everywhere, even in the customer support industry. However, with the live chat anonymity, everyone has a chance to get the same treatment regardless of their social position, which increases the chance to successfully broaden your customer base and make your brand more socially responsible.
- Price: Phone calls can come with a hefty price, especially if you call internationally, while live chat has the same one-time monthly cost.
- Multimedia friendliness: Some issues can’t be explained only by words, therefore having a live chat where you can upload documents of different formats, such as screenshots or PDFs, can be of great help for both support agents and customers.
- Device use: A society shaped by smartphones demands communication channels that are available on tablets, phones, and PCs… like live chat!
Therefore, it is not a surprise that customer satisfaction positively correlates with live chat usage! Moreover, chat-friendly companies report customer satisfaction rates of over 90%!
6. Optimizes Conversions
What happens when you enter a traditional store? An employee often greets you and lets you know they are there in case you need any sort of help. Live chat does exactly the same thing in the digital sphere. Plus it also offers many more interesting widgets and answering options.
Live chatis the only communication channel that is human-like, on-site, and in real-time! This should have an impact on sales for sure. In fact, Virgin Airline’s case study revealed that live chat can skyrocket your sales! When comparing live chatters to emailers, they discovered that live chatters have a 3.5% higher conversion rate. Similarly, they found that chatters have a 15% higher order value!
Would you like to achieve the same results? Conversion rate is an important customer support KPI and forgetting to track it only leads to investment wastage.
7. Cuts Costs Drastically
If you create a YouTube commercial with Angelina Jolie, you will probably increase your sales. However, you won’t reach the optimal profit level because her endorsement is probably very costly. On the other hand, if you add a customer support software with a live chat feature, you can increase your customer support profit drastically as it costs 20%-50% less than a regular phone call according to a Forrester study. Amazing, right? We can all be grateful for today’s software tech that can help us halve our company costs.
8. Collects Data Effectively
The next live chat benefit is golden! Customer data is the most expensive commodity nowadays and live chat helps you easily collect it! It allows you to capture basic customer data ,such as their names and locations, to help you build basic customer profiles for better service. For instance, if your customer is in Australia, you can instantly inform them about the shipping options or surprise them with targeted upselling options!
9. Highest Security
Cybersecurity is a must-have! In 2020 alone there was a 236% increase in data breaches in Q1 compared to Q1 in 2019. While this uptick was mostly due to the pandemic, it proves that hackers have started using more sophisticated tools and that you need to improve your data safeguarding measures.
Having a private cloud that allows you complete control over your database may be a great option. However, having a live chat with a private cloud may be even better! Emails are the hackers’ main targets as customers most often keep valuable data there. With live chat, you can prevent email security risks because everyone will chat only inside your cloud base. With Helpy, even your software company can’t access your customer data, which gives the highest cybersecurity possible!
10. Success Analysis
None of your customer support efforts matter if you can’t measure them. In the data-driven business arena, tracking certain customer support KPI’s is absolutely necessary. An effective live chat will have a built-in analytics feature where you can see your customer satisfaction score and response time. Helpy can assist you to aggregate these numbers and deliver an overall customer satisfaction score. You’d probably like to see higher and higher revenue, so it’s better not to leave anything to chance.