An Overview of Providing a Successful Live Chat Experience
Live chat is rapidly becoming the contact method of choice for consumers who prefer an online experience over a phone call. For this reason live chat is no longer considered as simply an additional communication channel. Forrester research recently concluded that offering live chat as a "smart move" as more and more online users find live chat meets all of their needs when they need to make contact with an organisation, as it offers a truly personalised and quick experience.
It is widely accepted that live chat improves online conversions across both the retail and service sectors, it also improves customer service, whilst still retaining the ability to reduce costs. Any organisation looking at implementing live chat has to get the strategy right in order to deliver these benefits and more importantly be able to meet the needs and wants of their online consumers.
Over the last 50 years organisations have had the ability to perfect the telephone channel, live chat however is still an emerging technology and as a result needs the appropriate planning and implementation. Just like the phone live chat is also a live channel and just like an organisation would budget for a new phone system, a live chat solution also requires the appropriate budgeting coupled with the support, attention, influence and participation of multiple functional areas within an organization including customer service, marketing, IT and sales. Once correctly implemented, live chat is the only online option that re-introduces "human element" into a website essentially it gives the site a voice, which in turn significantly enhances the customer journey when visiting a website.
Research continues to highlight that consumers not only want, but now expect live chat as a key offering and to form part of their online experience. E-Tailing Group reported that 72% of online shoppers consider live chat very important when buying gifts online. Organisations that have successfully implemented live chat have also shown that prior to the implementation of live chat that in the region of 75% of visitors listed the phone as the preferred method of contact. After the implementation of live chat 70% listed live chat as their preferred method whilst the phone actually fell to 20% a statistic not to be ignored, a demonstration that live chat works and that once customers have had a successful live chat experience, their preferences and expectations change dramatically.
All organisations need to examine closely the ROI they will gain from any project they implement and live chat is no exception to this rule. Statistics show that the use of live chat contributes to at least a 15% uplift in sales compared to those website visitors who simply don't engage in chat or are left alone on the site. Research conducted by Jupiter Research also shows that companies that utilise a proactive chat experience i.e. those that send chat invites out to people browsing the website experience a 30% lift in average order value and improved conversion rates of 20%. The improvement in online conversion alone gives a strong case for improved ROI this is without even looking at the cost savings that are gained in terms of the increase in employee productivity.
The implementation of live chat must be carefully considered, although the implementation of such an application is simple it is important for an organisation not to fall into the trap that it is simply an extra channel of communication or a way or reducing costs or phone calls. Whilst it is true that live chat when implemented correctly can successfully reduce the volume of calls and the associated service cost, its greatest value is only realised when live chat forms part of the overall customer experience within an organisation. Live chat has to be treated as a key tool for communication and on a level playing field as the phone.
This article has already highlighted how closely aligned live chat and a telephone conversation are, when properly implemented, live chat reintroduces the human element into online interaction, significantly increasing the quality of the customer experience and improving customer loyalty.
Where live chat excels in comparison to the phone is through the unique collaboration capabilities such as the ability to push a specific web page to a specific visitor, the ability to push a file or image or even the ability to co-browse and hold a remote control session with a visitor to help complete a form or resolve a technical issue.
Live chat is a real-time experience and as a result consumers expect a high level of service when looking at live chat as a communication channel organisations should therefore ensure the following key points are met;
Ease of Use - Live chat needs to be made available at precisely the right moments of a customer's online activities as well as being intuitive and easy to use a good example of this can be shown on the
http://www.carcraft.co.uk/UsedCars Carcraft site's Used Cars page.
Response - Online consumers expect a fast response when they initiative a live chat or respond to a proactive invite, the average wait time should be no longer than 15 seconds for the initial response. Organisation also need to closely monitor delays within a live chat conversation, different tolerances will apply between a sales chat and a technical chat and a balance has to be maintained.
Relevancy - As with any form of communication from a consumer perspective they expect a quick and concise answer that then enables them to make a decision and complete their online activities as quickly as possible. It is important that an agent has the ability to answer these if not they must have the capability within the chat application to transfer them to a specialist quickly, integration with either a knowledge base or canned responses is also a resourceful tool for the agents to be able to provide accurate and timely responses.
Personalised Conversation - Online Consumers expect any live chat interaction to be able to provide them with the specific information they require, agents have to demonstrate knowledge of who the customer are, what they have been doing on the website, and if they have had any previous conversations. The ability to retrieve this information from within the live chat application is also a key consideration when choosing a suitable provider.
The key to success with live chat is to start managing the channel to ensure the basics of customer expectations are met easily and that the chat delivers fast and accurate responses, it has to form an integral part of the organisations communication strategy and increase value by delivering a personalised experience, via the knowledge of the individual agent and from the past interactions with the end user.