Live chat is a contact centre catalyst. Not only is it the speediest way to a resolution, it also enables agents to deal with more customers in less time, using less resource.
Indeed, reams could be written on the benefits of incorporating live chat software into a contact centre or help desk. In the interests of brevity, however, here’s the condensed case for contact centre chat.
Single click support
Customers looking to get through to your contact centre don’t want to search for the right telephone number, wait on hold, and deal with a lengthy IVR system. Nor do they want to find an email address and wait hours or even days for a response.
They want a quick, low-barrier option, and that’s just what live chat presents. Customers can contact you in a single click, and be connected to the relevant team instantly. With a chat option, your contact centre becomes more open, more accessible.
Rapid resolution
Did you know that on average, it takes just 23 seconds for an agent to respond to a live chat message? Or that due to its immediate connectivity, most live chat problems get resolved in 42 seconds flat?
Adding live chat to your contact centre means rapid resolutions for your customers, as well as a faster pace of problem-solving for your agents. The result is more available resource internally, and higher customer satisfaction levels.
Reduced call volume
You’re flooded with calls throughout the day. Calls are loud, calls are lengthy, and calls aren’t always cost-effective. Your agents can only speak to one person at a time on the telephone, and trying to multi-task in the middle of a call is no mean feat.
Contact centre chat alleviates that problem. With another instant communication channel available to them, less customers will opt to pick up the phone. Instead, they’ll turn to chat. And with agents able to deal with 5 or 6 chats at any one time, you’ll whizz through cases quicker than ever before.
Omnichannel convenience
Your contact centre can’t afford to be a call centre. The modern customer wants multiple channel options to get in touch with you. In today’s omni-channel world, customers use 5.6 channels on average, and 97% of customers are multi-channel users.
By adding live chat to the mix, you offer optimum omnichannel convenience. For customers with hearing difficulties, or for mobile customers who don’t want to type lengthy emails, or for busy customers who can’t call – live chat presents the perfect channel to get in touch.
Agent efficiency
When you implement a live chat solution, you equip your team with a customer service toolkit. Live chat is packed with custom-built features designed for agent efficiency – features that aren’t available in any other service channel.
We’re talking about things like skills-based routing, smart canned responses, live customer insights, typing previews, automatic CRM integration, and dozens more. With these features at their fingertips, your agents can deal with more customers in less time, with much less effort.
Team management
Live chat isn’t just great for supporting customers. It’s also fantastic for supporting your contact centre team and managing their performance. As well as the visibility of real-time KPI metrics, you can also coach and collaborate with service agents.
Agents can request for chats to be monitored, and receive private inline ‘whisper’ messages. Supervisors can view all active chats, discreetly guide if needed, and view live stats and reports. With contact centre chat, you have all the tools you need to manage your team efficiently.
Sentiment scores
WhosOn’s sentiment analysis functionality enables you to view live levels of satisfaction in your contact centre. As each user types out a chat message, WhosOn uses algorithms to identify mood and calculate a sentiment score.
That means that your finger can stay on the customer success pulse. In real-time dashboards, you can see overall satisfaction with your service. Plus, you can zero in on individual sessions, using sentiment scores to prevent any budding issues or identify upsell opportunities.
Translation
Not every customer reaching out to your contact centre speaks the same language. That doesn’t mean you can afford to give them poor quality service. With WhosOn’s live chat translation services, you don’t have to.
Using real-time chat translation in your call centre means you can give multi-lingual service, fuss-free. Wherever in the world your customers are, whatever language they speak, you can be there to support them without delay.
A long list for contact centre chat
This is, of course, just a brief overview of benefits and features. Contact centre chat has more to offer than we can feasibly list in a short blog post.
To see for yourself, start a free trial of WhosOn today.
Useful links
Embracing the omnichannel contact centre
You need to offer multilingual customer support. Here’s why.