Live chat has become very popular, but many South African companies aren’t really jumping on this trend just yet. Here's how to know you're ready for live chat, and how to run it without needing an "always on" team.
At INBOUND 18, one of the recurring themes throughout the conference was a shift towards your entire business becoming more customer-centric. INBOUND21 had a similar theme and one key message was to embrace the idea that we are in the age of the customer. So why wouldn't you offer consumers an easy way to communicate with you? This is where live chat comes into play! Live chat enables website visitors to ask a quick question, and get a quick response. It makes it very easy for people on your website to find information without leaving your website or having to wait (minutes, hours or days) for a response.
Intercom, a customer platform helping businesses accelerate growth, highlights that live chat reflects human conversations: “Our job on the Sales Team is to establish meaningful sales relationships, and in an era where nearly every business is an internet business, building those relationships is all about messaging on live chat tools. That’s a reflection of communication habits, with everyone messaging all day long. Just as people prefer to message their friends rather than calling them, customers just don’t want to get on the phone anymore.”
Live chat isn't a new concept. Some websites have offered a chat option on their websites for years, but a couple of factors have made it more in demand and seamless to execute:
It’s quite simple - you need live chat if your customers are asking quick questions on your contact forms or if people ask questions on Facebook Messenger.
Once you identify the need, you will need to find some human resources, or some people on your team who are available for some slots in the day to assist with the chat. I suggest running a trial, like we did, and see how it works before investing a lot of money.
We recently ran a live chat trial on one of our client’s websites for a month and found a willing staff member who was able to manually manage the chat via a free chat tool for a month. This enabled us to determine the type of queries people have and how many chats per month we would be receiving. Our contacts had three common types of questions and we were able to plan the answers we should be using. Using a free tool to test the waters also allows you to evaluate the functionality needed and the scope of work before purchasing a paid tool right away.
I’m happy to say we will soon be launching live chat on their site again and this time we have extended the number of staff members who can respond to questions. We’ll be adding bots that answer those “FAQs” so that it limits the number of questions that need to be escalated to the team. If it works, we’ll keep it activated on the website. If we find it needs further refinement, we’ll pause the chat and go back to the strategy and planning phase to improve the chat functionality and bot responses. Because we know our customers want to chat, we’re willing to use and refine it and keep chatting. Nobody is born ready for live chat - you can't just switch it on and hold thumbs. Live chat requires some setup - and well run live chat needs a bit more effort to set up.
Here are some tips on how you can run live chat - whether you do this yourself, outsource it or whether you have an “always on” team or a “we’ll get back to you” message.
According to Drift, in the past year, 41.3% of consumers said they used chatbots for purchases. It’s a great idea for a team of people to manage the amount of chats submitted, but these conversations should be managed well so somebody is always available to answer consumer questions. Consider bringing people in from various departments as well. If you have a call centre, this is a quick win for the business as they are already trained to answer the questions people are likely to ask.
The rise of live chat means that “call-centers” are becoming more common as you can train and teach these employees to respond to relevant questions about the business. Some of these chat companies charge per chat so the financial implication is low. This could be a great alternative if you do not have an internal team available.
Be clear - bots will never replace human interaction in live chat, but they can be programmed to understand simple or common queries, or hand qualified leads or advanced queries over to the people who can move the conversation further. The ability to only hand real conversations over to a person will limit the number of chats a person needs to manage, but it will also ensure that the person who is managing it manages their time, rather than wasting time repeating simple answers that a bot could manage.
Adding chat to every page on your website could be a huge time waster for a busy team as not all pages require live chat, especially if you’re trialling it, or have limited resources available. Consider adding live chat pages where people may need help or where a quick intervention would add to the customer experience. For example, adding chat to your team page could result in a huge amount of chats requesting recruitment information, so it’s better to add a recruitment form to your website where people can submit their details. Ask yourself what questions you get asked that require an answer in real-time.
Actionable tip: Live chat should be placed on strategic pages where people require immediate answers to their questions.
A major theme in INBOUND21 was showing empathy towards your customers and this relates to ALL business operations, including Live Chat. Understanding your customers’ mood and psychology is essential to delivering the service that they expect. Listen attentively, do not interrupt them and follow positive scripts and phrases.
Personalisation is a trend that will never cease to exist and the magic of personalisation is what builds customer loyalty and trust. Your Live chat can be personalised by incorporating friendly greetings using the customer’s name, and thanking them with a note of gratitude once the conversation has ended.
Remember: you can employ a variety of the above suggestions in conjunction with each other - and see what works. What I really love about digital is that it can change quite quickly - try the chat tool and if it doesn't work for your business, you can simply remove it or change the pages where the chat has been added.
Live chat is a great way for a business to identify gaps on their website and in the market. If consumers keep asking for pricing on the live chat, that's a fantastic indicator that you should be adding a pricing page to your website, for example. If consumers ask for information that you already offer - consider the user experience and that it might be difficult to find that information. Use the insights you obtain to optimise for your customer experience.
<Read: Delight: The importance of extending the buyer journey>
Image Source: Mailchimp
The below table is a great indication of the live chat tools your business can implement. Choose a tool that’s right for your business based on the factors listed below:
Live chat is a great way to communicate with your customers, be helpful and engage with both customers and prospects at any stage in their buyer’s journey. All companies could benefit from implementing live chat as all customers, in every industry, want the very best customer experience - and we as consumers want to connect on our terms.
Live chat is not for you, it's for the customer!
The team from LiveChat said it best: “There’s nothing that says ‘we love our customers’ more than a quick, personalised response on live chat. Transfer the personal experience from a real shop online and start creating amazing customer service experiences.
Want to use live chat to delight your customers even further? Contact us to improve your customer experience: