What is Good Customer service? Think about the last time you were served by a business – what did you like? What didn’t you like?
When I receive fabulous customer service I feel elated after the experience, it’s a great boost in my day. Receiving great customer service is an experience in itself. If you receive great customer service you are likely to become a customer, be an advertisement for that business, be a return customer and generally feel good when you deal with that business.
Recently, I experienced a poor example of customer service which I wrote about in my earlier post here. I was quite shocked this type of service still exists from a large dominant organisation in our economy.
So what is good customer service? I believe it has the following 3 main elements:
- Welcoming and friendly – not pushy.
- Prompt and efficient
- great knowledge of the product
Chat2 software can assist your business in escalating customer service and encouraging returning loyal customers to grow your business. Here on some tips on how to provide great customer service online.
Welcoming and Friendly
If you are greeted with a smile, no words just a smile, upon entering a physical business – how do you feel? Normally good and you drop your guard a little. A new customer would like to get their bearings first and become familiar with the surroundings, before being approached by a salesperson. They are more likely to approach the smiling salesperson to seek service.
From a salesperson perspective they are keen to make a sale, if they are a clever they would be reading the customer’s body language to assess the need for immediate sales assistance. If the client had eyes averted, looking around, walking away from the salesperson, then they would read this customer is not ready for client service.
Online web service is quite different when using live chat software. Firstly, you know the customer wants service, you don’t have to read body language signals. So that first hurdle disappears. Though to be welcoming and friendly in the first instance you can’t smile through the website, so you need to use friendly, welcoming words without sounding robotic.
Short, simple welcoming messages are best. For example:
“Hi- hope you are having a great day”
“Hi, hope your feeling great today”
“Thanks for the chat – how are you?”
These could be set up as your initial automatic responses to give you time to be aware and answer the chat. Asking a question like this can set the tone for a positive chat. The chat then starts on an even keel.
When a visitor has sought to use chat as a complaint line, your chat person needs to diffuse this tension to start the chat positively. It is always best to empathise with the visitor first, try and diffuse any anger by saying things like:
“I am sorry to hear that”
“Sorry to hear you are having that experience”
“I am sure we can fix that for you”
“ Let me try and help you”
“I am sure we can find a solution for you”
Remember you always need to keep your tone warm and friendly, so empathy will assist in the client warming to you and gaining some trust. It can be challenging keeping the tone of your conversation friendly in the text form. So always read the message to yourself as if it was coming from someone else or have a canned message set up to assist with prompt warm replys.
Prompt and Efficient
Upon entering a business in the physical world, you want your question, query or assistance to purchase attended to as quickly as possible.
This is more so in the online chat channel. If a customer starts a chat they are looking for assistance. The business needs to respond quickly or they have lost that potential customer. For small to medium size businesses who don’t have the luxury of a room of chat agents, they need to have automatic responders set up within the Chat2 software. These responders are warm and friendly, not robotic, to quickly engage the customer in the chat.
Keep your replies short and concise as your website visitor does not want to read paragraphs on chat, they are seeking quick and efficient answers. Encourage your website visitor to answer questions to engage them in the chat.
If you a chatting with an online visitor be careful of leaving your chat visitor waiting too long in between replies. If you are having to check prices, stock, technical information, let the chat visitor know.
“Just a sec – I need to check stock”
“Sorry – can you wait I need to ensure I have the correct price?”
“Just a moment – I need to clarify information with our technical team.”
They will then be prepared to wait for your next reply. If it is taking longer than expected, let them know ie. “sorry, still checking”.
You need to treat the chat visitor as if they are in front of you – though keeping in mind they can not see what you are doing visually, so you need to keep them up to date. In the instance you are away from chat for longer than you expected, you can set up Chat2 to provide a reply in that time frame, for example:
“Sorry to keep you waiting”; or
“I have been delayed – please leave your name, number and email and I will contact you asap.”
You don’t want to lose your chat visitor so you need to obtain a way of being able to contact them, if you have not already obtained contact details.
It can be challenging for your chat person to answer two live communication channels at the same time. Ideally, a chat person would be someone in the back office who has other duties and are not the first person to answer the phone or attend to customers who visit the business. These chat personnel could be support administration personnel, in areas like sales, accounts, marketing, human resources, operations etc.
Knowledge of Business Service/Product
Chat personnel in your business need to be well versed in the product/service offered by the business. The visitor on chat is expecting the person who answers the chat to be able to assist their queries. After using Chat2 software, you will get to know what your website visitors are looking for and be able to train your chat personnel in the best replies to the questions.
Chat2 will also assist you in deciding what information to provide or not provide on your website, or whether your website is friendly in obtaining information. You will be able to provide links from your website to common information being sought.
Many of us have such busy daily lives, website visitors sometimes don’t want to read pages and pages of website information, they want the information handed to them on a platter. For great customer service, it is ideal if your chat person can provide this information quickly and efficiently, then and there, while the visitor is on the business website.
If you are using chat personnel where their role is not directly involved in the detail of the product or service, you need to ensure these people are well trained on answering queries or have access to the standard business replies from the common questions. This is easily set up in Chat2 with canned messages.
Or if this type of chat person is not able to assist they can always reply:
“Sorry the person I need to check with is not available at the moment, can I take your name and phone/email and I will get them to get back to you?”
This is an opportunity to gain another customer that may not have contacted your business without having access to live chat software.
Implementing these 3 elements of customer service in live chat software will encourage customers to return to your website. If a visitor lands on your website with live chat software, they are more likely to purchase from you, over a competitor who does not have live chat. 79% of these customers who purchase said they purchased as their questions were answered quickly using chat.
Enhance your customer service online with these tips on being welcoming, providing prompt and efficient service, with good product knowledge. Chat2 will engage your online website visitors with great customer service providing the opportunity for business growth.
Karen Lloyd-Collins
CEO
Chat2
