Our clients love using live chat to answer customer inquiries because it’s one of the most efficient, easy to use, and quickest ways to resolve customer issues. However live chat also leaves clients susceptible to screenshots that can be easily shared online and create a PR nightmare for companies. Also, live chats make it very easy to keep a record of any mistakes made during the customer’s interaction.

Hence we wanted to share our tips for helping you prevent these easily avoidable mistakes below:

1.   Lack of Instant Response

Did you know that the average customer response time after initiating the chat is around 2 minutes and 40 seconds? This means any response after three minutes will lead to irritated, disappointed, and confused customers. Even worse they might leave the chat altogether, which takes away your opportunity to resolve any issues that can harm your company’s reputation.

Solution: Set up an auto-response message that greets customers as soon as they initiate the chat. Here are two examples of auto-response messages: 

1. Hi, we have received your request. A live agent will support you in 3 minutes.

2. Hi, we have received your request. Our live chat support hours are from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Monday to Friday. One of our agents will contact you via email at the soonest time possible. You may also contact us through our email, customer service hotline, or social media channels. Thank you for your patience!

2.   Poor Handling of Customer Support Issues

When customer support agents have a poor understanding of the issue or lack of interest, it can have a major impact on your bottom line. Statistics show that 9% of customers get frustrated whenever they’re required to repeat their issues, which can result in 57% of customers being willing to abandon their shopping carts after a negative live chat experience. Customer agents must show knowledge of the issue and interest in resolving the problem for optimal customer experience.

Solution: Making sure your agents have the tools to resolve customer issues is crucial. The best tool for this is a platform that provides them with live chat support and a ticketing system. This allows your agent to keep track of current issues and have access to the chat history to research previous resolutions to similar issues. Platforms like OneRoute gives your agents the autonomy to follow up with other teams that could help resolve any customer issues with greater efficiency.

3.   Long Waiting Time

A quick response time is not only crucial in the initial response but also throughout the live chat for a positive customer experience. Delays within the live chat can lead to 24% of customers still being unhappy! This delay makes customers feel like the company is wasting their time, here are other scenarios that also make customers have the same sentiment:

• Not informing them how long the search for the solution will take

• Making them repeat details even if its for account verification or to solve their issue

• Passing them off to another support agent that could restart the support process rather than getting them closer to a resolution

Solution: The best way to prepare your customer support staff is to make sure they are properly trained and have efficient tools to solve customer issues. This will significantly improve your customer’s engagement and experience.

4.   Using the Wrong Tone

Questions about what tone to use for live chats are always a concern, should we take a formal or informal approach? While it’s always important to understand how this fits with your overall brand the response we give is NEITHER. When you are too formal customers find it robotic and when you are too informal it comes off as unprofessional. This can have a very off-putting response to customers because 29% of customers find robotic or scripted responses to be the MOST annoying factor of live chat support. This is something to keep a watchful eye on because poor live chat performance can impact retention rates and drive away loyal customers.

Solution: This also goes back to proper customer support training! Another trick is using real names and images of your agents to make the interaction feel more personal. Also calling the customers by their first name can make your agent come off as more professional.

5.   Poorly Constructed Sentences

It all comes down to strong communication skills! Your agents should always aspire to be clear, concise, and direct. This means you should make sure your responses aren’t riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. Also make sure your agents limit the use of slang, use proper punctuation and capitalization.

Solution: Make sure you stress communication skills when hiring your support agents as well as using grammar checking tools in your chat platform.

Summary

When use to its full capabilities, live chat can a POWERFUL tool for improving customers’ experience and the online reputation of your business. Hopefully, our solutions and tips can encourage your company and agents to make big changes in your live chat to impress and retain your customers!