It has become customary for every multichannel contact center to provide their consumers with different ways to get in touch with their customer service representatives. Aside from the traditional customer support hotlines, companies have also set up non-voice channels such as email, social media, and live chat.
For live chat to be successful, you, as an agent must make sure to carry out best practices at work.
1. Respond quickly and accurately
Efficiency is the primary reason people opt to communicate with companies via live chat. Their concerns and inquiries can be answered immediately; no need to wait for the representatives to respond to their emails and social media messages, and they don't have to waste time over the phone. So be sure to respond within 30 seconds of receiving chat requests.
Similarly, make sure to give the correct information at every chat session. Accuracy is one of the important skills you need to have as a live chat support agent. These, of course, prevents low customer satisfaction ratings and significant dents on the brand's reputation.
2. Be spontaneous and personal
Contact centers normally require carefully worded scripts for better customer support. While these are a necessity, it's also important to know that scripts tend to make your chat replies sound robotic, lacking of personality that can prevent agents from sounding sincere and making it difficult for them to build rapport with customers.
Personalizing every conversation will greatly help in showing empathy and articulating your genuine concern. You don't have to go off-script, just insert a bit of your own personality in every chat session, be spontaneous in your answers, and if possible, express your own emotions when necessary.
3. Use proper grammar, spelling, sentence structure in chats
Always be mindful of grammar when chatting with customers. Misspellings, badly constructed sentences, and bad grammar are not only distracting for customers, these can also affect how they view your company. Keep in mind that you're representing a professional company, so any mistakes you make during chat can greatly affect your brand's credibility.
When responding, always give clear answers and be direct to the point. Beating around the bush when explaining matters can lengthen the chat session, wasting your customer's time and preventing you from helping more people.
4. Mind your voice and tone
Voice and tone are communication qualities that are not limited to verbal conversation. They also apply to the written word in your choice of words and how you explain things. Customers can easily sense from your responses that you're distracted, not in a good mood, or are displeased with them. This results in customer dissatisfaction which leads to abandoned chats (as customers may prefer to talk to other agents) lost sales opportunities. So make sure to sound professional and pleasant when chatting with customers.
5. Avoid the use of jargon
Always use familiar language when explaining matters to customers. Using technical and business terms won’t make you sound intellectual; they would only make you sound impersonal, insincere, and perhaps even a bit arrogant. And no matter how comfortably casual the conversation becomes, avoid using slang and expressions that can lead to misunderstandings. Plus, they might not even understand what you're saying.