Introduction
Delivering customer service is a multifaceted challenge. You want to develop enduring connections with your clients, but you also want to earn and keep their loyalty and trust over time. What’s more, you want to do all of this while still meeting your company’s financial goals. In other words: delivering customer service isn’t easy. But here’s the good news: today’s technology makes it easier than ever before. Live chat support allows you to provide immediate answers to questions and help with problems within minutes of receiving them, helping you build great long-term relationships with your customers faster than ever before. Here are some tips for using live chat support to keep those customer relationships strong—both now, and for years to come!
Call the customer by their first name
- Use the customer’s name. It’s a simple fact that customers feel more comfortable when someone uses their name and will be more willing to open up. About their needs if they feel like you’re talking to them as an individual rather than just another number.
- The first time you speak with them, use the customer’s first name at least once in the conversation. If it’s not used in your initial greeting then make sure to use it during any follow-up emails or texts.
Why do we care so much about personalization? Because 47% of consumers have left a business because they didn’t feel valued by staff members!
Introduce yourself and your role
- Introduce yourself and your role.
- Tell the customer that you’re there to help, and make sure they know who you are.
- Explain how you can help them.
Anticipate and answer questions before they are asked.
You can anticipate and answer questions before they are even asked. You should always be tracking your customer’s issues, concerns, problems, and complaints. This will help you to You need to understand their pain points so that you can improve your product or service offering in the future.
You need to know what people think of your company before they have even engaged with you. Once an issue has been identified then use it as a way to strengthen your relationship with the customer by providing them with an outstanding resolution experience.
Be personable, but not too casual
- Be friendly, but not too familiar. You may want to use their name in your greeting and again once you’ve established a bit of rapport with them, but don’t overdo it!
- Use their name, but not too many times. This is one of the most common mistakes people make when using live chat software—they’re so excited about being able to say “hi” that they neglect to actually listen for any information from their customers. In other words: Don’t just say “Hi [name],” then ask “Is there anything I can help you with?” That’s lazy communication and will come off as impersonal.
- Use their name, but not too soon. If someone reaches out for help on your site or app and all you do is tell them how much better life will be once they buy something from you without ever addressing what brought them there in the first place (i.e., an unanswered question or concern), then congratulations—you’ve just lost another potential customer! Even if someone has already bought something from us before (and even if he/she has purchased multiple items before), this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care with each new transaction because each one represents an opportunity
to build upon existing relationships rather than merely perform transactions.
Check-in on your customers periodically.
- Check-in on your customers periodically. It’s important to check in on customers at regular intervals, whether that’s daily, weekly or monthly. This can help you see how a customer is doing, what they’re interested in, and what their next steps may be.
- Check-in when they are in the middle of a task. If a customer has just filled out an order form and hasn’t been idle for long enough before being notified by your chatbot. It might not make sense to try and start up a conversation with them right away—it will probably feel like spamming them. Instead, wait until they’ve had some time to do something else before reaching out again via live chat.*Check back on purchases made recently and those still pending.*Customers who have just made purchases or have items still pending are often more open to talking about their experience with your business than those who haven’t purchased anything recently—so use this opportunity!
Ask clarifying questions when needed
- Be sure to ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand what the customer is asking.
- If you don’t understand what they’re saying, they’ll assume that you can’t help them and they’ll stop talking.
- Don’t be afraid to ask them for more information or details about the problem; it’s better than giving bad advice.* Don’t be afraid to ask them for more details about the solution; if they’re not seeing results from their current approach, it’s probably because there’s something missing from the strategy.
Respond to customers as quickly as possible
- Respond to customers as quickly as possible.
You should respond to customer inquiries in less than five minutes. This means you’ll have to be able to give them an answer or solution right away. Even if it’s just “I’m sorry I can’t help with this issue right now.” Anything longer than that isn’t considered responsive and leaves a bad impression on your customers. If your team is too busy responding to other customers, try setting up a separate queue for dedicated support agents who only handle live chat requests.
Step away from your script as needed
Your job is to be flexible and adaptable.
You might have a script, but you don’t want to stick to it like a robot. So what do you do when the customer asks for something that isn’t in your script? How will you handle it? If there are parts of your product or service that customers frequently ask about, make sure they’re covered in your script. You don’t want customers thinking that live chat agents aren’t aware of what they offer.
If someone suddenly brings up an issue related to their account that has nothing whatsoever to do with the specific conversation they were having before, this could be a sign they’ve had a problem with something else previously—maybe even more than once! By being flexible and adapting appropriately here, live chat agents can either resolve the issue on the spot or direct customers toward someone who can help them further down the line.
Excellent live chat support will make your customers love you.
Live chat software is a great way to build customer relationships and make your customers love you. Live chat software can help you manage your live chat sessions, track customer satisfaction and identify the best customers for follow-up. It’s also a personal way of interacting with a company that many people enjoy. Since live chat software is often included as part of CRM platforms, it’s relatively easy to implement in your business
Conclusion
Your customers want to feel valued, and these are just a few of the many ways you can show them that. Today, your customer service team has a lot of tools at its disposal for building relationships with customers. So no matter what software you use or how big your team is, there’s always an opportunity to make a positive customer experience even better.