Do What Can’t Be Done by Voice Support with Live Chat Support Services

by John Martine Author

For most business owners and customers, voice support is the pinnacle of customer care. The comfort of knowing that help is just a phone call away is what drives customers towards a brand. Heavy investments are made in a voice support department, which often yields the desired results. But, there are some things that even a fully-functional voice-based customer care department cannot do, which can be done quite easily by live chat support services.

Live Chat: Origin and Fundamentals

Live Chat is not a new-age phenomenon. It has been around since 2002, but only recently it has gained popularity. The main reason why it has shot to prominence is because it serves as a single point of contact for all customers, and provides maximum outreach with minimum of investment.

Basically, live chat support services have two vital components:

Application for agents – The application for agents can either be a web-based interface that opens up as a chat box or a desktop app. Equipped with multiple UI tools, this application allows agents to initiate one-on-one or one-to-many chat conversations. The best agent apps come with important features like canned messages, typing indicators, geo-location systems, keyboard shortcuts etc.
Chat widgets on websites – Widgets on websites are placed at easy to discover location on the webpage, mostly on bottom-right hand side. These widgets can be clicked on by customers for initiating a chat session with an agent.

Outsource Chat Support Services to Complement Voice-Based Services

It would be a long while before Live Chat could be considered a viable replacement for voice-based services, but until then it serves as a great medium for complementing it. To unlock the many benefits offered by live chat, it is essential to outsource chat support services to a vendor that already has readymade expertise in the domain. Some of the many benefits of a successful outsourcing venture are:

Complete tracking of visitors – Cutting-edge Live Chat tools allow you to track the visitors from the time they open the webpage to the time they exit it.
Versatility in the initiation of chat sessions – A quality Live Chat tool comes with passive and active functionalities for initiating chat. Either a chat session is launched as per user input (a click on the chat widget) or by the agent manually. The chat agent can step in when the visitor’s website browsing behavior indicates he is interested. An AI-based Live Chat tool has the capability to inform the agent when he should step in.
Well-framed canned responses – Canned responses expedite query resolutions, thus minimizing the AHT of the whole chat process. But, it is important that these responses are to-the-point and relevant to the customers’ issues. It takes a combination of intelligence and experience to come up with succinct canned responses. Therefore, it is important to use the services of a seasoned professional when you outsource chat support services.
Experienced management – The reason why Live Chat works is because it provides the quickest way to reach out to support. And, it is only possible when the chats are overseen by an experienced management that knows how to push the agents to perform to the maximum of their ability. When you outsource chat support services to someone who has delivered many successful chat support projects, you are able to get the work delivered exactly as per SLAs.