As of today, more and more companies provide live chat support to their customers or visitors who visit their website. Companies aim to offer exceptional customer service. On the other hand, customers also expect immediate and thoughtful service whenever they need. Today, 30% of customers prefer live chat support rather than calling a company for support because live chat can be done in real-time and online.
Having the top most communication channel such as live chat alone is not enough for bringing 100% satisfaction in customers. Live chat agents must be trained to handle clients in a positive and polite way.Though there are many factors that impact the customer satisfaction, the soft skills of communication that every chat operator must have will stand out and help in making your customer happy and respected.
Etiquette Rules for Live chat:
All of the soft skills of communication that a support agent must possess come under one category – Live Chat etiquette. Following such etiquette rules will lead companies to success. Some of the chat etiquette rules are as follows:
Respond quickly
Customers initiate live chat from your website to get support/ help instantly. And that is why support agents must respond in seconds/ minutes to the customers. Around 70% of the customers expect their issues to be resolved quickly or to get clear with their queries or doubts.A study says that more than 30% of customers expect live chat on your website because customers get irritated if they don’t talk to a live chat agent right away while 45% of customers will abandon a purchase if they don’t get an instant answer right away!
It is the duty of every organisation to train their chat agents to respond their customers within 2 minutes of time. Organisations can use this simple & easy communication channel to provide better customer support service.
Let them know you are a human
Use your own image and name.Introduce yourself politely to the customer and set a positive friendly tone. Live chat support software provides you opportunity to create a rapport with customers by maintaining a personal or human touch in your conversation.Do not make your customers feel that they are talking to a robot. The pattern of conversation shall be like:
- Introduce yourself and greet them with their name.
- Offer them your assistance by asking “How can I help you?”
- Do not send long canned responses always. Instead send appropriate answers in brief.
- After solving the issues or clearing doubts, ask if they need further assistance.
- Sound friendly and positive throughout the entire conversation.
Stay on Topic and be focused
Always make sure that you focus on solving the customer’s issues or queries. Do not involve more personal or get diverted from business.
Friendly tone is necessary but being professional is also very important.Whenever a customer shares something other than business, you can respond. But if it is extending for more time, you can simply convey the customer that “Let’s get back to business”. On topic discussion will help you to solve the customer queries soon and also most customers expect that.
Practice Empathy
Act according to your customer’s mood.Sometimes support agents have to deal with angry or frustrated customers.In such situation, instead of arguing with them your support agents should try to diffuse the situation.You can convince your customers by apologizing for the inconvenience and give them some time to cool down. Then,you can promise them that you will take care of the issue fixation.You must be ready to empathize with your customer and make them know that you can understand their frustrated feeling and you are on their side.
Be conscious of your language(Grammar & Spelling)
Live chat agent must be carefully converse while they chat with your customers in real time.Some of the noted etiquette in case of language are:
- Use simple language by avoiding the usage of abbreviations, jargons.
- Every chat chat agent should ensure that they are not committing any spelling or grammatical errors.
- Usage of exclamations weakens your message.
- Avoid capitalized sentences because it makes your customers think that you are angry or shouting.
- Reduce the use of emoji in live chat.Though emojis are widely used to add meaning to business communications, as per etiquette rules emojis must be used only when it clarifies the meaning of your message.
Be Honest and Keep your Promises
Always be honest with your customer.When your customers demand an issue to be resolved quickly and if the issue seems to be very complicated and takes time to resolve, then your support agents must be honest and report the same to your customer.Being honest will make you as an trust worthy agent or an trust worthy company.If you make promise to your customer that you must deliver it on time as promised.