With the ever-advancing technologies available to us, live Chat boxes have become a staple part of everyday life on the web. As customers and potential customers look for answers, they’ll no longer just walk into a physical store or pick up the phone, they are unlikely to email at first too. For many people the first port of call is a company website, where if they are lucky they can get quick and accurate answers to any questions from a live chat agent, waiting to text chat with them about the company service and products.
When used correctly, a live chat function can be a vital arm of your customer service arsenal, providing important and accurate information to customers, whilst maintaining brand integrity and consistency across multiple platforms. Therefore, it should be analysed and reviewed in the same way as you would other areas of your business.
Hiring a mystery shopping service to use your company website is a great way to see your company through the eyes of someone completely separate from your organisation. They can give you an accurate reflection of how the entire customer journey progresses, including how your live chat works. Does it pop up too quickly, or not quickly enough? Is it an addition to your website, or does it provide a redundant function?
Putting together careful analysis of your live chat boxes allows you to build up historical data of customer interactions, response rates and levels of customer satisfaction. Combine accurate real-time metrics with historical data and post-live chat questionnaire responses and you can soon build up an accurate picture of how effective your website and live chat service actually is. There is always an optimum use for your live chat, and finding out what it is might take a bit of time to achieve.
When you have analysed and reviewed your performance levels, you can tailor training for customer service agents working on the live chat service on your company website, change the approach and intended use for it if necessary and ensure that your customer is receiving a consistent service that relates to your specific brand. You’ll understand whether you have enough available agents to speak to customers online, so as not to leave them waiting in a queue for too long. Should you use the live chat solely as a question and answer service, or as a way to funnel customers to the correct sales page and order boxes?
Mystery shopping can take many forms, either in store at a physical location, over the phone with your customer service agents, or via the Internet when speaking to live chat agents on your company website. Each one brings with it many benefits, and customers will likely interact in different ways depending on the platform. Having vital, up-to-the-minute information that is accurate, will help you to develop your customer service online, maximising the potential for live Chat Boxes, whether you are using it to answer simple questions, direct to other areas of your website, or to use as an order-taking service.
