Web chat: 5 tips to boost your customer support

What is a web chat?

A web chat is a format that allows customers to speak with your representatives through your website in real time, making it easy to reach out to you and brings down customer wait time by 80%. Looks like a dream customer service tool, right?

42% of customers¹ would rather chat than talk on the phone because it eliminates the “hold in line” process, and 79% of businesses² say offering live chat has positively affected sales, revenue, and customer loyalty.

And if live web chats can impact a business so positively, why stop at the basic features? Learn 5 ways in which you can leverage your web chat to improve customer support, sales, retention, and more.

1. Quality over speed.

This might sound counterintuitive at first. Customers do want speed and that’s one of the main reasons why they often don’t call. Waiting in line is frustrating for everyone, but so is getting sloppy support because answers are rushed. In fact, 95% of consumers say they would prefer slower support if it meant the quality of help was higher³.

So, instead of putting all your efforts in minimizing the response time, focus on training the people who handle chats. Give them the resources they need to give all answers at ease. Provide them with a database of who the customer is, what’s their history with the company, where to find relevant information – in a paradoxical turn of events, their response time might drastically decrease after all. Also, this doesn’t mean you have to drown in training: there are technologies that align all information and protocols into one screen, eliminating the “he said, she said” effect and giving staff the possibility to prioritize their tasks better.

2. Provide self-service help.

So your employees have access to all possible resources to answer customers’ questions. But maybe, if the customer had access to certain documents as well, they wouldn’t even have to talk to a support engineer in the first place.

By integrating your web chat with AI-powered chatbots, you can design a response flow that gives customers answers and resources automatically, giving them the chance to solve issues on their own without agent intervention. Some examples here.

For example, let’s say your company sells a call recording software and a customer wants to know if your software is compatible with Webex by Cisco and wants to know how the integration works. Instead of having the agent say yes, a chatbot could provide relevant tech docs about the integration, leaving the agent to handle other matters.

3. Be present everywhere.

What if I told you there’s a way to make chatting even easier? Basically, every single person uses tools like WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, and more in their daily life – why limiting your support over chat to your website? By giving customers the chance to reach you on multiple platforms, you’re meeting them where they’re at, making it easier for them to reach your team whenever it’s comfortable. 

If you’re familiar with the concept, you already know we’re talking about providing omnichannel customer service. In this strategy, users have multiple platforms to reach you and they can mix and match them and pick up the conversation where it was left. 

So now agents have to man all these different channels? Isn’t it confusing and time-consuming? Not if you implement a technology where you can manage voice and chats from different channels using just one client: customers will use a variety of chats to reach you, but your agents will see them all from a single screen.

4. Be personal.

All brands have a unique voice that often gets wiped out when a customer seeks support. Interactions shouldn’t be mechanical, but rather operators should do everything they can to make the customer feel welcomed and at ease, always following the brand’s voice to keep the experience consistent. 

Operators should be encouraged to connect on a personal level with customers and be provided with scripts to follow to ensure a successful support case – or you can write an automated script for a chatbot to incorporate in your chat, so not only will you automate responses, you’ll also mould them into whatever tone of voice you want your customers to interact with. There’s no way a chatbot will suddenly decide to change the tone, hopefully.

5. Be open 24/7.

Nowadays, no support experience gets a 10/10 if it’s not available outside of working hours. Customers want to solve issues 24/7, any day of the year – but how can you achieve this without overworking your agents? Automation is the key. 

By bringing automated responses into your web chat, you’ll make sure customers can receive answers at any time of day, even during bank holidays, with no dissatisfaction for either them or your colleagues. Sure, maybe the bot won’t be able to solve any and all issues, but it’s still better than leaving support service unavailable.

Take your web chat to the next level.

There’s no denying that customers are fond of using web chats – even if their experience isn’t always the best. Change the game by providing a top notch automated, personal, and omnichannel service, increase loyalty, retention, and ROI. Get started today.

1. Start your free trial or demo of Imagicle Digital Virtual Agents, ready to be integrated with your chat tool
2. Learn more about how Imagicle helps you achieve your web chat goals
3. Share this post with your company’s decision-maker to introduce the topic

¹ Popupsmart: 42+ Live Chat Statistics That You Need to Know in 2024

² Popupsmart: 42+ Live Chat Statistics That You Need to Know in 2024

³ Kayako: How to Boost Your Live Chat Customer Satisfaction