Part 1 – The Basics
There are plenty of reasons why you should be leveraging live chat at your company. But just implementing a chat solution doesn’t mean you will instantly reap these benefits. Just like every other aspect of your business, you must invest in this strategy in order to make it succeed.
In this series, we are going to share some of the best practices that keep the Best Support Stevie Awards flowing in the door at SnapEngage. We’re all striving to reach as high of a Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) as possible; you can use this as your guide.
Let’s start with the basics in this initial piece.
1. Agent photos
A more detailed blog post on Agent Photos was recently published, but if you’re looking for the quick hitter version, here are four tips for taking engaging agent photos:
- Smile! Visitors like a smiling face greeting them.
- Use a longer focal length as studies show that they make you look more competent and trustworthy.
- When taking the actual photo, have the light source facing the subject or you will mask the details of the agent’s face.
- The worst thing you can do is have an avatar representing your humans!
2. Response time
You purchased chat to provide your customers with more timely responses at scale, so you should measure your agents against response time to assure a great chat experience for your visitors:
- Individual agent performance metrics are available in your chat application.
- 15 seconds is a good target, but high-performing chat teams average no more than 12 seconds per an initial response.
- You don’t need to solve every case immediately, ask for contact info and let your visitor know you will get back to them with an answer.
- The worst thing you can do is activate chat and not have anyone answering the line!
“15 seconds is a good target,
but high-performing chat teams
average no more than 12 seconds
per an initial response.”
3. Practice empathy
You’re on your quest for that 97% Customer Satisfaction Score, you have agent photos and you are initially responding to chats within 12 seconds – what’s missing? EMPATHY! You are the first line of defense for your company, chatting with customers who are potentially frustrated or looking for a resolution. Take a deep breath and try considering the importance of:
“Be more interested than interesting”
- Acknowledgment: Get on the same page (be more interested than interesting) to discover the root issue.
- Transparency: Let the client know what you are doing each step of the way to set up realistic expectations.
- Feedback: Get accurate information and feedback from clients / give accurate information back.
- Follow-up: At times a resolution can’t be found on chat and you need to escalate additional information. Be sure to collect a good email address from the client and check-in during the process to reassure and further comfort them.
- The worst thing you can do is not care, so show a little empathy for crying out loud!
Follow these three best practices and you’ll be well on your way to boosted Customer Satisfaction scores.
Already doing these things well, are you? Looking to level-up? In Part 2 we’ll get into the advanced best practices that bring home the gold!
