With millions of online transactions happening daily, mistakes are inevitable. That’s why companies have a dedicated line of support for these instances. Some customers opt to call hotlines or shoot an email, while some prefer live chat support.
Live chat support channels give companies another option to get in touch with their customers in real-time. For instance, users can find live chat on website where they can look for a button showing that support is available. Powering these website live chat support channels are queuing platforms that guarantee agent availability.
What is Chat Support?
Chat support allows you to communicate with your customers in real-time. It is especially useful during peak hours when your customer service team doesn't have enough time to deal with all the emails and phone calls coming through at once.This is one of the key benefits of live chat.
Live chat, a synchronous communication channel connecting agents to customers, is an excellent way to communicate with customers quickly and resolve their problems promptly. It also helps prevent lost sales because potential buyers will get answers instantly instead of having unanswered questions lingering for days, possibly even weeks. Businesses can observe a 20% increase in conversions if they add a live chat on website feature.1
The Difference Between Live Chat Support and Messaging Apps
There are two ways of communicating with the customer: live chat and messaging apps. These can be confusing because both are often used interchangeably.
Live chat support and messaging apps are two different tools used to perform customer support. Chat support is a real-time communication tool that allows users to interact directly with the business through text, audio, video, and photos. It's more personal than messaging apps because it allows customers to speak directly with someone on the customer support team instead of emailing or calling a hotline.
Meanwhile, messaging apps are asynchronous communication tools. They allow users to send messages back and forth through texts or emails instead of having a live conversation with another person simultaneously. If a business chooses messaging apps over live chat, responses often come from chatbots programmed with automated replies.
Live chat support effectively resolves complex queries quickly because it gives businesses access to customer service experts who are adept at answering questions swiftly.
While messaging apps and live chat channels have their strengths, companies opt to outsource live chat support to guarantee 100% customer satisfaction on all fronts.
Benefits of Live Chat
Live chat support is an integral part of any business because it offers customers ease. The benefits of live chat support encompass both the company and the customers—from accessibility to employee productivity.
Accessibility. Live chat support is more accessible than phone support for real-time issue resolution.2 For customers who have hearing difficulties or cannot talk over the phone, their next best option is to chat with an agent without needing external assistance.
Agents get to build rapport with customers. Live chat support is an excellent method of reaching customers to discover their needs and requirements and find out the quality standards they expect from your brand. Live chat support is also an effective way to provide you with feedback from real-time customers.
Live chat reduces introductory questions. Agents can read the nature of the ticket without having to ask for it, thus, making the transaction more efficient and faster. Live chat advantages vary from business to business, but the bottom line is that companies ultimately see how synchronous messaging benefits them in the long run.
Industry Pain Points and How Chat Support Can Help
For most companies, live chat software is the most efficient way to get in touch with clients and keep them happy. However, with the increasing need for live chat support, companies must explore other solutions such as live chat outsourcing in order to keep up with the demand.
Below are different pain points that live chat support and live chat outsourcing can mend as a permanent solution.
- Availability
- Having around-the-clock customer support is essential to keep in touch with your market. Not answering the phone or helping users when they need it is a huge missed opportunity for profits and repeat purchases—considering that 51% of customers are more likely to become regular customers when the business offer live chat support.3
- Workforce
- Customer support teams can only handle so many phone calls per day and agents can only focus on one call at a time. This setup leads to longer wait times, poor customer satisfaction, and lower productivity rates.
- With live chat outsourcing, agents can handle up to 6 simultaneous tickets at a time. Live chat agents can support hundreds of customers daily, often resolving the issue within the first few minutes.
- Customer Support Channels
- Suppose a business limits itself to phone or email support. In that case, it cuts off a significant portion of the customer base, as 41% of customers prefer chat support over other channels such as phone and email.4
Live chat is a great help to both companies and their customers. It's a feature that can streamline your customer service, open new channels of communication, and improve the overall customer experience of your brand.
No matter what industry you're in, live chat can be a helpful tool for boosting the value of your company.
You + Us = Ridiculously Good Digital Customer Experience
Different industries can reap the benefits of live chat for customer service, hence the increased demand for outsourcing. Businesses want to expand more, bringing more people on deck without having to go through hoops—and this is where live chat outsourcing steps in.
TaskUs has been a major player for customer support with over 10 years of experience in Digital CX. There’s a good chance that at least 5 apps on your phone are powered by Us. We’re committed to providing 24/7/365 live chat support on all fronts, so you can deliver a top-quality customer experience.
Our people-first principles and investment in our teammates’ growth and welfare ensure our clients and their customers get nothing but the absolute the best experience possible. Our dedication and commitment to our teammates have resulted in positive outcomes and increased client satisfaction, which has received recognition over the years.
To improve the efficiency of our live chat support, we constantly collaborate with innovative companies and improve processes and workflows so our teammates can focus solely on providing outstanding customer support.
- 2^Accessible Customer Service: Is Your Business Open?
- 3^Live Chat Statistics
