Chat support is a way to provide help to customers without having to speak to them on the phone, it is popular because it’s fast and easy to use, plus, it’s a way to provide help to customers from anywhere in the world.
Understand the Benefits of Chat Support
A chat support environment is especially useful when you want to interact with customers who are geographically dispersed.
- You can use chat to communicate with customers in remote locations.
- You can also use chat to communicate with customers who are traveling if you have a business that serves customers from different areas around the globe.
- You can use chat to communicate with your customers.
Chat is especially useful for one-on-one customer conversations, with chat, you can easily communicate with customers who have specific needs, for example, you can use chat to communicate with customers who are looking for information about a product.
Or, you can use chat to communicate with customers who have a complaint about a product or service, in these situations, you can use chat to solve specific customer needs and resolve specific customer complaints.
Prepare Your Chat Environment
A chat environment isn’t a chat environment without certain key elements, start with the basics, like a workspace and an internet connection.
- You can use a computer or a laptop to chat with customers, if you have the option, use a computer with a microphone and a webcam so that you can communicate with your customers.
- You’ll also want to make sure that your workspace doesn’t have any distracting elements, such as papers and papers hanging around, a distraction-free environment will let you focus on your chat conversations.
- You also want to make sure that you have the right type of desk and lighting, a chat desk should have a comfortable and consistent height so that you can sit back and type.
- You should also have a desk that matches your business environment so that it looks like part of the office.
Your office desk shouldn’t look like a computer desk but your office desk should have a surface that you can use to write or draw.
Your office desk should also have an electrical outlet or a place where you can plug in your computer.
- You may also want to have a channel that you can use for one-to-one conversations, such as a channel on your team’s channel.
Respond to Customers Quickly and Clearly
When you use Chat support, you don’t have the same types of cues that you do when you use phone or in-person support, for example, when you’re on the phone, you can easily glance down to check the caller ID and see if the call is from a customer or a colleague.
Or, when you’re in an in-person meeting, you can glance down to check your watch to see how much time you have left in your meeting, these types of cues are missing when you use the chat, that’s why it’s so important to respond quickly and clearly to customers when you use the chat.
Make sure that you respond quickly because customers may leave messages quickly and, make sure that you respond clearly because customers may ask you questions that are easier to answer with a quick response.
So, don’t spend too much time checking your messages when you use the chat, instead, respond quickly and clearly.
