Good customer service teams can help maintain healthy customer relationships and bring back any trust that may have been lost due to poor experience. Conversely, a bad support team can have the opposite effect, leaving customers feeling that their money could be spent elsewhere.
Properly training customer service teams to handle the myriad problems that may occur will help customers maintain a favorable opinion of your company and return them frequently. To help you do this, a panel of young entrepreneurial council members shares the best advice a leader can give their employees during a one-on-one live chat training among the more popular modes of customer support.
Young Entrepreneur Council members share their best live chat tips for customer support agents.
Image courtesy of individual members.
1. Read to understand
Read customer questions before copying and pasting from a script. Nothing in a live chat discussion sets a negative tone that asks for information faster than copying and pasting from a script that the customer has already provided in their original question or previous message. Read first and then respond so that customers do not have to repeat themselves. That shows you actually listen and care. – Jonathan Pritchard, MattressInsider.com
2. Put the customer first
I want my customer service staff to have a man-first attitude, and for that we train them thoroughly. The main purpose behind setting up a customer service department is to help our customers find the solutions they need. So our duty is to put people first even though it means we have to go an extra mile. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
3. Be quick and direct
Significant points of that work are quick response and a lot of patience. You also want to work with the staff’s ability to write concisely and clearly. The faster and more direct their response is, the faster they can deal with the customer and move on to other tasks. Customers also appreciate the timely resolution. – Salvador Ordorica, Spanish Group LLC
4. Try the ‘Hey, Gorgeous’ technique
I recommend the “Hey, fantastic” rule to help support staff write friendly and helpful feedback. It goes something like this: If the sentence you are typing can start with “Hey, fantastic” then your sentence is great. If it sounds bad, rewrite it to line up how to talk to someone who is friendly enough to say it. It helps to eliminate any shy tones in a reaction. – Nathalie Lucier, accessible
5. Avoid pre-planned responses
My best advice is to avoid teenage reactions. It is important to sound like a real person who is really interested in helping the customer, and not like a robot. This can be difficult when you’re dealing with high-level chat, but it’s important to take the time to read each customer’s message and respond in a way that suits them. – Syed Balkhi, WP Beginner
6. Greet the customer immediately
Greet the customer as soon as possible. You can follow up by requesting them to provide as much information as possible about the reasons for contacting customer support during this time so that your team can quickly resolve their questions when you return to assist them. When you are ready to pick up that ticket, the information will already be presented to you. – Mary Harcourt, Cosmoglo
7. Ask for feedback
By using your site’s live chat feature, you can improve your customer service by asking for feedback at the end of each interaction. This could be a simple survey or a few quick questions. You may not get an answer from every single user, but those who do answer will give you important data on how to improve your live chat marketing strategy. – Jared Aitchison, WPForms
8. Train for general objections
When we train new customer support staff, we give them a list of common customer objections. I ask team members to read these objections and expect them to come at least once a day. I find that it helps new employees better understand our audience and the benefits of our products. – John Turner, SeedProd LLC
9. Talk small
When using live chat on your website, don’t be afraid to provide great customer service, add personality to the conversation. It is okay to talk short while waiting, such as entering customer information or waiting for data to be loaded. Small changes create a more personalized experience for users, even through a single screen. – Stephanie Wells, strong form
10. Know the product well
I would advise them to know the products or services we offer inside and outside of them. They need to use it regularly, solve problems and solve problems themselves. Many times, the customer may encounter a problem but they are not able to express the problem properly. With the right knowledge, support staff will be in a better position to identify problems and resolve questions quickly and smoothly. – Benjamin Rojas, All in One SEO
11. Treat customers as individuals
My one piece of advice is to consider each person and each situation as unique. So many live chats want to categorize problems into a specific area and give them a standardized approach. Customers smell it a mile away and think it’s closing them. Each case is different, although some have the same problem. Each customer should be treated as a unique case and their chat should be personalized. – Baruch Labunsky, Rank Secure
12. Return the problem to the customer
This may sound simple, but returning the problem to consumers can dramatically improve your customer satisfaction rating. When your audience’s problems come back to them, they know that your team is listening and wants to help them find a solution. – John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC