Thursday 28 November 2013

A Poor Man's Guide to Outsourcing Live Support

Live chat software is now a’ must have’ part of every online company. The companies that are not using live chat suffer greatly. The new companies enter the online business with hopes of making a huge amount of money overnight. However, they do not realize that they will have to work harder to get there. Even the biggest online companies had to work from the bottom to get there.

Do you know the reason behind their success? They paid attention to their clients. They made sure their clients were getting top of the range customer service. They had live chat software, more importantly they had amazing live support for website. They hired the best operators and they trained them until they became experts in this field.

However, very few companies are that lucky. Many of the new companies will have to outsource their live chat support because just adding chat to their website is not going to be enough.

What is Outsourcing?
Outsourced companies are basically third parties that come in and take over your chat services. They handle your live chat on your behalf and ensure that it is exactly what they want. The good thing is that anyone can outsource these services; the outsourced companies cater everybody from beauty industry to real estate. As long as you have live chat software on your website, you can hire a third party to take care of it for you.

The Million Dollar Question: Should You Outsource Live Chat Support?
A new comer will always be a little confused about this decision. Of course, he will hear lots of things about these third party companies and he will be in his right to question. There are some factors that make outsourcing companies like WebGreeter the best in the market. What are those factors? Take a look.

Lucrative:
Outsourcing companies are lucrative investments. Creating your own customer service department can be expensive and a handful. Especially, for an online company, hiring some online company to handle their customer service is cheaper than making their own little department. The new companies will get the opportunity to save money on a rental space, telephone lines, equipment and work force.

Intricacy:
The outsourcing companies can handle any kind of problem. Their operators are trained and experienced in live chat support. Before they will take on your services, they will first gather information about your company and your products. Even if your clients demand technical support, they will be able to handle it without any hitch.

Time:
The outsourced companies take on all the customer service issues coaregioulsy and resolve all the problems from general to specific, in a highly professional manner. The day to day questions of your business can be handled by these people; the email support, the chat support and telephone support will be taken care of by these people whereas your staff can worry about more technical issues. In this way, you will be able to save time and work on both of these things side by side.

Warning: there are many companies who have hired freelancers to provide live support on their e-stores. Such an outsourcing can instead become a loss for you, because their support personal are usually not fully dedicated to a single company at a time. You will have to avoid such companies if you want to give high quality live support to your clients.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Live Website Support -- A Brick and Mortar Store at Your Website

You must be wondering that how a website could run like an e-store? In common people’s view, an e-store is nothing less a robotic website, where customers come, search for products on their own and either make a purchase or quit the site journey without coming into contact with retailers or sales persons. 

However, now an e-store is not just a quiet website with some contents and images; rather live website support has made it livelier by giving a feel of typical brick and mortar store where online customers can establish quick one-on-one contact with support personal.

Actually what happens is, when a potential client visits a website with live support, the online support personal greet him proactively and ask if he needs any kind of help. Using proactive approach, live support agents do not let any of their online clients go unattended or unheard.

Moreover, customers can themselves start a chat anytime during their site journey and can find right guidance at right time to complete their online purchase process. The chat agents provide immediate, real time and personalized assistance to every customers on their e-store. Providing a detailed guide to their customers, the chat personnel share images of the products to give them a more clear idea.

Enhancing the operational capabilities of live operators, live customer service chat allows them to observe all of the visitors on their website. Doing so, the chat support agents can get to know where a potential client has stuck on their e-store and needs immediate assistance. Keeping a notice of customers’ time and locations on their website, the chat operators provide them right assistance at right time by sending relevant text-based messages.

Suppose if a customer is at checkout stage on an e-store, the chat personal will send chat greetings regarding shipping, payment methods and other related tasks. This gives a feel to a customer that his all activities are being observed, same as in a typical brick and mortar store.

Undoubtedly, the presence of live website support gives a feel of traditional store to your e-shop.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Handling Live Chat Support during Rush Hour – Tips To Stay Focused



Online chat support needs to be exceptional. An online company cannot succeed without enhancing their live support. The mettle of a good chat support staff is frequently tested.  However, rush hours and holiday seasons are a true challenge for the chat operators. Even the most experienced chat operator can crumble under the rush hour pressure. Their one mistake or lack of judgment can ruin a sale for the company.

The live support for the website can become extraordinary and fruitful for the company if the chat operator can keep his cool during the chat session. Here are some tips that will help stay focused during a hectic chat session.

Stay Focused:
Do not be distracted and do not lose focus. It is the worst thing that you could do when you are under pressure. If you are getting flustered, look away from the screen and think about your basics. What is more important, which client is more important, what should be your next strategy, should you transfer the chat to a senior etc. Think about these things and then handle your chats accordingly.

Exploit Your Skills:
Everyone is good at one thing, at least. You need to discipline yourself into integrating your best skill within your chat during rush hour. Try not to think about how much you hate doing this or that, try to think about how you can handle the situation with the best of your abilities.

Lighten Up:
Being under pressure can make you grouchy and irritable. The sad thing is that the chat operator usually takes it out on the client, which is 100% against the rules of good customer service. A chat operator must never treat the customer badly, so calm yourself and think about something that makes you laugh or calms you down. If you are nervous, start talking about your nervousness with a fellow and you will feel better immediately.

Blank? Start Again:
Start again if your mind goes blank. Stop chatting for a minute and look at what you have done until now. First-class live customer service chat is all about giving the right answers and appeasing the client. You can come up with a new strategy by looking at what you have done so far.

When you are working under pressure, you can handle anything as long as you are staying focused and have a positive approach. Being pessimistic will not help. You just need to chin up, face things head on and keep faith in your abilities.