Or, better yet, your customers. According to HubSpot research, 33% are most frustrated by having to repeat themselves to multiple support reps. 

That is why First Call Resolution, FCR rates, are amongst the top most important key performance indicators when it comes to measuring the success of a contact center. FCR rates directly reflect a team’s capability to solve problems, answer questions, and provide needs the very first time a customer calls. Low FCR rates might lead to lower customer satisfaction, customer churn, and loss of customer loyalty. All that, in turn, can lead to decrease in revenues as the result. 

What is First Call Resolution? (FCR)

First Call Resolution (FCR) is a customer service metric that measures a contact center’s ability to resolve customer issues or inquiries during their first interaction, without the need for follow-ups or escalations.

Why FCR Matters:

1. Improves Customer Satisfaction: Quick solutions make customers happier.
2. Boosts Efficiency: Fewer repeat contacts save time and resources.
3. Reduces Costs: Resolving issues upfront lowers operational expenses.

First Call Resolution is a vital indicator of how effectively a support team meets customer needs and ensures a smooth service experience.

Before we examine ways to improve low First Call Resolution scores, it’s important to seek the root of the problem and discover the reasons for low rates. 

Reason 1: The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. 

To ensure smooth operations agents must be able to track and view the history of all customer communications. If the customers have to reiterate their issues multiple times, recalling all the details of their previous connections with a company they will get frustrated. Not only that, but the time an agent spends with the customer recalling all the history instead of solving the current issue is the time wasted. It costs the company money in addition to lowering customer satisfaction scores. 

n a successful customer service organization only one agent is necessary to answer a customer’s inquiry. If an agent resolves the problem on the first customer contact both the company and the customers are saving time and money.

To ensure that all agents have access to all customer information, there are a few tactics to implement.

• Invest in an efficient live chat software that has intelligent features like real-time visitor monitoring and pre-chat surveys.
• Implement CRM software which will allow your staff to better organize, track and access customer data.
• Ensure that your FAQs and knowledge base are regularly updated.
• Establish a solid omnichannel system of communication.

“Document what Bain and Company calls, “Episode Management”, a map of customer-facing and back office processes that impact the customer experience to help boost FCR rates.” (Tom Huberty, Huberty Performance Learning, LLC)

Reason 2: Training is lacking. 

Even in a contact center with the best tools, agents must know how to handle situations properly or all will be lost. If an agent continuously transfers customers to other agents when encountering an unfamiliar issue, the initial answering agent learns nothing. It’s essential, therefore, to provide training. 

The solution to low FCR rates is to ensure all agents undergo intense training and are qualified to handle all fundamental customer concerns.  Training is the key to unlock every agent’s potential. When contact centers fail to invest in their people’s capabilities, the effect manifests itself as terrible customer service.  (Jerry Han, Chief Marketing Executive, PrizeRebel)

Training agents should consist of, naturally, reviewing company’s policies, guides, and handbooks. Even seasoned agents can benefit from continuous professional development through ebooks, webinars, and similar materials. Continuous training, in addition to improving agents’ skills, keeps them motivated and prevents agent burn out. 

Working to resolve common customer service problems as part of the training is a good strategy. Even better one is to ensure agents work behind the scenes with other agents and supervisors when they encounter something they have not resolved before instead of transferring customers. That will insure future understanding of similar situations and increase the overall FCR rates. 

Reason 3: Agents lose motivation. 

Agent motivation plays an important role in overall performance  and the bottom line for the company. High turnover and unmotivated agents cost contact centers a lot of money. According to one report,  the cost of replacing a frontline employee is about 20% of a full annual salary. For a contact center of about 50 employees this could translate to more than $100,000 yearly in turnover costs. (CRM Gamified) Lack of motivation also affects FCR rates. 

Employees must be motivated to increase their performance so that it has an impact on first call resolution. To do this you must first make them aware of your goals related to FCR, allow them to track their own performance, give them feedback, recognition and rewards tied to their performance and ensure that the entire team recognizes a good performance (using peer recognition and rewards systems). Increasing agent’s motivation to improve their performance will have a significant impact on FCR. (TalkDesk)

There are various ways to motivate contact center employees. We recently covered the topic extensively in our comprehensive article: How to Motivate Contact Center Agents: Lessons From Kindergarten (it’s one fun read, if we say so ourselves). 

Bottom Line for FCR Rates

FCR rates play an essential role in a contact center performance and overall customer satisfaction. If the rates are low, it’s important to find the cause and fix the underlying problems. Then contact center managers can move on to implementing more specific strategies to increase FCR rates further. 

The post Top 3 Reasons Your First Call Resolution (FCR) Rates are Down appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

One such approach is conversational marketing. Adding convo elements to your pages will increase user engagement. That is because conversational website elements give a touch of one-on-one interaction that people tend to like.

This tactic contributes greatly to the user experience of your source. It improves website performance and, consequently, elevates it in search engine rankings. And this is where SEO becomes an important part of the picture. You can use optimization to enter a wonderful loop:

Better SEO → Higher ranking → More visits → Even higher ranking → Even more visits

In this article, we’ll give you clear guidelines on adjusting elements of conversational design, optimization, customer service, and more. All to create the perfect website people will want to come back to (and buy from, of course!)

First, we’ll establish what a conversational website is. Then, we will continue with SEO recommendations.

Why continue reading? Because this is one of the most effective yet underestimated approaches. 

What’s a Conversational Website?

A conversational website successfully implements elements of one-on-one communication with the user. It can house an automated AI chatbot that answers the most popular questions, or a guide that helps visitors find the articles and products they need. It might provide detailed descriptions of products and services offered by the company and many more elements.

A conversational website builds trust between the brand and the user. It improves UX and conversion rate and increases the time people spend on the site. Did you know that 72% of users would rather share their personal data and contacts with businesses that provide a great website experience?

Of course, this is just one of the factors that makes a source reliable. You should also have great eCommerce sections, relevant products, a proper target audience, focus keywords to optimize content for, and much more.

SEO Tips to Use When Building a Conversational Website

Below, we’ll share the three best categories of SEO recommendations (direct and indirect) that will improve website performance and encourage people to spend more time on the site. Session duration impacts how Google and other search engines rank your pages, as well as visitor interest. Session duration impacts how Google and other search engines rank your pages, as well as visitor interest, with many businesses finding success through outsourcing seo to specialists who focus exclusively on implementing these technical optimizations.

If people spend more time on the site, they get interested (with proper content, of course) and consider buying from it. Besides, the approach guides them smoothly through all sales process stages, which is just what modern eCommerce websites need.

Utilize Hyper-Personalization for Your Products and Services

The first thing that comes to mind with the words “conversational website” is personalization. In our case, it’s the hyper-personalization of products and services that you offer.

But how is it connected to SEO? Well, personalization is part of a good user experience, which naturally boosts website performance. Due to a higher engagement, the bounce rate decreases, which is very beneficial in terms of optimization and further ranking.

Did you know that 34% of users struggle to find the needed information on websites quickly and effortlessly? Besides, 30% of Internet users have issues with navigating websites. You have the power to change that using conversational marketing.

Here are some effective recommendations on hyper-personalized website optimization:

• Make descriptions informative.
  Not enough information about the products and services you offer automatically seems suspicious. Gather user data (through AI chatbots, for example) and see what they want to know. Based on the results, adapt your descriptions to answer people’s questions before they even ask them. Using an AI meta description generator can help streamline this process.
  
  Additionally, you can organically use long-tail keywords, increasing the chances of getting a higher website ranking and helping users find your pages by using those KWs.
• Offer a variety of pricing tiers.
  In the B2B model, you may have various businesses interested in your products and services, from small newbie companies to large enterprises. It would be a great personalization move to offer each segment its own pricing tiers and service packages.
• Offer maximum assistance.
  Upon purchase, the customer should know everything about the product and its usage. You can offer training, tutorials, Q&A, and all other kinds of additional support to those buying even the smallest item. Such help will build trustworthiness and improve your reputation as a caring business that keeps customers as its priority.

Add Conversational Website Design Elements to Improve Customer Service and Support

The basic example of a conversational design on a website is Facebook.

Basically, the website asks you how you’re doing, encouraging you to write a post or unload your thoughts.

Besides, conversational marketing-infused customer support is going to:

• Contribute to a better user experience
• Boost your brand
• Improve the ‘time on site’ metric (which may impact your rank)
• Give your site a higher ranking (as a result of the first three)

Don’t wait for the user to start a conversation. Instead, start it yourself in places where people don’t expect an advisor to be. There are several ways to enhance customer service and experience with conversational AI:

• Virtual product advisors.
  Your product descriptions and categories should already be built in a way to nudge people to buy more. Install a virtual product advisor, and it will learn your products and user behavior and offer personalized recommendation flows. 
• Chatbots.
  Customer support through chatbots provides automated answers to basic questions. What are the benefits? Speed, 24/7 operation, potential cost efficiency, and the ability to focus on other important factors for your business. Furthermore incorporating chatbots into your website can be easy. Just use low-code development, even if you’re just now starting to get coding experience
  
• Voice assistants.
  About 30% of searches are made by voice. Installing a voice assistant run by AI, machine learning, and voice recognition tech will bring you to a new level of conversational marketing.

Why are these approaches effective? 

• Conversion-oriented.
  Most conversational AI is oriented toward conversion. It provides information, guides people towards choosing the most suitable products and services, and nudges visitors to become leads.
• Context-aware.
  AI learns user intent, which minimizes the margin of mistake in automatic messages, making the experience even more seamless.
• Quick and clear.
  Bots are available 24/7 and answer instantly, which users need nowadays. Nobody likes to wait for a day to get a reply from a human rep. 

Create Content People Want to Read and Interact with

The terms ‘SEO’ and ‘content’ go hand in hand. You write articles and create infographics to get backlinks, which is off-site SEO. Many businesses also invest in monthly link-building services to consistently earn high-quality backlinks and maintain steady growth in their search rankings. You optimize the content for keywords to improve your ranking in Google. And, of course, you add conversational elements to increase the time people spend on your site and gain their interest.

Content is important for every aspect of your website. Properly designed and written articles can enhance the overall design of your brand and help it to be recognized in the future. If you optimize those articles for focus keywords, you’re going to rank higher.

If it’s very useful and relevant to your niche, you’re also going to build authority. And after all, you can make it conversational and suitable for customer needs. For that, you need conversational AI and digital tools to gather visitor feedback.

So, first, gather data. Then, create a content plan that relates to users’ needs. The next step is researching competitors and the keywords they use. You can easily do this with the help of digital tools like the SE Ranking keyword generator. It will analyze any keyword and provide alternatives that will help you optimize your content better.

As for the writing part, you can use AI services like writing.com, Jarvis, etc. They will help you write content infused with your brand style and keywords. AI can help you with much more than just answering simple questions.

You can also add conversational elements to the content by asking for readers’ opinions on the topics of the articles, asking them to share the content, contributing to it by sharing their experience, etc.

This will increase user engagement and aid in building the reputation of your brand (the one that actually cares about what people think). 

Benefits of Conversational Website

Website SEO is directly and indirectly connected to the success of your business and the revenue it generates. Conversational website design and marketing will improve every user-related metric: bounce rate, user engagement, session time, customer satisfaction, and more.

Sometimes, technology runs into the future faster than we do. But catching up with it isn’t too difficult if you know how to do it.

The post How to Improve SEO with Conversational Website appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

Convenience is now taken to a whole new level by today’s consumers – and it is completely altering the way businesses operate.

On-demand economies show how a whole economy works, from companies to consumers. Customers are now at the centre of all attention regardless of the product or service. As a sustainable model for satisfying the needs of next-generation consumers, the on-demand economy dominates the tech industry. 

People’s mindsets and methods have all changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are still in a dilemma about what normalcy is. Business models have become radically altered as a result of this outbreak. Every industry that has resumed services is focused on meeting customers’ demands.

In 2016, 22.4 million people used on-demand services, accounting for $56.7 billion in spending, as the Harvard Business Review reported. There has been an increase in on-demand players entering the market as a result. Usually, these on-demand platforms come in the form of app-based digital marketplaces that allow consumers to access the services they need on their own terms.

An Overview of On-demand Economy

Source: Winnesota Regional Transportation 

Through a series of transformations, businesses have flourished, marketed, and presented themselves. The e-commerce journey began with the evolution of the Internet that opened the gates for on-demand business models. Mobile app versions of these websites have emerged with the advent of smartphones, resulting in this new concept of the on-demand economy.

The term “on-demand” suggests that the on-demand economy is a system for coordinating vendors and clients only when specific tasks need to be completed. In this economy, companies offering digital technology products and services cater to customer needs by providing immediate access.

On-demand economies are gaining ground rapidly with their convenience, speed, and efficiency. Statisticians estimate that 22.4 million consumers annually choose this system, spending an astonishing $58 billion on it.

Here we can consider how Uber and Airbnb offer convenient ways for consumers to rent a cab or book accommodations. 

In fact, after witnessing the major success of Uber, transportation business owners are willing to revamp their existing business models to enjoy the same success. Additionally, we are all familiar with popular platforms in this category. Numerous transportation companies implement Eber, Cubetaxi, and Onde and accept online ride-booking requests and deliver a safe riding experience to customers. 

Here are some instances of the on-demand economy,

• Ride-sharing platforms: Uber, Lyft, Ola
• Marketplace for homestays: Airbnb
• Grocery delivery players: Instacart, AmazonFresh
• Media streaming website: Netflix, Amazon Prime 

We all know how the apps mentioned above have gained popularity across the globe and allow people to get things done in a minute. Now without any delay, let’s throw some light on how customer service is revolutionized by introducing the on-demand economy. 

How Customer Behaviour Has Been Shaping 

Every on-demand service offers a convenience of speed that satisfies modern consumers’ desire for instant results. Convenience is not just about immediate gratification, though. In the age of on-demand, companies can transform the customer experience through several tactics and technologies. We will discuss how the on-demand economy shapes consumer behavior and ensures instant delivery of services. 

Customers are More Demanding Than Even Before

Customers today have more specific demands in the on-demand economy and are less patient. Through the click of a button, companies accommodate the needs of local customers. The Internet has revolutionized online shopping and receiving news. The startup community is increasingly focused on taking advantage of the Internet’sInternet’s ever-permeating reach and growth.

Here we can consider how restaurants and local stores allow customers to order products online and deliver them at their doorsteps. Moreover, customers also don’t prefer to stand in a long queue to make payments, and this kind of demanding behavior compels business startups to revamp their operations. 

Engaging with Global Customers has Become Easier

Popular companies like Uber, Airbnb, Zomato all have a global presence. And what is the reason behind this success? How these companies have been reaching a global audience. The simple answer is technology. The question no longer is whether the on-demand economy will change the customer’s habit because all of that is happening. 

The burning issue is how companies or global brands reach consumers in real-time and resolve their issues. For instance, chatbot. A chatbot can answer thousands of customers in real-time and allow the customer service department to focus on some important tasks. 

We all know how popular the Pizza company Domino’s is, enabling customers to order a pizza through chatbots and making it even easier for customers to access its digital menu without opening the app or website. 

Flexible Pricing Plans to Access Goods

Consumers place a greater value on flexibility in accessing goods rather than owning products in today’s society. A Goldman Sachs study admits that millennials are unlikely to purchase items like music and luxury items, instead choosing options that allow accessibility “without the burden of ownership” 

Consider Spotify’s business model; the service does not own any songs but provides its subscribers with convenience and flexibility by allowing them to subscribe for a rolling monthly fee. 

Today’s consumers do business this way. 

Option to Access Contactless Services

Increasingly, businesses are moving to online platforms because of the pandemic, and more customers prefer to shop online instead of visiting physical stores. Companies need to create innovative ways to meet customer expectations that promise to go above and beyond what they expect from you.

Approximately 37 percent of US respondents used contactless delivery more than usual, according to a May 2020 survey. Online-to-store purchases are also becoming more popular, with 29 percent of responding U.S. consumers stating they do this more frequently than normal.

On-demand delivery services such as DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats offer contactless delivery on everything from household essentials to food. And customers have accepted this concept with open arms due to safety results. 

Usage of Mobile Apps Foster On-demand Economy Success

A mobile app is, without a doubt, the most important aspect of digital transformation. Whether you are browsing, hiring, or doing a little shopping yourself, every service is available on mobile. In order to address this, companies are enhancing every single customer experience by leveraging in-app shopping, food delivery, lifestyle, and much more.

To address this, companies enhance every customer experience by leveraging in-app shopping, food delivery, lifestyle, and much more.

Refine Your Customer Service Practises to Give What They Want

Google and Amazon deliver information and products instantly, and it isn’t easy to imagine how humans would survive without them. Today, customers frustrated by long load times, same-day shipping delays, or a lapsed customer service response can ruin a business.

In a nutshell, we’re living in an era when consumers expect everything to be available on demand.

The post Customer Service Goes Hand in Hand With On-Demand Revolution appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

To help you improve your business with automation or some other type of integration, we asked business professionals and leaders this question for their insights. From trying Google Drive integration to incorporating web forms, there are several ways to improve customer service with automation and business integrations.

Here are thirteen integrations and automations to improve customer service:

• Try Google Drive integration
• Provide Exceptional Service With Telehealth
• Implement Efficient Feedback Systems
• Streamline Invoice Processing
• Transform With AI and Predictive Text
• Connect Social Media Platforms
• Using Feedback Automation
• Improve Experience With Conversational AI
• Integrate Payment Channels
• Make Life Easier With eSigning 
• Automate Alerts to Website Errors
• Use a Chat Bot
• Incorporate Web Forms

Try Google Drive Integrations and Automations

At Terkel, we help connect small businesses/brands with expert insights. For end-to-end process flow optimization, we have used different techniques some of which include interactions and automations using a machine learning algorithm that helps us to create a graphic grid of experts and an integration with google drive that helps us to generate a google doc with a single click on our UI. This integration along with reducing the human efforts also increased the efficiency of creating a well-formatted google doc.

Sri Sagar Kalisetty, Markitors

Provide Exceptional Service With Telehealth

By integrating Telehealth services as an option, we have been able to significantly improve our customer service. Telehealth is convenient, especially for follow-up visits. Instead of having to drive miles to our locations, patients are able to see us and get our expert recommendations from the comfort of their own homes. Especially for patients who might be uncomfortable with the idea of exposing themselves or their loved ones to Covid, telehealth has made all the difference.

Henry Babichenko, European Denture Center

Implement Efficient Feedback Systems

One of the foundations of our client service efforts is an efficient feedback system. It is essential to seek feedback from your clients and actively adapt your customer care strategy based on that information, and Nicereply is a nifty tool for seeking that feedback. 

You can create surveys to send out to your clients and use their responses to make improvements, you can also automate survey deliveries to be sent at the right time for you to make any necessary corrections.

Amit Raj, The Links Guy

Streamline Invoice Processing

Streamlining invoice processes saves plenty of time and helps to keep track of all customer payments. Invoice Processing automation can further simplify invoicing, reduce errors, and improve efficiency.We send automated emails with invoices to clients, reminders about overdue payments and confirmations when the invoice has been paid. In addition, setting personalised ´Thank you´ messages after receiving a payment adds a nice touch and strengthens the relationship with the client.
Streamlining invoice processes drastically enhances the efficiency of managing customer payments. Utilizing a free estimate template by Invoice Simple can further streamline your invoicing needs, thus easily tracking customer finances and fostering better client relations.

Rebeca Sena, GetSpace.digital

Transform With AI and Predictive Text

At Lightkey, we integrate our own technology into our customer service efforts. Similarly, tools like ChatGPT customer service software offer innovative solutions to enhance customer satisfaction and streamline interactions.

Guy Katabi, Lightkey

Connect Social Media Platforms

I can’t tell you how much I rely on social media to improve customer service. Integrations and automation on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are a great way of connecting directly with customers or potential customers. Each content piece that we post on our platform may serve a different purpose. From educational to promotional content pieces, we are able to reach the right audience at the right time with the right information to improve the overall customer service experience.

Michelle Conarty, Lily and Llama

Use Feedback Intergrations and Automations

The rise of the pandemic made it hard for my company to provide adequate customer service to our clients.

To know that we didn’t leave our clients frustrated, which adds to their anxiety, we decided to utilize feedback automation where a pop-up window will appear for them to rate and give us feedback in real-time.

Using feedback automation allowed us to determine the areas we should improve on and helped me look for new and improved tools, training, and support for my employees so both customers and employees can be guaranteed a better service the next time.

This strategy proved to increase our customer satisfaction by 13%.

Baidhurya Mani, Sell Courses Online

Improve Experience With Conversational AI

Conversational AI has revolutionized the way businesses recruit, and that technology can easily be applied to customer service. As opposed to a chatbot that essentially serves as little more than an operator redirecting calls and prolonging a customer service experience, an AI assistant like Olivia brings a human element into routine, automated interactions. It is important to remember that people feel more satisfied with experiences where they’ve been heard. We provide that to our clients, and those they are trying to help, with conversational AI. 

Josh Zywein, Paradox

Use Integrations and Automations on Your Payment Channels

As an eCommerce platform, an integrated payment channel helps improve customer service. It provides our customers with a seamless and secure shopping experience, especially during checkout. Since they are presented with various preferred payment options, they don’t have to switch to a different platform to make a payment. Its uncomplicated nature saves time and reduces cart abandonment rates. Moreover, we encryption-protect our integrated payment channel to safeguard confidential personal information like account numbers from data theft.

Michelle Ebbin, JettProof

Make Life Easier With eSigning 

The use of eSigning is an easy, yet effective way to make both you and your customers’ life easier. Not only does this save both of you valuable time, but eSigning can save you money and make the transaction experience more user-friendly. I recommend Adobe Sign, which lays out all the necessary guidelines for your policy, such as disclosures to include in different types of agreements, the top practices to implement, along with the types of agreements and geographical regions authorized for e-signatures.

The benefits of e-signing software are easily recognized, with enhanced security features to recognize any altering of the document, decreased transaction costs due to less shipping & handling, and increased contract speed, cutting out any unneeded delays in contract finalization. There are several different security measures to put in place, but I recommend looking for something that has multiple authentication methods.

Kate Lipman, embrace Scar Therapy

Automate Alerts to Website Errors

Our business depends heavily on having a reliable website since it’s the primary way we serve our customers and make sales. That means that we have to address immediately any errors or downtime. Otherwise, our customers wouldn’t be happy and we can lose out on potential revenues.

This is where automation has helped us a lot. We set up a system that automatically alerts our developers to any website issues so that they can fix the problem before any long-term damage occurs.

Johannes Larsson, JohannesLarsson.com

Use a ChatBot with Integrations and Automations

To alleviate the stress that your customer support team might be facing, use a chatbot. Chatbots use language processing and keyword scanning to provide customers with solutions to problems they’re facing. Unlike human representatives, chatbots operate 24/7 across every time zone.

Using a chatbot helps to prevent your customer support team from getting overloaded. This is useful as a small business with finite resources. Here’s how it works: when a customer needs help, direct them first to your chatbot. This automatically filters out customers with straightforward issues that have simple solutions. For example, a customer might have forgotten their password, or they might be asking for an update on a product they ordered.

Customers with more complicated issues, like understanding the nuances of a contract, are forwarded to humans. With fewer requests to sort through, these representatives have the bandwidth they need to take their time and provide quality customer service. This is one of those integrations and automations that just keeps on giving. 

Gregory Yong, Convincely

Incorporate Web Forms

At Novus, our dedicated team of professionals is available 24/7. In order to make that possible we integrated web forms on our website. This feature makes it much easier for customers and prospective customers to reach out and provide their contact information, location, and job description for a quote. Not only is this more convenient for our customers, but it’s also convenient for our teams so that we can have some important details upfront to ask the right questions and provide the right price and services for better customer satisfaction.

S. White, Novus Maintenance

We hope this was a useful list of integrations and automations that can help you improve your customer service.

Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published. 

The post 13 Best Integrations and Automations to Improve Customer Service appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

Until then we still have some work to do. Holiday season is upon us and, as everything in 2020, it might be a bit different this year. 

The pandemic changed online behaviours and according to some studies the changes are here to stay. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed online shopping behaviours, according to a survey of about 3,700 consumers in nine emerging and developed economies.The survey, entitled “COVID-19 and E-commerce”, examined how the pandemic has changed the way consumers use e-commerce and digital solutions.

Following the pandemic, more than half of the survey’s respondents now shop online more frequently and rely on the internet more for news, health-related information and digital entertainment.” (UNCTAD)

The survey covered seven major countries. American companies have seen similar trends affect their markets. Online shopping increased dramatically as the pandemic started in March 2020 and remained high. 

According to a report by Statista, a high percentage of responders admitted that COVID-19 affected their online shopping behaviors. 

The upcoming holiday season is only going to continue the trend. Companies can expect increased holiday traffic to their websites. To help deal with it, we put together some tips to ensure smooth customer experience as well as stellar customer service. Regardless of the type of business a company runs these tips can help any website run smoother through the end of the year and beyond. 

1. Open All Floodgates: Implement Omnichannel Communications 

There is a common misconception that having multiple ways for customers to reach a company is a good enough way to fulfil their communication needs. It isn’t enough during the non-peak time of the year and it is definitely not enough during the increased holiday traffic season. Omnichannel communications are the real key to smooth, effortless communications between the customers and the customer service agents. 

[ctt template=”3″ link=”09gca” via=”yes” ]According to Customer Think statistics, 75% of consumers expect a consistent experience wherever they engage, be it web, social media web or in person. However, 65% of respondents are frustrated with inconsistent experiences when they are using multiple channels. (CustomerThink)[/ctt]

Just like the multichannel option, omnichannel customer service provides a variety of communication channels. However, it also maintains a consistent and effortless experience from one channel to another. In other words, no matter what channel a customer uses to communicate, all channels work as one consistent stream of communication. 

In an omnichannel setting, live chat, email, ticketing, calls, SMS, social media messaging and any other means of communication available all work as one. Below is LiveHelpNow’s operational panel view. The agent, Jamie, connects with the customer and inquires if the customer would prefer a text communication as opposed to the live chat interchange. When the customer agrees, Jamie gets the customer’s phone number and continues the conversation over text. 

The same flawless communication can take place when the customer contacts the company at a different time or over different channels because all customer information is recorded in the system. Any agent at any time can access the communication history and continue the conversation having all information at his or her fingertips. 

[fullcontrol title=”LiveHelpNow omnichannel Integrations ” subtitle=”Features than can help during peak holiday season” linkurl=”https://livehelpnow.net/it-help-desk-software/” linktext=”Learn more about LiveHelpNow omnichannel integrations”]

2. Bring in the Reinforcements: Add More Agents to Man the Live Chat

One thing customers (and everyone else) hate to do is wait. Especially when there is wrapping to do and holiday parties attend (over Zoom in 2020, of course!)

The best way to shorten the time a website visitor has to spend waiting to connect with an agent is to add more agents to man the communication channels. Not only will it speed up the process of customers connecting to operators during increased holiday traffic times, it will lighten the load of existing agents, preventing agent burnout. 

Adding operators and editing operator profiles in the LiveHelpNow account is very simple to do. The maximum number of operators a company can add depends on the number of active operator licenses. It’ possible to only add agents for a certain period of time, like the holidays, and then return to the previous number of licences. 

To add an operator:

1. Login to your LiveHelpNow account
2. Select [Switch to admin panel] -> My Account -> Operators
3. Click [Add Operator] located at the top right
4. Fill out all required fields (marked with an *) and select [Add Operator] to save your settings

3. Be Proactive: Add Triggers to Website Browsing

Proactive customer service is one of the key components to positive customer experience. It also can help tremendously with managing increased holiday traffic on a website. 

With limited holiday gathering this year perhaps there will be fewer triggers when it comes to religion and politics at our holiday dinner tables. But triggers on your website can help speed up visitor’s browsing sessions, all while bringing the company some extra cashflow. 

Triggers are settings in the website customer service management system. LiveHelpNow accounts get three triggers and each company is free to set them to specific options. For example, if customers are looking at a specific product on the website, the system can show them a discount code. It’s a way to have the chat window pop-up with a promotion or information. 

Other examples of triggers include shopping cart abandonment that prompts a reminder, prolonged time on a page that results in an inquiry to see if the customer has additional questions, and other holiday-related information. 

DID YOU KNOW?

LiveHelpNow has a Billboard feature! A rotation of up to 10 messages in the chat window can display promotional messages, inform of upcoming events, or display product info. 

To set it up: Go to Admin Panel > Chat System > Customization > Billboards. 

Displaying holiday-related messages on the home page can help manage increased holiday traffic. 

If you have any holiday-specific offers, show them off on the home page. Making special deals, discount codes, and gift cards accessible from various places on the website saves customers time and decreases the traffic load on the site.

Banners, call-to-action buttons, and other useful information that can speed up the time a customer spends on a website can be extremely helpful. Redirecting visitors to other pages from the home page is also a useful strategy. Additionally, placing a search window on the website can make it easier for customers to find exactly what they are looking for quickly.

4. Be Ready on All Fronts: Test Features and Social Media Integrations

Before the increased holiday traffic swamps websites and gets customer service agents busy, it’s important to make sure everything works. Check on security features, plugins, and integrations. 

LiveHelpNow has quite a few of them, so if you have not explored these options yet, doing so before the holidays might be a good idea. As far as social media, LiveHelpNow is fully compatible with Facebook Messenger, which can be a very helpful addition to a company’s communication arsenal. The more ways customers can contact a business, the better!

5. Oil All Gears: Make Sure Customer Service Is On Top of Its Game

Getting customer service agents ready for the increased holiday traffic can make or break the company’s holiday profits. Ensure that all agents are properly trained, motivated and engaged throughout the season. 

Routing chats to the right department and agent will increase the speed of a customer inquiry. Pre-chat surveys, and instant responses to chats can help with that. Ensuring First Contact Resolution rates are high is also a successful strategy. All that can help make customer experience personal and have interactions run smoothly. 

Adding canned responses to the agents’ tool arsenal can help everyone save time and respond to inquiries quickly and efficiently. Watch the video below to see LiveHelpNow canned responses at work. 

Training agents to be familiar and efficient with the Knowledge Database is another great way to manage increased holiday traffic. 

Managing Increased Holiday Traffic

The best way to ensure a successful holiday season for customers, website visitors, and customer service agents is to be prepared. Any of the above strategies can help run a website more efficiently as traffic increases. So roll up your sleeves and get ready. 2020 is almost over. We got this, people!

The post 5 Tips to Manage Increased Holiday Traffic appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

Oh, the year 2020…It will definitely go into history books as…well, something. 

Between the pandemic, natural disasters, election year in the United States, and so, so much more, there is probably not a human in the world who did not feel extra stress during this difficult year. 

For those who already had stressful jobs, recent events did not help. Among those are customer service agents. Customer service industry has always had a high burnout rate and high attrition rate.

Source: ContactBabel

The World Health Organization has an official definition of employee burnout. 

Employee burnout is a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” (International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11))

The symptoms of burnout include feelings of exhaustion or lack of energy, feelings of negativity or cynicism related to the workplace, feeling of increased mental distance from one’s job, and reduced efficiency in the workplace. (CustomerThink)

What is the primary cause of customer service burnout?

During the pandemic customer service agent burnout could become a more common occurrence due to additional stress both customers and agents have in their lives. Moving to remote work, encountering unusual circumstances due to unprecedented pandemic, and additional emotional tensions all might make customer service burnout a more frequent occurrence. If the burnout goes unaddressed, contact centers can face the risk of losing agents amidst pandemic. They will then have to spend more efforts and funds to rehire, retrain, and re-engage new agents. 

How can customer service agents and their managers handle the burnout and remain engaged in their jobs during the pandemic and beyond? By recognizing and addressing the challenges agents face. 

Challenge #1: Remote Employees

One of the most dramatic changes in the workforce that occurred during the pandemic is the move to remote workforce. More companies than ever embraced work-from-home practice. 

In 2018, 56% of companies worldwide allowed their employees to work remotely at least some of the time. (OwlLabs) During the 2020 pandemic 88% of companies worldwide encouraged or made mandatory for their employees to work from home. (Review42). 

While the pandemic force-started this trend there is evidence that remote work is here to stay. In fact, “a survey of business leaders found that 82% plan to maintain a partial work-from-home structure even after COVID-19 is no longer a threat.”(TechRepublic)

For contact center managers leading their newly remote teams presents a special set of challenges. They now have to manage large teams, whose members are working from various locations. In addition to day-to-day managing, employers now must hire, onboard, train, and maintain new employees. 

There are certain tactics that, if implemented effectively, can help prevent customer service agent burnout. That, in addition to improving overall functionality of a contact center. These tactics include gamification, professional development, and making wise hiring decisions using right HR software. Additionally, providing autonomy, ditching the scripts, getting the right tools, measuring KPIs, and motivating employees are all essential practices for contact centers that now operate remotely. To learn more, check out our recent article, Best Practices for Remote Contact Centers in 2020. 

Challenge #2: Unusual circumstances

There is no doubt that the pandemic is affecting customer service operations in unprecedented ways. According to one report 79% of customer service organizations reported a significant impact they experienced during the pandemic. 

Customer service organizations play a vital role in times of crisis. Ninety percent of customer service professionals believe customer service is more important than ever amidst the global pandemic. With many businesses shutting their storefronts, customer service professionals become the face of the company, and are essential to empathizing with customers and preventing issues before they arise. (Kustomer)

Here are some additional statistics that show evidence of increased pressure on customer service teams:

Source: Kustomer

What can managers do to ease the stress on their teams and prevent customer service burnout?

The first step is to recognize the changes. Expecting teams to work in an exact same way as they did pre-pandemic will only contribute to the stress agents’ experience and accelerate burnout. Adjusting expectations and changing procedures can help avoid that. 

• Get the right tech and tools. The right communicational, organizational, and support tools can make a big difference in contact center operations. 
• Manage employees’ time efficiently to help them work fewer hours through time management. Agents should engage in no more than 5.5 hours per day of customer interactions, on any channel. The remainder of the work day should involve professional development. Which takes us to the next point.
• Provide opportunity for growth. Nothing contributes to customer service burnout than the mundane nature of the job. However, if there is room for improvement, way to acquire new skills, and room for advancement, agents will engage in their jobs more readily. 
• Communicate regularly. Ensuring that there is an open line of communication is key. Autonomy is important, but so is showing staff that they and their work matters. (CommBox)
• Advocate for better sleep and rest. Studies from Sleep Advisor show that well-rested employees have higher morale, lower stress, and better performance compared to others.

Challenge #3: Emotional Tensions

If emotional tensions are not part of one’s life in 2020, there is a chance that person is a cyborg. Since there aren’t many of those around, it’s safe to assume that everyone has to deal with some sort of emotional stress regularly. That, of course, relates to both customer service agents and customers. 

Tension can run much higher than before as everyone deals with the pandemic and its aftermath. 

There are various ways to deal with stress, both in the process of a stressful interaction with a customer and after the fact. 

[fullcontrol title=”Check out out Agent Handbook” subtitle=”The dos and the don’ts” linkurl=”https://livehelpnow.net/agent-handbook” linktext=”Click to view”]

Additional practices include counting, meditation, engaging senses, laughter, exposure to cold water, listening to music, among others. TalkDesk put a neat guide for on-the-spot stress management, so make sure to check that out!

Bottom Line 

Hang in there, folks! 2020 is almost over. We will make it through. 

Customer service burnout could be a more frequent occurrence through pandemic and beyond. But with some skillful management, the right tools, and effectively implemented stress coping strategies, it can reduce significantly. 

The post Customer Service Agent Burnout: Pandemic and Beyond appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

Earthquakes. Which team will win the Super Bowl. What else the year 2020 has in stock. (The last one is truly scary.)

Other things, however, we can foresee. Such as a failing contact center. 

There are signs a customer service organization is not functioning properly. They might not be immediately obvious. But with the right discovery strategy and a solid plan to address early symptoms, a manager can nip a problem in the bud. Doing so can prevent long-term dysfunction and the demise of a contact center.  

Hence, below we present the guide to detecting the signs that a contact center is failing. And, of course, the ways to fix these problems – both immediate and long-term. 

Sign #1: The gossip is no good. 

The saying goes that bad publicity is still publicity. And while this might work for the Kardashians, we should bust this myth in the business world. 

Today, not only do companies have to worry about the reviews customers leave online, but they also have to keep an eye on social media customer service and the general perception of their brands online. In a fast-paced, constantly connected environment, companies cannot afford for the public to have a negative view of them.

Customers are using social media, and the odds are high that they will look to reach out to companies with a question or concern. According to Sprout Social, 90% of people surveyed have used social media in some way to communicate directly with a brand. Additionally, customers talk about the brand, mention the brand in conversations online, and, of course, leave reviews. 

So if the talk online is not in the company’s favor, there is definitely a cause for concern. This could be a major sign that a contact center is failing. After all, unsatisfied customers signify problems with customer service. Which points to, you guessed it, to the contact center. 

A surge in customer complaints on your business’s social media is a clear warning sign that your contact center is not handling customer inquiries satisfactorily. Customers expect contact center staff to take their calls promptly, acknowledge their issues and offer a satisfactory solution. If this isn’t the case, they will often vent their frustrations on social media. (Gilad Rom, Founder of Huan.)

Immediate remedy: perk up those social ears. 

Social listening serves as an important marketing tool when brands try to research the market and feel their audiences. 

Listening to the conversation about your brand gives clues about your customers’ perception of you and the language they use. Using the same types of language in your tone of voice will help messages resonate. Here’s how: https://t.co/lJlHmBRQvj #sociallistening #WDYT @Gymshark pic.twitter.com/FB8xzjUsHn

— Maybe* (@MaybeTech) October 3, 2020

It is also a useful way to discover any potential issues customers might have with a company. Respond to reviews and inquiries on social media.  Participate in community conversations about the brand. And overall stay present in online forums. This can help remedy any issues with customer service that occurred due to malfunctioning contact center operations. 

Additionally, interacting with customers on social media can bring the much-craved personalization to customer experience. According to a Researchscape International study, the top benefits of personalization include improved customer experience (55%), improved brand perception (39%), and increased lead generation and customer acquisition (46%).

Long-term solution: create omnichannel experience. 

Whichever social channels a contact center uses, implementing an omnichannel strategy will do wonders for customer satisfaction. The Omnichannel system maintains a consistent and effortless experience from one channel to another. In other words, no matter what channel a customer uses to communicate, all channels work as one consistent stream of communication. 

Omnichannel promotes proactive customer engagement, creates customer loyalty, and overall improves customer experience. Strategizing in an omnichannel environment is a great long-term solution if social media communications show signs that a contact center is failing. 

Sign #2: Irish goodbyes are a thing

It’s inevitable. Sometimes customers stop doing business with a company and leave. However, if it happens frequently there is a cause for concern. 

“If you notice your customers are leaving you without any apparent reason, that’s a sign your contact center is failing. It would be ideal if your customers who decided to stop buying from you gave you an explanation. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. If your previously satisfied customers start quitting, the most likely explanation is poor customer service. To address this, start by tracking your call center’s customer service processes to identify possible failures and devise solutions. (Matt Bertram, CEO, EWR Digital)

The number one reason for customer exodus is bad customer service. In fact, after one negative experience, 51% of customers will never do business with that company again. (123FormBuilder) And a company rarely even gets the chance to learn what went wrong, exactly. 

Shauna Geraghty, a clinical psychologist and head of talent at the global customer support innovator TalkDesk revealed on the company’s blog that over 90 percent of customers who are dissatisfied with your customer service experience will –rather than telling you that something is wrong and how you can improve it – just not come back. (Katie Lundin, Entrepreneur)

Immediate remedy: grab feedback while it’s hot. 

An average person can become distracted in just 8 seconds. (Outcry) According to CustomerThink research average feedback frequency ranges between two and 10% among customers. Moreover, feedback collected at or close to the point of service delivery is 40% more accurate than feedback that is collected just a mere 24 hours later.

In other words, if customers don’t provide feedback at the time of service chances are they never will. It’s now or never. Therefore, to get accurate and timely feedback it’s essential to ask customers for it immediately after their experience with a call center. 

Gathering feedback “in real-time at the right point of the customer journey can elicit up to around 20% response rates” CustomerThink research suggests.

Long-term solution: care. Care a lot. 

68 percent of customers leave you because they perceive companies are indifferent to them. (SmallBizTrends) No one likes to feel like a number. That is why it’s so important for organizations to have a customer-focused attitude on every level. 

Strategies to establish such a mindset throughout the organization include personalization, employee engagement, and clear vision of the mission at hand. We discuss in detail specific steps to create custumer -obsessed culture in our recap of an interview with customer experience expert Jeff Toister. 

Sign #3: The line is out the door. 

Customers lined up out the door is a good thing. Unless we’re talking about contact centers. The absolute last thing customers want to do when they make a service inquiry is wait. 

Long queues are a clear indication that a contact center’s current practices are inefficient. It is best to serve customers in the fastest time possible because a longer waiting time translates to subpar service sense. (Yaniv Masjedi, CMO of Nextiva)

In fact, one of the most important Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that show whether or not a contact center is failing is the average speed of answer to customer calls (ASA). The faster the speed, obviously, the more efficiently a contact center is performing. And if there is a long queue there is a risk of customer dissatisfaction, abandonment, followed by an Irish goodbye and bad gossip on social media. 

Immediate remedy: measure, evaluate, analyze. 

Step one in fixing this problem is realizing there is one in the first place. And then figuring out how bad it is. To calculate ASA use the following formula 

ASA = Total Wait Time for Answered Calls/Total # of Answered Calls.

In addition to figuring out the ASA, it’s also important to keep in mind the customer abandonment. 

Average speed of answer in isolation doesn’t give any information about the impact of the time frame necessary for a response. To make up for this blind spot, be sure to look at customer abandonment rates as well. Even if the average speed of answer seems reasonable, it will need to be improved if there are still high customer abandonment rates.(CallMiner)

Once a contact center knows these KPIs, it can set goals to boost each metric. Then it can start to improve immediately.

Long-term solution: add more people and maybe some robots. 

Contact centers facing a long queue should hire additional agents, mostly if many customers leave because the wait is too long. The more agents there are, the faster the line would progress. However, do not compromise service quality by deploying untrained or half-baked agents to the field. Always make sure that all agents that come in contact with customers have the right training and skills.  (Yaniv Masjedi, CMO of Nextiva)

Another solution is to invest in automation. Chatbots will never replace real live agents. However, tactics like pre-chat surveys, FAQs, and an occasional automated responder (as long as it’s smart) could speed up the answering time.  

Sign #4: Agents pass customers like hot potatoes. 

In a successful customer service organization only one agent is necessary to answer a customer’s inquiry. That is why a low  First Contact Resolution rate is a clear indicator that a contact center is failing. FCR goals vary from company to company, but the less transferring takes place the higher the customer satisfaction rates are. 

If an agent resolves the problem on the first customer contact both the company and the customers are saving time and money. Also, one of the major customer frustrations has to do with having to talk to multiple agents, often repeating oneself. That lowers customer satisfaction. And if an agent does not know how to solve a problem, but works behind the scenes with a member of the team who does, the initial agent learns something new. That increases the agent’s knowledge, improves his or her skills, and facilitates engagement on his or her part. It allows for growth and improvement. And that, in turn, helps further motivate contact center agents. If another agent takes the call or live chat, the answering agent learns nothing. 

Immediate remedy: questions, answers, and tools.  

Even well-trained agents can do little if they don’t have good customer service tools and resources at their disposal. A 2016 Salesforce study found that service agents’ top frustration with their current tools is that the tools are not fast enough (45%) and that they are unable to access all of the information they need (38%).

For higher FCR rates:

• Invest in an efficient live chat software that has intelligent features like real-time visitor monitoring and pre-chat surveys.
• Implement CRM software which will allow your staff to better organize, track and access customer data.
• Ensure that your FAQs and knowledge base are regularly updated.

Long-term solution: everyone aboard the training train!

The solution to low FRC rates is to ensure all agents undergo intense training and are qualified to handle all fundamental customer concerns.  Training is the key to unlock every agent’s potential. When contact centers fail to invest in their people’s capabilities, the effect manifests itself as terrible customer service.  (Jerry Han, Chief Marketing Executive, PrizeRebel)

It is essential to thoroughly train your front line agents.

This may mean expanding your training budget. Yes, the overall cost of operations will rise temporarily, but it will be the best investment you’ve ever made.

According to Salesforce, 88% of high-performing service decision makers are making significant investments in agent training compared to only 57% of underperformers. Most importantly, knowledgeable front line agents are your best guarantee for high FCR rates.

Bottom Line: When there are signs a contact center is failing

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When a company sees signs that its contact center is failing, it must take immediate steps to resolve the problems. It should also work to implement a long-term strategy to improve overall functions and raise customer satisfaction levels. 

The post 4 Signs that a Contact Center is Failing (And How to Fix It) appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

They’ve also been committed to engaging with their customers through personal and effective customer service. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Swanson’s Wellness Advocate & Online Correspondence Supervisor, Deanne Trieglaff, to find out how the company has continued to deliver award-winning customer service despite an unprecedented increase in online customer inquiries.

Deanne Trieglaff, Wellness Advocate & Online Correspondence Supervisor

Q: Your team has won numerous LiveHelpNow Challenge awards for providing excellence in customer service with live chat. What do you attribute to your continuous success?

A: Well, having the right talent in place to support our brand is huge. At Swanson Health, we’ve hired motivated, eager, compassionate personnel who help to support the growth of our company by supporting our business through personable and effective customer service. 

Q: So, what is your approach for training your staff to use the LiveHelpNow chat software to provide the exceptional customer service they deliver consistently? 

A: Initially, our agents (before they’re promoted to chat) have to go through a successful 7-week program with phones. And, that is even prior to their first engagement with a customer. And, they need to be exceptional with that [first] engagement with a customer. 

68% of customers said the service rep was key to a positive service experience. 62% said that this was also due to the rep's knowledge or resourcefulness. @AmericanExpress
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After that goes well, and they acquire the skills and the experience, they go through another two-week training for online correspondence for chat. We also do emails as well. So, in those additional two weeks, we ensure that they are still bringing that Swanson brand personality into written correspondence and doing it well with knowledge, positivity, and being simple and concise and real with the customers. 

We ensure that they are still bringing that Swanson brand personality into written correspondence and doing it well with knowledge, positivity, and being simple and concise and real with the customers. 

We used to run off of a lot of form letters, and the customers can read between the lines. You know…they want a personality, and they want to create a face behind the image. So, we really make sure that we bring in that good talent that can do that.

Q: Approximately 2 years ago, Swanson left its initial live chat provider and made the switch to LiveHelpNow. What was the reason for the switch? Was there something missing with the previous provider? Or were there benefits to be gained by switching to LHN? 

A: Switching to LHN was like a game-changer for us. 

Our previous provider was really just what I would call “sterile.” They had the functionality of it just being chat. And, it was what it was. We couldn’t modify what the chat icon looked like. If we needed assistance, we had to reach out to them. And, so here we are waiting for a 3rd party to do something that we may have needed to do right now.

So, switching to LHN and having all these advanced features…and first of all, the implementation was effortless. Which was huge! From an admin point-of-view, and being able to make those necessary changes to what the chat icon looks like, and [being able to decipher] if my agents should be taking two chats or can they take four…that’s not working well….let me switch on the fly back to two. So, just having that ability to do things as needed and then having all of those other additional components. 

We have a lot of customers who are international. So, just that translate feature is amazing. It used to be impossible…we used to run [conversations] through Google Translate. Sometimes [customers] might have been upset, and we’re reading it as a happy comment because Google Translate didn’t translate it as well as it should have. But, LHN’s translate component has been fabulous. We’ve never run into that issue as we did with Google Translate.

71.5% of customer service managers reported an increase in customer satisfaction scores when they were able to speak with a customer in he or she’s native language. 58.4% said it increased customers’ loyalty to the brand. (ICMI)
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Q: Since you have implemented live chat on the Swanson website, what type of impact has it had on the company’s sales/revenue?

A: So, our chat button is available to customers to help them tackle a wide variety of support needs. They are coming on chats to look for help with a product or to track a package…that kind of thing. So, while we know that it has added a lot of value you and impacted sales, our real focus for measuring success is how it ultimately provides another channel for our customers to engage with us. 

Related Post: Live Chat Implementation – 6 Steps to Success

Q: So, how does your staff feel about using the LiveHelpNow software to chat with and assist customers?

A: So, as technology continues to make advancements, we have seen a substantial growth in our chat numbers. Just from 2017 to 2018, we have experienced 137% growth in numbers just with chat.

So, we’re taking those people away from the phones and away from mailing in their orders…and now they want this immediate feedback. So, implementing the LHN chat model has only helped us maintain our goals of efficiency while offering another tool or channel for our customers to get in touch with us. Based off 2018 to 2019, we have seen another 19% growth in chat. But, we’re also seeing our mail orders go down, etc. People are beginning to use the technology that’s available to them.

Q: So, does your staff find the software easy to use? Do you get any feedback from them?

A: Yeah…number one it’s so easy to use the platform. You know…it’s not like ‘where do I go?’ or ‘who’s coming in?’. The ghost (a.k.a. whisper technology) feature is good. When it comes to quality assurance, we love that feature…being able to hop on and help someone…being able to transfer a chat if it’s an escalation and that type of thing. The auto-tagging feature…that has been a great help to us in defining what type of chats are coming in. So, every piece of it has just been clear, concise and seamless and easy-to-use.

Q: How do your customers feel about having the option to live chat with your staff? Have they given any type of feedback regarding their chat interactions?

A: We’ve used the satisfaction surveys since day one when implemented LHN, and our feedback from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. They just appreciate that tool…that it’s easy-to-use and its efficient. And, then adding the bot, which gives them the resources right at their fingertips instead of having to use an agent, has just been another added plus. 

A recent @NuanceEnt study found that 67% of respondents said they prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative.
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Q: Swanson uses LHN’s SMS chat feature which allows customers to text for help. These texts come into Swanson as live chats. How does your staff feel about this feature? How do your customers feel about it? 

A: It’s been interesting. That one was a little bit of a learning curve just because we weren’t sure how it was going to go. We deal with a generation that’s a tad bit older. While we do have some Millennial customers, we deal [mostly] with the Generation X. 

So, it’s just been another channel available for those people that have their phone in their hand all day long or nearby. It was just another channel and another benefit…to let them engage with us and make it a seamless experience.  

78% of consumers polled wished they could text a business, but most businesses don’t have this option available. @IntelContacts
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Q: Once you implemented live chat on Swanson’s website, about how long did it take for you to notice that it was having a positive effect? 

A: That was right away because it had an immediate impact. Initially, we added the trigger chats to specific [website] pages or [tracked] how long someone was on the website, so we could initiate a chat to help them out if they needed that reassurance or something to get them moving along to [make] an order. And, along with auto-tagging it gave us the insight on…‘What are our customers looking for? What are they chatting about? Do we need to make some changes on the website if they’re encountering this specific problem all the time? Or, is there are product that’s trending and should we really point that out and draw more attention to it?’ We really didn’t get that from our other provider, so every aspect of this tool has just really provided us with a great benefit. 

Q: Where did you notice it having the biggest effect first? Sales? Lead Generation? Customer Satisfaction? 

A: Yes. The customer satisfaction hands down. You know…that’s what we’re here for is to reassure those customers…help them out from a service standpoint. And, having that chat feature available and ready for them to use to seek assistance right away and get in touch with someone. 

Typically, on average we see from initiation of the chat to getting to an agent is 30 seconds or less. So, just our ability to make that [quick] connection with the customers. 

80% of American consumers point to speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service as the most important elements of positive customer experience. @PwC
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And, then, the opportunity for the agents to see that positive feedback in the post-survey…that’s a huge thing for them, too. It keeps them going and gives them initiative to keep their service leveled-up, so that they can keep providing it over and over again. So, that’s another impact that we see…is those positive remarks coming in, and then, the agents just kind of exuding that positivity. And then, it just rolls on and on in their work, and then socially inside the building.

Related Post: 20 Ways To Make The Live Chat Experience More Personal

Q: Why do you think live chat customer service is working so well for Swanson? 

A: #1 hands down it’s the ease of the tool. From an effortless install to having the self-explanatory operator panel to complete each correspondence…it’s just so easy to use. And,  so, [because] it’s user-friendly on the customer side and on our side. 

Q: What LiveHelpNow live chat software features do you and your staff find the most useful or helpful? And, why? 

A: The [chat]bot…for sure. The ‘bot completely made an impact on our service level. We have seen an average of 39% of the traffic hitting the ‘bot and effectively handling 39% of our incoming traffic. So, additionally, that has eased up the time with an agent, so that we can focus on the other duties that we need to do or another incoming chat. So, that is for one, one of the biggest things.

The ‘bot completely made an impact on our service level. We have seen an average of 39% of the traffic hitting the ‘bot and effectively handling 39% of our incoming traffic.

Then, the ease of the ‘bot implementation. I will say that the staff at LHN made it completely fabulous, effortless. So, I can’t say enough about them either because they really were great to work with, and they got it up and running within a day once we gave them the opportunity. 

Q: Your team uses the auto-tagging feature a lot. How does this help your team?

A: So, prior to the ‘bot the auto-tagging feature helped us determine what type of contact was coming in. You know…is there a product that’s trending?…that sort of thing. It also assisted us in figuring out what options we should put on the ‘bot once we started that. It helped us to determine what should be in our menu platform for the ‘bot and then continual changes thereafter. 

Or, if a customer is selecting “other,”…that auto-tagging is helping us to figure out: What are these others? Are they just selecting other? Could they have selected a different category? Or, do we need to update the ‘bot and change another menu selection.

Q: We partially touched on this previously, but did you see any positive or negative impact after rolling out Live Help Bot (LiveHelpNow’s chatbot)? 

A: All positive. The ‘bot picked up 39% of our traffic, which would have otherwise been distributed to an agent, and, in the end, decreases efficiencies. Currently, we have an average of 30 seconds from chat initiation to the chat so…yeah…it’s just been all positive, all the way around. 

Q: What would be your advice for other call centers implementing live chat in their organizations to make sure it is done properly and efficiently? 

A: Yes. Well, it would depend on what the company wants to get out of the chat. But, what I can say is that here at Swanson Health it has totally met our expectations 100% from what we wanted to see from a chat feature. And, the advances that you guys keep doing has only enhanced what we can do with the chat option and the ‘bots. So, you guys are keeping up with technology, which only helps the user in the end. So, we have become more efficient and the agents continue to love the tool because it’s so easy and effortless. We are 100% behind LHN and love it.

Key Takeaways:

• Swanson’s success is due in part to its extensive employee training program, which ensures their teams’ resourcefulness, professionalism, and knowledge. In fact, 68% of customers said the service rep was key to a recent positive service experience. 62% said that this was also due in part to the rep’s knowledge or resourcefulness. (American Express)
• Swanson made the switch to LiveHelpNow live chat software because of its advanced functionality, ease-of-use, and innovative features. One of the features that was of particular benefit was language translation. A study by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) found that 71.5% of customer service managers reported an increase in customer satisfaction scores when they were able to speak with a customer in he or she’s native language. 58.4% said it increased customers’ loyalty to the brand.
• LiveHelpNow has assisted Swanson successfully manage a period of rapid growth in their chat engagement numbers.  From 2017 to 2018, they experienced 137% growth in numbers just with chat.
• Swanson’s customers thoroughly enjoy the self-service option of interacting with LiveHelpNow’s Live Help Bot.  Studies have found that 67% of respondents said they prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative. (Zendesk)
• Both the Swanson customers and Swanson’s staff love having LHN’s SMS chat feature as an additional avenue of communication. 78% of consumers polled wished they could text a business, but most businesses don’t have this option available. (Intelligent Contacts)
• On average, from chat initiation to connecting an agent, the wait time is 30 seconds or less. Swanson’s ability to make a quick connection with its customers has a positive impact on their customer satisfaction scores. 80% of American consumers point to speed, convenience, knowledgeable help, and friendly service as the most important elements of positive customer experience. (PwC)
• Swanson feels LHN’s live chat ‘bot is the software’s most helpful feature because the ‘bot has had a huge impact on their service level. Live Help Bot is effectively handling 39% of their incoming chat traffic, which has cut down on customer wait times and freed up Swanson’s agents to deal with more complicated tasks and inquiries.

For more business tips and customer service advice, like LiveHelpNow on Facebook or follow our business page on LinkedIn.

The post How Swanson Health Delivered Superior Customer Service During 137% Growth in Chats appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

According to their website, whether the CPAP staff is serving customers in-store or online, their goal is to provide “unmatched customer service.” 

I sat down with CPAP.com’s CSR Manager, Elizabeth Hamilton, to find out how the brand has brought their award-winning customer service to their website with live chat. 

We also dive into how her team is using live chat to improve their customer satisfaction scores.

Elizabeth Hamilton, CSR Manager at CPAP.com

Q: Your team has won numerous LiveHelpNow Challenge awards for providing excellence in customer service with live chat. What do you attribute to your continuous success?

A: Our CSRs are really the reason why we’ve been able to be so successful. They are the backbone of our company. 

CPAP.com has a really in-depth product knowledge base that we pass on to our CSRs throughout their training. So, they’re required to learn everything about our products from general information to helping customers troubleshoot with the products. So, with having that knowledge, they can respond quickly and accurately to our customers whenever they come in with questions and requests. 

62% of customers feel a customer service representative’s knowledge was the most important factor in their interaction, and 51% of customers prefer technical support through a knowledge base. @AmericanExpress @Econsultancy
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A: We also encourage our CSRs to really bring in an empathetic ear to the conversation. We really want our customers to feel heard even over chat…to know that there’s a human on the other end of the conversation. 

An emotional connection to a brand means customers have a 306% higher lifetime value, and 71% of these customers recommend brands to their friends. @Motista #customerservice #customerexperience
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Related Post: How to Adapt Call Center Tactics to Chatting

Q: Once you implemented live chat on the CPAP.com website, about how long did it take for you to notice that it was having a positive effect?  

A: We noticed immediately.  We were able to get customer feedback instantly through the satisfaction surveys that we set up. We did already have a previous chat client, so we wanted to make sure that it was seamless for our customers. So, we made sure we set up those satisfaction surveys so we knew exactly how we were doing.

Customer satisfaction ratings for live chat are often higher than all other support channels, likely because of the speed and conversational nature. @customerthink ‏#customerservice #livechat
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Q: Where did you notice it having the biggest effect first? Sales? Lead Generation? Customer Satisfaction?

A: I would say the biggest impact was on our customer satisfaction, which you can say that directly affects sales in a positive way. Because of the nature of our business, we’re not able to take orders over chat, but we are able to impact that by giving them great customer service, by getting them the knowledge that they need, by telling them, “hey we’ll have someone call you back.” So, really just seeing that customer satisfaction…that made a huge difference.

Satisfied clients resulted in a 30% increased profitability for a business as they were 80% more likely to renew the services. @HelpScout #customersatisfaction
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Q: Since you have implemented live chat on the CPAP.com website, what type of impact has it had on the company’s sales and revenue?

A: We’re still in the process of collecting and analyzing data to really see the true impact that LiveHelpNow has had on our sales, but I can share with you that our customer satisfaction has improved by 15% since providing a new avenue for customers to reach us. So, we have really seen a good impact there.  

Our customer satisfaction has improved by 15% since providing a new avenue for customers to reach us.

Related Post: Conversion Tracking: LiveChat and Email Support

Q: Did you see any positive or negative impact after rolling out Live Help Bot (LiveHelpNow’s Chatbot)?

So far the results have been really positive. That feature allows us to gather useful customer information that we have to have anyway prior to accessing their account history. So, you know they are entering it in before they get to us.

We’ve also been able to reduce our incoming chats by about 60% because customers can now find their answers or because it just makes the chat easier on both sides because we’re getting that information upfront. 

Q: How do your customers feel about having the option to live chat with your staff? Have they given any type of feedback regarding their chat interactions?

A: Yes. So, we actually do the [post-chat] surveys. So, we’re able to see immediately what they think. Our customers love the ability to chat with us rather than always having to call in or if they email us having to wait for that response.

We continually receive positive feedback about our chat.  Some of the specifics are that it’s fast, that issues are resolved efficiently, and our customers love the assistance they get from our CSRs, who of course are knowledgeable and friendly with them.

Brands are viewed more favorably by 77% of consumers if they proactively invite and accept customer feedback. @Microsoft
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A: And, I wanted to just share some pieces of feedback that we’ve gotten in from customers that I just pulled from our chat surveys (we get them all the time):

“An immediate response. An agent was excellent and quickly answered my questions”

Another one from another customer: “The rep answered all my questions and guided me to next steps and products that I needed.”

This one calls out on of our CSRs by name:  “Bianca understood, quickly addressed, and resolved my issue. I wish all customer service reps were as good as Bianca.”

So, we get some really great feedback from customers.

Q: So, how does your staff feel about using the LiveHelpNow live chat software to chat with and assist customers?

A: They love it. One of our favorite things is to be able to quickly see which web pages customers are on, so that we can see that ‘Oh, they’re looking at this product,’ and we’re able to just jump in there and help them. On both sides, it’s really beneficial.

Q: What is your approach for training your staff to use the LiveHelpNow live chat software to provide the exceptional customer service they deliver consistently ( i.e. use of incentives for agents, positive culture, etc.)?

A: Our CSRs really come from a deep bench of knowledge. So, they learn how to assist customers through LiveHelpNow only after they have been on the phone talking with customers to gain that experience first. So, it translates very easily from phones to chat. 

A: We train our CSRs on proper chat etiquette, not using shorthand, and really to talk with the customer using words and phrases that ensure a positive customer experience. And, again empathy…really relating to the customer and what they are going through.

Our team of CSRs love working in LiveHelpNow. So, really just the feature itself is an incentive…so, the fact that they get to work those shifts where they can chat with customers. 

Also, we use a platform called Bonusly, which is an internal recognition system that allows our CSRs to recognize each other, and managers, of course, are on that as well. It’s really just to give people a shout out. It’s a point system that does add up to monetary value, but really it’s about the recognition. 

Companies using incentive programs report a 79% success rate in achieving their established goals when the correct reward is offered. @EngageTrends ‏ #employeeengagement
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Q: Why do you think live chat customer service is working so well for CPAP.com? 

A: Well the platform (LiveHelpNow) is easy to implement and really beneficial to our customers because they get help instantly. It also has an intuitive backend, making it easy for our CSRs to use on our side as well. 

Q: What would be your advice for other call centers implementing live chat in their organizations to make sure it is done properly and efficiently?

A: First, what’s really, really important is just determining exactly what you’re trying to achieve with your live chat system. Are you trying to make it easier for your customer?  Are you wanting to increase your chats? Just figuring out all of those things beforehand…Thinking about what you want to accomplish and exactly what that’s going to look like for your customer is really important.

Companies that excel at the customer experience drive revenues 4% to 8% higher than those of their market. @BainInsights
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Also, doing a lot of testing along the way such as mock chats between CSRs to make sure that everything is working and that your CSRs are completely trained in the platform before you go live. Taking the time to create an extensive list of chat templates…like I said before the canned responses…that was huge for us also because it really helped the CSRs to answer questions quickly while they were still learning how to use the platform.

Key Takeaways:

• • 62% of customers feel a customer service representative’s knowledge is the most important factor in their interaction. All of CPAP.com’s live chat agents are thoroughly trained and provided with proper resources prior to utilizing LiveHelpNow’s live chat software to effectively assist customers. (American Express)

• • CPAP.com encourages all of their CSRs to bring in an empathetic ear to each conversation. An emotional connection to a brand means customers have a 306% higher lifetime value, and 71% of these customers recommend brands to their friends. (Motista)

• • CPAP.com has post-chat surveys in place, so its staff can immediately see how their customers feel about their interaction with the company’s live chat agents.  Brands are viewed more favorably by 77% of consumers if they proactively invite and accept customer feedback. (Microsoft)

• • The customer service department has a recognition/incentive program in place to acknowledge top performing agents. Companies using incentive programs report a 79% success rate in achieving their established goals when the correct reward is offered. (EngagementTrends)

• • Before implementing live chat software, CPAP.com’s team found it imperative to outline what they wanted to accomplish and to envision what their strategy would look like to their customers (i.e. they thought about what the customer experience would look like). Companies that excel at the customer experience drive revenues 4% to 8% higher than those of their market. (Bain & Company)

   

  For more business tips and customer service advice like LiveHelpNow on Facebook or follow our business page on LinkedIn.

The post How CPAP.com Improved Their Customer Satisfaction Scores by 15% with Live Chat appeared first on LiveHelpNow.

For any kind of business, big or small, online or brick and mortar, Halloween represents a bonanza that can boost your revenues this quarter.

Are you prepared for it?

Some businesses- bakeries, florists, gift shops, online retailers, costume stores, restaurants- will be able to take advantage of Halloween in obvious and direct ways.

Other businesses that operate in a different niche- for example, a car dealership or a law firm will have to be more creative to take advantage of the festival.

No matter what your niche is, we got your back with these 7 tips

1. Decorate websites and store locations

Halloween is one of those festivals when you can unleash your creativity and dress up your real or virtual business location. If you are a brick and mortar business start thinking beyond the odd carved pumpkin.

And don’t forget your website. Add goblins or lanterns to your header or footer image. Change the color scheme. Add iconic characters that people can identify with your business.

How about a hulking Neptune with his trident on a site that rents out boats?

2. Customize other things related to branding

Google is the prime example of this concept – they have a doodle for just about everything. You may not be Google, but you can have some fun with your logo, or even with other branding elements

So if you are sending out mailers or making flyers, why not make them Halloween themed? Ditto with the design of newsletters: it doesn’t take much time to whip up an appropriate design (take the design from point #1) and change the language from your usual tone (unless you are running a haunted house, in which case you don’t need to change anything.)

3. Offer special Halloween discounts

Discounts at Halloween are a great way to encourage customers to spend more. Depending on your business, you can even run special sales- pastries that look like chopped fingers, T-shirts with ghouls and zombies and werewolves on them or  soaps shaped like Count Dracula.

Take care while setting the level of discounts, though. If you offer too deep a discount, you can end up losing money even if you have moved large volumes off your shelves.

The same goes for the QR code. Customers can utilize a QR scanner to interact with the code and get directed to a special webpage to receive goodies and discounts.

4. Tie up with other businesses

If you run a garage or a hardware shop you won’t have as many direct opportunities to give Halloween themed offers as a cake shop would have. The same thing applies to architects or lawyers or credit card companies.

In that case, you can tie up with another company and give your own customers discount coupons that they can redeem for anything from candies to costumes.

5. Host a costume party or a meetup

While it’s a good thing to take advantage of the marketing opportunity of Halloween make sure you haven’t neglected the important task of  thanking your loyal customer for their business.

Invite your employees, your vendors and suppliers to this event as well. Have a good time with everyone, and enjoy the moment. Acknowledging the people who made your success possible is sometimes the best way to build your brand. After Halloween, post photos of the event on Facebook and write up a blog post.

Halloween is one of those times when you can show people that you are not merely a faceless, monolithic company.In the long run, that’s priceless.

6. Hand out gift bags

Along with discounts, you can also offer customized gifts or goodie bags to customers. Wrap them up nicely, put a customized URL or a custom QR code on the packaging and you are all set.

The URL can lead to a special Halloween offers page, or a specially built landing page, or even to your Facebook page or Twitter profile.

7. Create a Halloween themed contest on your Facebook page

If most of your customers are present on Facebook you can use the platform in a number of ways to engage with your fans. Run a contest asking fans to post photos of themselves in costume. If you are willing to go a little further, create an online treasure hunt, or do up a house of horrors thing.

Gamification is one of the best ways for small businesses to improve both employee and customer engagement and Halloween is all about spooky games.

What are you doing this Halloween?

The post 7 ways small businesses can take advantage of Halloween appeared first on LiveHelpNow.