Regardless of the industry you’re in, live chat support is a necessity for the online portion of your business. This is especially true for web hosting companies. With customer expectations skyrocketing, you need more than just average live chat support.
Even with the best product on the market, you can lose customers due to bad or even just average support. In today’s world, the hosting customer wants the full package, from super-fast hosting to incredible live chat support. IF you don’t provide it for them, they will leave and pay your competition to take care of them.
It’s vital for you to understand what your customers think about your support, your products and the experience they have with your company. While email support used to be the preferred method, live chat is now the most important channel for support.
Sure, you still need to provide email support and phone support, but live chat should be your main focus. Here are some of the ways you can improve and even perfect your live chat support.
Speed Matters
The faster you reply, the better. Leaving a customer waiting with live chat support is not an option. When it takes more than a couple of minutes to respond, it’s a problem. About 1 to 2 minutes is the average. If you want to be amazing, keep your average response time at 1 minute or less.
Reply Accordingly
Sometimes, customers just have a general question and you can reply very generally. However, other times the question is very specific and you need to provide a very specific response. Gauge what the customer needs and provide it. If you don’t know the answer, ask for a few minutes to look it up or ask for an email to send a response later.
Build a List of Canned Responses
There will likely be the same questions coming through regularly. When you first start answering questions, save the responses. If you get the same question again, you can simply copy and paste. If it happens regularly, it’s time to create a FAQ section.
Provide 24/7 Support
Some online companies can get away with providing support only for a small portion of the day (9 to 5). However, the hosting industry won’t support this and you have to provide 24/7 support just to survive. You won’t gain any competitive advantage by providing 24/7 support, but you won’t lose out, either.
For hosting companies, around-the-clock support is a must. You never know when a customer will need help and you better be there when they do need help. Imagine if your server went down or your website disappeared at 3am. If you’re paying attention, you’ll want support immediately!
Fast Answers Make the Difference
With the short attention span of many people online, any message you send may be the last one they see. You can easily lose their attention fast, so get to the point as quickly as possible or they may move on. If they do move on and you didn’t help them, this won’t look favorably on your company.
Outsource your Live Chat Support
While you can go through these tips and improve your live chat support, it can be a hassle to run this part of your business on your own. It’s better to trust your support to the professionals.
By outsourcing your live chat support to the experts, you will get tried and true, proven support from a company specializing in providing excellent support. Passing this on to your customers will make a huge difference.
There are several things you should know about live chat support. If you want to improve it, use the tips above. However, if you want the best live chat support possible, outsource it to the experts.
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