With an amazing array of useful features in streamlining customer engagement, live chat is arguably one of the best innovations in the modern business industry. However, while the concept of live chat is increasingly becoming more apparent in the business industry, some businesses still find it shrouded by misimpressions and hearsays.
With these misconceptions floating around, some businesses become skeptics about the wonders that live chat can bring to their existing engagement strategies. To put all its naysayers to a complete halt, this article will debunk seven myths about live chat.
1. Live Chat is Limited to Real-Time Assistance
One of the main reasons why your customer help desk is integrated with live chat is to help you assist client calls simultaneously and in real-time. However, most businesses think a live chat widget is not built for asynchronous messaging.
But, it should come to light that not all customer concerns require immediate resolutions. Product updates, pre-order transactions, and feature requests are few examples of less time-sensitive customer concerns.
If you believe that email should be the best channel when dealing with these types of concerns, then you must know that live chat is also capable of collecting information using pre-made contact forms. These are forms that customers can use to submit their queries. It is a more convenient avenue to both real-time and asynchronous communication.
2. Live Chat Requires Big Budget
Incorporating live chat into your contact channel is relatively cheaper as opposed to hiring additional in-house staff. While there are some features that require additional costs to improve the functionalities of your live chat widget, that does not exceed the expenses of employing more in-house staff.
A stark contrast to working with traditional customer support where agents can only handle one client at a time, live chat gives your agents the capacity to handle multiple clients simultaneously or in one sitting.
Even if you start with a handful of customer support representatives it will be enough to leverage your customer support.
3. Live Chat Lacks Human Touch
It is true that live chat does not offer over-the-phone and face-to-face interaction with customers. That is why we can’t blame them for perceiving it as an impersonal approach. Since live chat overhauls the very foundation of real-time interaction, customer experience is enhanced. Spiels in live chat messaging allow agents to use a first-name basis with customers. The latter will then feel valued and heard, while gaps between the business and their customers gradually decrease.
4. Live Chat is a Text-Only Channel
Live chat continues to be equipped with more sophisticated features. Text-only interactions are a thing of the past. The channel’s easy integration provides customer interaction with sharing capabilities for multimedia content. Audio and visual files can now be easily exchanged via chat, and it elevates convenience for customers.
5. Live Chat Pushes Agents to Their Limits
They say that to meet the dynamic tides of customers’ demands, it is a must to stay active 24/7. Sadly, 24/7 availability is not always physically possible, unless you have customer representatives in different time zones.
Live chat does not require agents to go beyond their limitations because it allows you to provide after-hour services even without an agent’s full and constant supervision.
Recent updates in live chat can be optimized to stay active even without a person operating it. Your customers’ concerns and queries won’t fall on deaf ears if they ever send a query beyond your business hours.
Another notable feature that you can integrate into your live chat is the use of chatbots. Chatbots are smart AIs that can be taught to answer customer queries. These bots are upgradable to become more conversational and spontaneous when conversing with clients. Also, fully-optimized chatbots have the capacity to send precise responses that prove instrumental in keeping the fluidity of B2C transactions at all times.
6. Live Chat is Slow
Live chat is the complete opposite! It lets your representatives respond to queries in a matter of seconds. In fact, the average response time of a live chat agent takes only 20 seconds and they can resolve a problem in less than a minute. The speed and efficiency of live chat makes it one of the best channels for customer support.
7. Live Chat is Long Dead
Most people believe that live chat is a flop, and no one is actually using it. In fact, the average customer satisfaction rating for live chat globally is 83.1%. Not only does live chat highlight maximum customer convenience and shorten queuing times, but it also offers a go-to channel for quick fixes. It has tons more wonders to do for the progress of your business. In that regard, it is safe to say that the assumption of live chat being ‘long dead’ is nothing more than a myth.
Don’t Get Fooled
Live chat only seems complex in the beginning. Once you get the hang of its features and benefits, there really isn’t much to worry about.
Misconceptions are totally normal, given that a person’s standpoint differs from one another. The only thing to remember is to not get misguided by these misguided expectations. Focus on maximizing live chat and how you can turn it into one of the best additions to your B2C survival pack.
What are some of the false impressions you’ve heard about live chat? How are you able to debunk them? Share them in the comment section below!
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