I don’t know about you, but I love it when I see an option to chat (by message) to somebody live on a website, especially when it comes to anything technical.
This morning I have been live messaging Vodafone about my son’s mobile phone account. The packages and bundles are pretty hard to unravel in order to understand exactly what you get and what happens if you go over them … but that seems to be a specific strategy. On a previous attempt I couldn’t get any sense out of the assistant in the very busy shop, so it was much more relaxed talking to somebody ‘anonymous’ but personal.
The whole … ‘just one more thing’ aspect becomes much less awkward, even if you can imagine them banging their heads on the keyboard at the other end!
The final benefit is that you get a copy of the conversation emailed to you when you’ve finished so you can refer back to it.
Quick problem resolution
Another example: a couple of weeks ago, I set my website to automatically update, which resulted in it being replaced with a line of code. Disaster!
Having spent a few moments panicking, I logged onto the website to see if I could work out what to do. Then a live chat window popped up. Having started my conversation with Boris, I was able to post a screenshot of the problem, and he resolved it within a few minutes. Imagine trying to do that by email, or even by phone.
What I like about Live Chat is:
- You can talk to (message) somebody at your convenience at exactly the moment you need help
- It’s anonymous and personal both at the same time
- You can get on with other tasks while you’re waiting for a response
- You can receive a summary of the conversation for future reference
Is your customer service friendly for your customers to use?