In the last few years, live chat options have reshaped the customer-service industry. They provide an easy way for your visitors to get answers to questions and an efficient and cost-effective way for you to provide them. Ultimately, so you can get more customers.
In fact, many visitors to websites now expect to see a live chat option. So if you aren’t offering one, you could be losing out.
What they want, what they don’t want, and how to adapt your customer service options to help serve them better.
In this article, we’re going to look at why allowing your visitors to provide feedback in live chat using txt.me is important before going into a bit more detail about exactly how it works.
Why feedback on an agent’s performance is important to your business
Even though customer support chats are hugely beneficial for your business, not every visitor loves them. And a lot of this comes down to how well they were supported, how easily their questions were solved, and ultimately how enjoyable they found the experience. And to find this out, you need their feedback.
You might think you’re giving great customer service, but you might not be.
If there are specific areas you need to address, feedback from your customers is crucial.
You might find that your scripts are all wrong or that your agents need more training. Or even that you need different agents altogether! You won’t know this detail without feedback from your customers.
And every time you get it wrong, you could be losing a potential customer and losing money.
So don’t just assume your customer service procedures are working to the best of their ability. Get the facts to prove it. Or get the information you need to improve it. This can often be achieved with a customer satisfaction rating and asking users to comment or leave a review or rating for their live chat agent. People want 5-star customer service skills. And you need to provide them.
People also need an immediate outlet for their displeasure. This outlet could actually be beneficial as not only will it give you the information you need to improve, it could also release the pressure of someone’s complaint and prevent them from talking negatively about your business (either online or in-person).
How your live chat support might need improving
To create a fully-comprehensive live chat service that really adds to your business’ arsenal and helps drive more customers to your site, you need to make sure you’ve got a few different bases covered.
Here are some of the reasons why your visitors might not be completely happy with the live chat options you provide them:
Long queues, slow responses, or no responses
People use live chat options because they want answers quickly. If this wasn’t a priority for your customers and visitors, everyone would still be using email for support. That’s because people want quick answers to questions without wanting to wait.
So if you aren’t providing answers as fast as possible, you’re losing out. And you could be turning potential customers away.
Loading up a live chat option and having to wait for an agent to respond is extremely frustrating for your users. Most of them won’t wait more than a few seconds. They want help instantly, so you need to provide it.
Use of bots
One solution to providing quick answers to questions is with the bots. After all, actual customer service agents can’t be available at all times and active in multiple chats at the same time during busy periods.
Bots have taken off in recent times… But they aren’t always popular. People would rather talk to a real person when looking for customer support.
Poor language skills
Outsourcing your customer support to a remote location can be a viable option, especially if you’re looking to save on the cost of hiring someone in your immediate location (where costs may be higher). However, you need to make sure your agents are fluent in the language you’re providing support in.
Poorly-trained service agents
Depending on what industry you’re operating in, your agents need to be well-trained and knowledgeable. While some general support can be provided without technical know-how, many of the questions asked will need specific knowledge and a deep understanding of your products and services, as well as agents who not only know what they’re talking about, but also know how to communicate it so that users who might not have their level of expertise will understand. So training for your service agents is always important.
How to tell if your chat support isn’t doing the job
While you’ll get the best information from honest reviews, this isn’t the only way. Some people who’ve had a bad experience might not want to leave a review; they might just leave your business (and never return).
So what other ways are there to spot that you need to retrain your staff, improve your live chat scripts, or make other changes to your support?
Check how many incomplete chats there are
Many people don’t have the time or inclination to politely end the chat. Especially if they are frustrated and haven’t had their issue resolved. They’ll often just leave the chat. This is one key metric you need to measure, and a large number of incomplete chats could be an indication that your support options are not what people want.
Users not wanting to leave a review
The problem with people not leaving reviews is that you won’t know whether they had a good or bad experience. Oftentimes, people won’t want to be rude or publicly criticize your business—so a lack of reviews could also indicate that they haven’t enjoyed their experience.
How to leave comments about an agent’s work in live chat
When you use txt.me for your live customer service chat, it’s actually really easy for users to leave a comment, review, and rating. All they have to do is click the link at the bottom of the chat entitled “how would you rate this conversation?”
Here, users can easily go on to rate their agent and leave any relevant comments. So whether your visitors enjoyed the 5-star customer service they received or had any issues, they can let you know.
There’s one important point to note when with these customer service ratings and reviews: They’re visible to other visitors if they also click the link. So while this feedback can be invaluable for you as a business if you’re looking to improve your customer service support, they also serve as a marketing tool.
If you’re providing 5-star customer service, other people will be able to see it. But if you aren’t, this could also make visitors view your business negatively. So you should always be focused on providing the best customer service support possible at all times.
How to engage your users so that they leave feedback
We’ve already looked extensively at why getting feedback from your visitors is important (both for you and them), but here are a few tips on how to actually encourage them to leave feedback:
Ask one question at a time
While you might want to collect as much data as possible, people will be put off and less likely to act if they’re presented with a list of hoops they have to jump through to do so. Make it as easy as possible for them to leave feedback, starting with only asking one question at a time.
Ensure rating scales are consistent
Make sure your questions “make sense.” Scales should be consistent and easy for anyone to understand.
Use yes/no questions
People won’t necessarily want to leave an extensive comment or have to think too hard in order to leave a rating. The more you ask someone to give you, the more people you’ll be putting off, and the less feedback you’ll get.
Have you ever clicked on a feedback link and then been frustrated when they ask for loads of personal information and extensive comments? It’s one common mistake many businesses make. The questions and answers should be as easy to leave as possible. Yes, you can have an additional comments section at the end, but this should be optional.
Offer an incentive
One big way to get people to leave more feedback is by offering them an incentive. After all, people should be more motivated to help you out by offering feedback if you’re helping them out too. We live in an incentivized world.
So you could offer them a discount or promo code for their next purchase, a free trial, or some other worthwhile reason to leave feedback. If you do this, you’ll start getting more responses.
However, you need to be careful not to bribe people to leave GOOD feedback. This is a common mistake some businesses make… “Leave us a 5-star review and get 20% OFF your next purchase!”. You want data that’s as accurate as possible so that you can actually ACT on it. You need to know what you’re doing wrong so that you know how to fix it. Artificially enticing positive reviews might be a useful marketing tool, but it won’t help you improve your business.
Ultimately, giving your visitors the opportunity to rate their live chat agent is hugely important for both you and them. You need to learn from the feedback you receive and implement it effectively in order to serve future users comprehensively. It’s also a useful marketing tool and a way to engage your visitors.