The best web chat strategy is to delight your customers

There we go, I’ve summed up the point of the blog in one sentence! If you’d like to read on I clarify precisely what I mean by this. Web chat is all about service. It’s meant to be a really easy way for your customers to get in touch. As quite a light-touch form of contact, customers expect quick answers. You earn their trust by making it easy for them and giving great service.

What most web chat is like

Most web chat actually gives quite a few barriers to getting the answers you want. Typically, this is done by:

• Availability: Having short available times, like 9-5 mon-fri. Your website is 24/7, so should your response team
• Slow response times: There’s nothing worse than sending a question and then you get an automated response that someone will be in touch within 1 working day
• Contact details: This isn’t specifically good or bad, but it’s important to remember that requiring someone to provide details before they even get to chat to you can hurt your results.

Be very available

Just to go one stage further on the response times. The industry average time to get a first response is usually 2 minutes, which is approximately 1,000,000 years in internet-time. You should be at least thanking someone for their message within 20-30 seconds of their original question so that they know you’re formulating a response

Don’t hold information to ransom, but don’t flood them with info either

If you genuinely have a question about a product, there is nothing more frustrating than having to divulge your name, number, your pet’s name, etc before you get an answer. Refusing to help before you get their details is a great way to annoy your potential customers.

You have to create a balance where the conversation feels like it has momentum. The whole point of web chat is being always open and ready to chat, so make sure your responses actually answer your customer’s questions.

That being said, it’s really important to also get yours as well. You can get something out of this conversation by following this easy 3 step structure:

1. Thank them for their question
2. Give a concise, helpful response which either answers their question or at least tells them how you will answer their question
3. Ask the next-step question

Are you a robot? Make sure that you connect in a human way

You probably will get asked this once or twice and that’s okay. When a customer asks “Are you a robot?” they’re actually asking “I’d like a good answer to my question, can I trust you to give it?”

Make sure that you go over and above to show that you are human and you are more than capable of answering their questions.

How do you know that you did a good job?

There’s 2 quick ways that you can find out if you did a good job:

1. Did you hit your targeted web chat leads/results?
2. Did the customers like their experience today?

It’s so important to measure both. One measures the results you get, the other measures how well you do it. Pretty much every web chat platform out there has some kind of feedback available. If you’re there to delight your customers, ask for feedback at the end of every chat. At the time of writing, we’ve achieved a 97% customer satisfaction rating for the last 30 days running

The best web chat strategy is to delight your customers

The point of web chat is being available, being there to answer your customer’s questions. As such, the best thing that you can do is be open and answer their questions in a timely way. What this specifically looks like for your company is something which can take a while to develop. We can help you optimise the best web chat strategy with our 24/7 web chat.

We have real humans available 24/7 who are there to answer your customer’s questions. We respond within 20 seconds, delight your customers and you only pay for qualified leads. Find out more about our web chat here or by speaking with our delightful rep in the bottom right corner!