WARREN – As consumers continue to move both their conversations and business transactions online, companies must select the customer service and support tools appropriate for the customer experience. With so much Web-based opportunity, there is tremendous value for businesses to improve customer service and increase sales within the online environment.
To enhance the online customer experience, a growing trend among many businesses is to offer online chat. Also called live chat or web chat, online chat offers real-time, two-way text communication over the Internet. Some chat platforms are reactive, requiring the user to actively click a button on the host?s website to ?chat with us.? Other companies use a proactive chat approach where website visitors are asked to engage with an agent usually in the form of a pop-up window.
The benefits of online chat are impressive, especially when it comes to providing rapid and cost effective customer service. Online chat:
Reduces overall contact center costs by lowering average interaction costs
Delivers rapid, personalized and timely communications to a customer
Minimizes shopping cart abandonment by helping customers complete order forms
Builds website credibility with the customer; agents can answer questions immediately
Increases transaction value with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
Increases efficiency by allowing agents to handle multiple chats simultaneously
Emily Millar is vice-president, client relations at TELUS International ? a provider of contact center solutions to global clients, backed by TELUS, its Canadian telecom parent.
This column is published in Corp! magazine and written by Emily Millar. To read the rest of her column, click on Corpmagazine.Com
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