In technical support there are generally 3 options for providing the customer support services needed by your customer: Email, Live Chat, and Phone. Each one has its own advantages depending on the nature of your products or services. As a rule of thumb, you should choose the support system(s) that will make your customer most comfortable and satisfied. But how do you know which form is best for your company? Here are some advantages of email support, live chat support and phone support.
Email Support:
Cheapest form of support
No need for expensive telephone equipment or land lines
Best for companies with global customers
Free for customer to receive help
Does not need to be 24/7 support
Will lead to reduced number of phone or live chat contacts
Customers who have requests or need solutions that do not need to be solved immediately can use this form
Provides a clear written solution to questions or requests
Can clearly explain instructions
Easily recorded
Possible to transfer conversation if further help is needed
Can improve on quality by reviewing conversations
Flexible time frame
Does not require immediate response
Lessens the need for native speakers
Foreign accents are no longer a problem
Live Chat Support:
Cheaper form of support
No need for expensive telephone equipment or land lines
Best for companies with global customers
Free for customer to receive help
Provides real time support
Solutions can be provided immediately
No “on hold” waiting time
Creates trust and reliability
Customers feel confident that they can receive help immediately
Customers feel that serving them is important to you
Customer representative receive all necessary information
Can ask the right questions and receive information immediately
Easily recorded
Possible to transfer conversation if further help is needed
Can improve on quality by reviewing conversations
Saves time
Representatives can handle more than one customer at a time
Lessens the need for native speakers
Foreign accents are no longer a problem
Phone Support:
Provides real time support
Solutions can be provided immediately
Creates trust and reliability
Customers feel confident that they can receive help immediately
Customers feel that you appreciate their business
Customer care representative receive all necessary information
Can ask the right questions and receive information immediately
Customers feel comfortable
Most customers are most comfortable with phone support
Helpful to people who are less technologically savvy
Personable
A helpful friendly voice can calm irritated customers
Secure
Does not depend on the internet to provide customer support
How you provide technical support services depends largely on your clientele. In most cases, providing a multitude of customer care support service options is best so that the customer can choose what they are most comfortable with.
5CA provides worldwide 24/7 email, phone and live chat support, offering these services in 20 different languages. To learn more about how 5CA can help you with your email, live chat and phone support needs, contact us at www.5ca.com or call us: +1 866 558 4167 (USA) +54 11 5272 1406 (Argentina).
More Companies Turning to Click-to-Chat Technology for Customer Satisfaction
BALTIMORE, December 8, 2009 — Velaro, Inc., developer of the multi award-winning live chat product, today announced LG Electronics’ customer service division in the United States has deployed Velaro’s “Click-to-Chat” service. With the addition of Velaro’s Click-to-Chat capability, LG Electronics has gained a number of benefits; key among them is a new customer satisfaction channel. Velaro worked with LG Electronics to tailor a custom Click-to-Chat application.
“LG Electronics chose Velaro’s Live Chat because of its rich feature set, particularly the capability to work in multiple large call centers, providing high-end reporting so we can ensure the highest customer satisfaction experience, reliability and overall value,” said T.J. Chang, planning director, LG Electronics Customer Service in Huntsville, Ala.
The Click to Chat service has a 99.98% uptime percentage, the highest in the industry. Velaro’s Click-to-Chat customizes to fit any brand and is scalable to meet changing needs. Velaro offers a host of web site optimization features including customer segmentation, content targeting, proactive chat, Click-to-Call, co-browsing capabilities, multiple language support, and most importantly, the experience to leverage that technology to rapidly increase customer satisfaction, while being set up to grow online sales and reduce overall support costs.
“It’s not just about the technology. Click-to-Chat is about creating a better customer experience. We’ve seen it time and again, when customers feel their needs are being addressed in real-time, they are more inclined to become loyal customers,” said Alex Bloom, president of Velaro. “We find that most customers come to a Web site with the intention to buy, yet all too often they either have questions that are not answered, or cannot find the information they are looking for, so they leave. Velaro helps address this and works with companies to ensure they are maximizing their web site for customer satisfaction.”
Velaro has been helping business nurture customer satisfaction, grow sales online, and reduce support costs for the past decade. As one of the original Click-to-Chat service providers, Velaro understands the challenges companies face when trying to grow a loyal customer base. To find out more about Velaro, you can visit their website: http://www.velaro.com/?cid=251
About LG Electronics USA
LG Electronics USA, Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics, Inc., a $45 billion global force and technology leader in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications. In the United States, LG Electronics sells a range of stylish and innovative home entertainment products, mobile phones, home appliances and business solutions, all under LG’s “Life’s Good” marketing theme. LG Electronics’ U.S. customer service operations are headquartered in Huntsville, Ala. For more information, please visit www.LGusa.com or www.LGservice.com.
About Velaro
Founded in 2000, Velaro is an established leader in Click-to-Chat conversions. Velaro has won independently rated click-to-chat awards in ‘05, ‘06, ‘08, and ‘09. With 99.98% uptime guaranteed, Velaro a solution of choice for leading companies such as LG Electronics, Blue Cross Blue Shield, MyFax, Experian, Herbalife, Toro, and Epicor. For more information about Velaro, please visit http://www.velaro.com/?cid=251
Contact:
Velaro LG Electronics USA
Chad S. Ritchie John I. Taylor
Chad@velaro.com john.taylor@lge.com
8172 Lark Brown Road, Suite 101 847-941-8181
Elkridge, MD
USA
Ph: 800-983-5276 x741
As businesses continue to deploy new strategies to get a bigger piece of the online market share, it is becoming increasingly important to use the latest marketing innovations in the most effective manner. Live Chat (aka Live Customer Support) Software is one such innovation of the recent e-commerce boom that enables businesses to engage their online visitors into a chat and provides a cost effective platform for proactive sales and support. Using Live Chat Support on a website can be a boon if used effectively and in a manner that is visitor friendly. Businesses should keep in mind the following tips while deploying live chat support on their website:
1. Use a Hosted and a Reliable Live Support Vendor. Choosing a cheap or a source code solution will eventually get you into trouble for lack of support or bugs. Choose a vendor with a proven track record, reliable support and a big client base. Most such vendors will he happy to offer you a week’s trial and help in setting up the chat system on your website. Paying a small monthly fee is worth the features, support and reliability you get you need to use chat effectively.
2. Place the live chat button at a prominent location on the web page. Be consistent with where you place the live chat button on your website. This ensures that returning and new visitors can locate it as easily as they can locate the navigation on every page of your website. Additionally, you may want to place live chat button or text at key “conversion” hotspots such as the conversion or sign up page of your website. This will not only improve visitor confidence, but also increase conversions.
3. Customize the chat window with the theme of your website. Matching the chat window and chat button to your site’s theme can ensure that a visitor does not terminate a chat on grounds of suspicion of adware or an unwanted popup. Vendors such as LivePerson and Velaro help you to blend the live chat seamlessly into your website’s theme.
4. Prepare the profile of your visitors before training your agents. Its important to understand the demographic information of your visitors, what time they come in and what is the best way to talk to them. There’s not hard and fast rule for every chat that comes in, and an agent must be trained to understanbd the needs of every visitor individually rather than relying on canned messages.
5. Man the website 24/7 with live support agents. Nothing can be more destructive for your website than having live chat closed on your website. Use live chat support only if you have adequate resources to man your website 24/7, or at least at the time when you get 80% of the traffic. By placing live chat on a website, a business shows commitment to the visitor they are available 24/7 for help. Just ask yourself how you fell when you are looking for support and the live chat window forwards you to a contact form! If you do not have resources to setup agents inhouse, there are cost effective chat call centers such as Livesalesman.com in India who provide cost effective agents 24/7 specifically trained for chat and customized to your specific business needs.
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About the Author:
This article is written by the editor of Livechatdir.com, a part of Math2Math Infosys, specializing in e-business development and search engine marketing solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.math2math.net
LivePerson Inc. (LPSN), the market leader in live customer support solutions, boasting of the most rock solid and feature packed hosted solution has recently launched Live Call feature that enables a website visitor to request a call back with a click of a button.
Interestingly, Live Call seamlessly integrates into the existing agent interface of LivePerson Contact Center, the customer support tool that supports Knowledgebase, E-Mail and Live chat. This latest addition enables a Live Person contact center customer to call back visitors right from within Live Person without having the visitor to hold on the phone waiting for an operator.
Live Call has most customer support critical features, and we list out some of the most important ones here with the benefits they offer:
1. Seamless integration with existing Live Chat, E-Mail and Knowledgebase: Every single customer support instance, whether it is a live call, e-mail or chat is assigned a ticket number and is an example of true integration of all customer support channels. Benefit: Its easier for SMB and Enterprise users to effectively integrate all channels of customer support, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and increase productivity.
2. Voice calls are queued and routed similar to chat calls: Agents with specific abilities can be assigned to take voice or chat calls or both. Voice calls are automatically queued and transferred to the next available agent. The visitor in the mean time can track the approximate time in which he can expect a call from the agent. Benefit: Call Centers save on toll free bills. Visitors are not sitting on the phone waiting for an operator to answer as they know in how much time they will be expecting a call.
3. Live Call is easy to deploy: As a hosted solution, it takes minutes to deploy the Live Person Contact Center. The agent interface is similar to the existing live chat client with an additional dial pad. The agent can set the status ON/OFF individually for both Live Chat and Live Call. Incoming calls are easily identified as chat or voice calls with explicit information. Benefit: Minimal agent training is required.
LivePerson Inc. recently introduced an innovative feature – A ding is played on the visitor’s end whenever a chat is initiated. This is a nice feature – that alerts your visitors that a chat can be initiated and that they do not take the invitation for granted. If used properly, this can result in more chats and hence conversions. Good Work LivePerson!
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