A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR

”WHAT YOU NEED TO DO IN 2017 IS MORE OF SAME AS IN 2016. YOU JUST HAVE SMARTER TOOLS TO HELP YOU. AND FEWER EXCUSES FOR POOR PERFORMANCE.”

@IlkkaVertanen

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

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BACK TO BASICS ▸ The recipe for successful live chat operation is simple:

Direction, Quality, and Quantity.

▸ The world around messaging is all the rage right now (chatbots, conversational commerce, artificial intelligence, etc.). A focus is easily lost while in search of quick wins.

▸ All these buzzwords and what they represent are part of a winning live chat setup. However, to succeed with the latest tech, you need to go back to basics!

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

DIRECTION▸ First of all, decide what's your goal for the live

chat: More sales, improve customer service, or something else.

▸ Use triggers and rules to make sure you are interacting with right website visitors. Test, measure, and adjust. Repeat!

▸ After the basics, and only then, consider for new tools like AI-powered targeting!

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

"WHATEVER YOUR GOAL IS, MAKE SURE YOUR LIVE CHAT SOFTWARE, SETTINGS, TRIGGERS AND RULES, AND REPORTING SUPPORT THAT GOAL."

@IlkkaVertanen

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

QUALITY▸ Make it easy for agents to help customers. Happy

employees lead to happy customers.

▸ Equip chat agents with appropriate tools and information for doing their jobs: If agents are assisting visitors in an online store, have the content of customers' basket easily available. And for online form loving insurance industry, cobrowse is a true lifesaver.

▸ Figure out a way to measure quality. (NPS is the easy answer, consider if it is the answer for you!)

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

QUALITY AS GUIDELINE▸ Prioritise quality when improving bells and

whistles in 2017. The money will follow.

▸ Enable features and build integrations that improve quality; quality experienced by your customers and by your customer service team.

▸ Identify how you can enhance customer experience (for example faster answers) and the quality of agents' work (automate manual and mundane tasks).

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

QUANTITY▸ For making a meaningful impact on the bottom

line, chat volumes need to be high (how high depends on the goals and industry).

▸ The flip side of the coin: Potentially overburdening chat agents and losing the real-time aspect of live chat resulting in a bad customer experience.

▸ Managing quantity is like balancing on a string. You need a live chat software that can handle varying loads and adjust settings in real-time.

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

A WORD ABOUT CHATBOTS▸ A chatbot can handle easily way more conversations than

rest of customer service team. However, they are not (yet) the holy grail for solving challenges of having large volumes of chats.

▸ You cannot cold start a chatbot. You need to teach it first with thousands of high-quality chat conversations.

▸ To take benefit from chatbots, you need to have human agents paving the way for them. Chatbot knows what your customer service team knows.

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

Ilkka Vertanen @IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com

RECAP▸ To run a business-boosting live chat operation

in 2017, you need to have clear goal to guide you into the right direction.

▸ You need high-quality interactions in great enough volumes to make an impact on the bottom line.

▸ The recipe for success has not changed since 2016; you just have smarter tools available. Look for competitive advantage with new, intelligent tools after you have basics covered!

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR A SUCCESSFUL LIVE CHAT OPERATION IN 2017

TURNING LIVE CHAT OPERATIONS TO LEAN, MEAN SALES MACHINESHi! My name is Ilkka Vertanen. I am an e-commerce enthusiast and a sales fanatic. I'm passionate about developing digital businesses and online sales.

During daytime, I use a live chat primed for sales to deliver increased revenue from digital channels. With sales chat, I boost lead generation and increase conversion rates. Rest of my time I spent following latest trends in tech. Today I’m especially interested in chatbots and virtual reality.

For more check out my other content about digital business, e-commerce, sales, live chat, and chatbots here: ilkkavertanen.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

@IlkkaVertanen ilkkavertanen.com