”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