As a business in these hyper competitive times, one cannot rule out the need for easy and quick ways to address customer queries and concerns. Every brand is competing on Customer Satisfaction and Experience as key differentiators in the digital times where customers have multiple avenues to connect with companies to seek information or help or even to purchase products, alternatively vent their anger or spread a negative word of mouth about a product or service.
If you are just starting out as a brand, it can become a daunting task to create an edge over competition. However, with advanced AI solutions coming to fore for an enhanced CX, using Chat as a channel with both options of Reactive and Proactive Chat has become very important piece to the puzzle. Live Chat for customer interaction on your website is:
- Convenient
- Real-time and at all times
- Optimizes Cost and Service
- Is a channel to Increase Sales
- Addresses customer pain points
Overall, this channel can immensely improve Customer Service productivity as one executive can devote attention to more than one interaction at a time concurrently. Therefore, adopting CHAT as a ‘Service Channel’ undoubtedly captures a lot of limelight owing to its speed and ease of resolution. Take for example, if a website visitor has a query regarding a product or service and doesn’t get a quick answer, chances are high that this visit may not turn into a purchase or may as well become a DSAT.
The Digital Revolution – Using Chat as a Channel
Another factor for increasing utility for Chat is the transformation digital messaging industry is going through currently with increasing number of mobile users globally where over 1.8+ Bn people use messaging apps as per a recent Forrester report. As per the Statica website, there are over 4,087 million active internet users globally which are on the increase as you read this; leaving businesses no option to ignore Chat as a key interaction channel for tapping the mobile generation.
“Consumers demand more digital solutions to interact with brands.”
As per the Teleperformance Customer Experience – CX Global Survey 2017, Chat is in the top 3 preferred channels by customers. The percentage of people who use chat to interact with a brand has increased by 30% since 2015. When it comes to Chat as a channel, Artificial Intelligence and Chat Bots often seal the deal and provide an optimized solution for brands, but does it really cut it equally well for the consumers? The answer is not positive. Because there is a huge population of customers, over +50%, which prefer and use voice, shows another Teleperformance Customer Experience Lab survey on 130,000 respondents. So how can the two be balanced for a win-win?
“Humans prefer to talk to humans even if they will have to wait in a queue”
The Teleperformance Blended Approach – Balancing Technology with the Human Power
Read more about the Teleperformance Chat Bot Solution here!
Case in Point
A large logistics player in the APAC region was looking to offer CHAT for the first time to its customers
Teleperformance in India as the sole service provider for their client base in APAC region, enabled an Omnichannel Solution for them including support via Chat, e-Mail, Voice/Phone, SMS, Web and Self-Service IVR, while we improved processes and streamlined the business with a future forward approach.
The Teleperformance Tiger Team of experts from multiple geographies with channel and vertical expertise were brought in for an in-depth analysis of the business to implement various solutions. Teleperformance then designed and deployed an Integrated Omnichannel Customer Lifecycle management system along with sales and marketing, resulting in a streamlined and enhanced Customer Experience.
Objective:
Adding Chat to the mix was to primarily deflect Voice volumes to Chat thereby increasing productivity and optimizing operations costsSolution:
- Deployed Chat with customized reporting system to help monitor customer demographics and behavior helping us constantly improve strategies and promote Chat as a channel
- Designed a KYC landing page prior to customers initiating Chat to help their first interaction with the brand, which helped the customer and executive thereby reducing customer effort
- Integrated the Chat platform with specially designed CRM to enable automatic Chat case creation, reducing human error w.r.t. duplication at the executive’s end
- A concurrency of 2+ chats per executive per time helped increase productivity and considerably optimize Customer Service costs for the client
Results:
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- 38% Productivity Increase
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- Savings of 1 months billed amount in Support Costs in the 1st Year
- 15 points increase in Net Promoter Score at enterprise level due to the CHAT CHANNEL alone
The Next Step
Once you have tested the technology and delivery on utilizing the huge benefits of Chat, it’s time to get proactive with it. In this case, the request to chat follows customers during their journey in the website and ‘reads their minds’. By offering to answer questions or address concerns in advance, which can be built in through a knowledge base with FAQs, Proactive Chat aims at solving problems before they arise.
“Proactive chat can up engagement rates and make your website visitor feel welcomed!”
As a Center of Excellence for Chat operations, Teleperformance in India has implemented myriad Chat solutions and integrations for clients in Technology, e-Commerce, Retail, Hospitality, Healthcare and other verticals. To know more and get a customized chat solution designed by our experts, please write to connect@teleperformance.com
Visit us at: www.teleperformance.in
Contributors: Kunal Kaul @KunalKaul7 | Neha Sethi @nehacsethi