Live chat is one of the effective communication tools used to provide customer care on a website platform. To understand how it works and the benefits it brings, Digital Mind invites you to explore this article.
1. What is live chat?
Live chat is online chat software installed directly on the website that enables you to chat online with customers in real-time. With this tool, you can chat and interact with customers quickly and easily. As soon as you respond, customers will immediately receive your message. Businesses can communicate, consult, and answer customer questions directly via direct messages.
Live chat provides great interaction and connection between businesses and customers. It is considered a potential alternative to phone calls or emails.
Live chat is often confused with chatbots as both are customer communication tools via online messaging. However, their methods of operation are entirely different. Let’s compare chatbots and live chat:
| Live chat | Chat bot | |
|---|---|---|
| Similarities | Both are based on websites, messaging apps, conversation platforms, etc. Both aim to facilitate quick and convenient communication and interaction with customers. | |
| Differences | Interaction occurs between people, specifically a business representative who is responsible for supporting customers. | Interaction occurs between people and machines/artificial intelligence. |
| Advantages | Flexible, natural language, and better situational handling. | Provides automated 24/7 responses. |
| Disadvantages | Can only respond when there is someone available to reply. | Handles situations less flexibly and conversation language may be mechanical and rigid, following a set script. |
2. How does live chat work?
A chat window appears every time you visit a website. There, you can send your questions and receive responses directly in the chat window.
Usually, you will receive an automated prompt before being connected with a support agent through questions like, “Do you need support?” or “Hello, do you need any help?”
When a visitor asks a question, a notification is sent to the website server to request a response. This response can come from a support agent or an automated reply when website management is unavailable.
3. Common live chat software today
Currently, there are two types of available live chat software: third-party live chat software and custom-coded live chat software on the website. What are the differences between these two types of software? Which should you choose to increase conversion rates and effectively care for customers? Let’s find out.
Third-party live chat software
This type of live chat integrates third-party software into your website. When customers visit a website, a chat window will appear. However, to send messages, you must log in through the third-party software.
Third-party live chat software is very popular because it saves costs, and most of these tools are available for free with all necessary features. If your budget is limited, third-party live chat software is a perfect choice. A free version is enough to improve user experience and customer care on your website.
One of the multi-channel customer service centers integrated with live chat that many businesses in Vietnam use is Digital Mind. Live chat on Digital Mind offers advantages such as:
– Integrates essential live chat software features
– Customizable chat box and display content that aligns with brand colors and logo
– Setting up quick response templates for chat
– Unlimited chat sessions and support agents (according to the number of registered business accounts)
– Servers located in Vietnam, ensuring stable connections
In addition, using a call center with integrated live chat like Digital Mind, businesses also enjoy additional benefits such as:
– Managing customer issues and information with ticketing systems
– Tracking the total number of chat sessions handled, and the number of missed chat sessions helps evaluate staff effectiveness
– Assigning permissions for each staff member
– Transferring questions to another support agent for assistance
– Quality assessment surveys for customer service after each conversation
– Staff can simultaneously care for customers on live chat and other channels such as hotline/email/SMS/Facebook/Zalo, increasing productivity.
Custom-coded live chat software on the website
Unlike third-party live chat software, with custom-coded live chat software, you do not need to log in to another platform to reply or ask questions and can interact directly with customers or support agents through the website.
Since it’s designed specifically for the website, custom-coded live chat has all the features you need. You can manage everything from received/sent files, customer information, and exchanged messages on the website’s control panel. Custom-coded live chat may not be suitable for all businesses due to high costs and complex design processes that require experienced, skilled programmers.
4. Unmissable benefits of live chat
Saves customer response time
With live chat, you can support multiple customers simultaneously. This saves human resources in dealing with complex issues from customer questions. Unlike phone support, where customers may need to call back a second time, chat allows you to resolve the issue the first time.
Brings profits to the business
Live chat can convert potential customers into direct customers. Specifically, live chat helps businesses increase customer experience and satisfaction through fast, convenient exchanges.
Quickly addresses issues
Through messaging, businesses can quickly send images, links, and more within seconds to minutes, effectively reaching customers. Customers won’t need to switch to different departments as with phone consultations and won’t need to wait for email responses.
Provides more insight into customer issues
Some barriers such as language (staff not understanding customer accents), language barriers, or customers unsure how to express their issues directly on the phone, or some personal issues causing hesitation in phone support, can be resolved with live chat.
Moreover, these direct conversations are recorded, so whether the support staff can solve the issue or not is known to management and serves their management tasks well.
Increases competitiveness against rivals
The benefits of live chat are significant, but currently, on average, only 9% of 1000 businesses offer this feature.
5. Things to consider when using live chat for your business website
Using live chat brings many benefits and can greatly improve customer service for your business. However, if you set up and use the software improperly, you won’t be able to fully leverage its potential.
To use this software effectively, keep the following in mind:
– Only integrate live chat for websites operating in product or service industries.
– The strength of live chat software lies in timely responses. Therefore, the chat support team needs to interact and respond to customers promptly to enhance business effectiveness and customer satisfaction.
– Each website should only use one type of live chat. Avoid affecting the customer experience.
Conclusion
So, we’ve gone through the necessary information today, including what live chat is, how it works, its benefits, and distinguishing between the two common types of live chat today. We hope you found this information useful and can apply it smartly to yourself and your business.
