Live chats are confidently becoming an essential tool for any digital business. Nowadays when digital channels are no longer supplementary tools for business but their main means of development, it is getting particularly important to provide an excellent level of customer service online.
The variety of services and resources has made customers more sophisticated and to some extent picky, immediately choosing a different service if their query was not addressed quickly enough. Therefore, CRM specialists have to be empowered with tools that would provide rapid solutions and increase customer satisfaction. Live chat tools powered by co-browsing can serve as a great way out.
1. What is a live chat?
Live chat is a digital communication tool that allows users and their website customers to communicate in real-time. While emails and calls cannot provide adequate and fast solutions to customer problems, live chats do it so well that 79% of customers tend to favor them over any other way to connect with an expert.
Live chat looks like a pop-up chat window. Sometimes, the customers have to access it on their own, but in most cases, it appears automatically as soon as you enter the website and asks you to type your question.
2. What are the benefits of a live chat?
Studies show that live chat support provides a customer satisfaction rate of 92%. Although from the live chat definition it is clear that the main advantage of it is rapid customer assistance, is it not the only benefit.
2.1. Live Chat builds databases
Every time a customer contacts your live chat support, they provide you with valuable data that can be used for your product and service improvement as you get closer to understanding your clients’ needs. There are general metrics that are useful for this matter:
- Time spent on the website – use it to analyze at what point a live chat pop-up should appear. Right when a customer has just entered the website or after some browsing through your products in case they need guidance?
- Number of website visits – is it a new customer or someone who used your product/service before?
- Chat history – the goldmine of information where you can see if the communication was effective in terms of solving the problem, whether the customer was satisfied and if necessary, what improvements can be implemented.
- Transcriptions – linked to chat history, in-depth analysis of the conversations.
- Referring link – what type of information was the customer looking for? Depending on what page they arrived from, you can have a clearer understanding.
- Device and operating system – this metric will allow you to see what devices your customers use most often and make sure that your web page is adapted for them.
and many more depending on a particular software.
2.2. Live chat boosts competitive advantage
Live chats are no longer something shocking and completely new, however, not many companies are using them. Meanwhile, customers are quick to abandon a website if there was no support regarding their question about a product/service and move on to the business that assisted them in their customer journey. Once an effective system of responses is established, you can create leads and turn them into loyal customers.
2.3. Live chat increases ROI
Research has shown that by implementing live chat, a company can boost its conversion rate up to 20% and receive a 300% return on investment. To predict how big the increase can be in the case of your business, you need to take into account the metrics listed above: time spent on the website, number of visits etc.
However, the ROI of live chat support is influenced by economies of scale – the more customers you receive, the more agents have to be provided to assist them. Consequently, it will increase costs and have a negative impact on investment. This is a general view that does not take into account that live chat support has a big potential for chatbots. Having analyzed the usual inquiries for customers, you can build a database that your bot will refer to when solving customer’s issue. If it fails to assist, it will redirect the customer to an expert, but some bots are so advanced that they can respond to even typed messages.
2.4. Live Chat maximizes productivity
…in record time.
Live chat support becomes a game-changer, while phone calls take minutes to answer especially when the line is busy with many customers waiting for their request to be addressed and an email can even take up to several hours or even days to be responded. Experts can assist customers in seconds – more than 60 customer tickets can be solved in an hour using only one live chat agent. None of the other communication channels allows that, including social media.
3. What is co-browsing?
Combining the meaning of the two words “collaborative” and “browsing”, co-browsing is a way to allow CRM experts to help clients in real-time. By using it, specialists can access the customer’s browser and navigate it in order to solve a problem, which is extremely useful when the expert is remote. Instead of asking the client numerous questions, the expert can, for instance, locate a function on the website in case the customer is lost, or even more – walk them through a complex process that would be very complicated to do via email or a phone call. No download, installations, or plugins are required thanks to WebRTC technology. It can also be accessed from any device using any browser or operating system.
Co-browsing empowers experts while ensuring that customers are satisfied with the assistance and increasing the first-call resolution rate. The client can have personalized service by receiving a virtual in-person experience.
The main features of co-browsing include:
- WebRTC solution that requires no download
- Web SDK that enables co-browsing solution to be compatible with any device, browser, operating system
- User-friendliness as co-browsing can be easily combined with live chat, video chat, screen sharing, etc.
- Switching pages thanks to which an expert can navigate a customer through web-pages
- Data security
- Data masking – you can control your team’s access to customer information
4. Co-browsing vs Screen Sharing?
Although it may seem at first glance that co-browsing and screen sharing are similar in a sense that both approaches are designed to assist customers, there are drastic differences.
With co-browsing, the agent can see only what the customer is showcasing on their browser screen with no download of any software required.
It is a great tool to use for customer assistance without having to ask the client to move to a different platform. In the current scenario when remote work has become the reality, co-browsing becomes one of the go-to solutions to address the main challenges of remote assistance by providing synchronized activity.
Another cause is the use of co-browsing for product demos when videos fail to present a product with its full advantages and co-browsing makes it possible.
Meanwhile, screen-sharing allows broadcasting other tabs, a desktop, sharing presentations, documents, and any other files. In order to use this tool, the user has to install the software and register their account. The main use of it is virtual presentations when everyone can see the same file without having to pass it around which significantly saves time.
To understand which tool is better for your business, you have to determine the goals, what you need a visual engagement platform for, customer needs and what kind of information and assistance they would be looking for.
5. Co-browsing in live chat
As it was previously mentioned, modern customers expect instant help, and live chats powered by co-browsing can help agents quickly gain access to the clients’ screens from the same conversation. There is no longer need to ask waiting clients for media files such as screenshots of their web-pages to pinpoint the problem or demand to move to a different platform.
This is the solution that ViiBE provides. All the expert has to do is to send the customer a link that will connect them with each other and enable the expert to assess the issue without having to download any additional apps. The expert will guide the customer through each step by taking a snapshot of their screen and drawing, pointing, and highlighting the necessary information. In this case, the customer who might not be tech-savvy is no longer lost or abandoned without support, and the issue can be solved during the first call without compromising on the quality of the service.
Even if further assistance is required, all the data will be stored in the ticket which the expert will be able to access anytime. In turn, it facilitates the development of the company’s knowledge management system. All the gathered data will help to turn stagnant knowledge into operational assets and empower employees by giving the right information to the right person at the right time, boosting their skills, and increasing their confidence in assisting customers. It also allows a personalized approach to each client, which is extremely crucial since, according to studies, 64% of customers value their experiences more than the price of a product/service.
6. Conclusion
As it becomes progressively difficult to compete for customer attention in the reality where more and more businesses switch online, new tools to empower customer assistants emerge. Now it is not only about providing instant responses and ensuring smooth cooperation between a client and an expert on the other end, but also about productivity of the agents and capitalizing on the data extracted from customers.
By integrating co-browsing into live chat platforms, businesses can help agents handle more requests with more precision and attention, putting human experience first. As a result, satisfied clients will be more loyal since they will see that in case of any issue they will be assisted with the high quality service even remotely when there is no possibility of face-to-face contact.
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