The average consumer spends about three hours per day on their cell phone. And a whopping two hours and 25 minutes of that time is spent on social media. Companies across industries recognize this and are improving the customer experience by adding a customer messaging platform into their support strategies.
Messaging is one of the top-rated contact methods for customer satisfaction. It’s no wonder why teams are adopting instant messaging services. Not only is live chat support preferred by customers, but it’s also a cost-effective opportunity to meet customers where they already are. Integrate live chat support on website pages, messaging platforms, and social media apps to help your customers when and where they need it most.
Use these six best practices to optimize your messaging support.
1. Choose the right customer messaging platform
Go where your customers are. Depending on your industry, your customers will use some platforms over others. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are among the most used messaging apps out there. Prioritize the platform that your customers use and implement chat support for that channel.
2. Create goals with clear metrics
Make sure it’s clear to all stakeholders why the company is offering messaging support. It may seem obvious, but get more specific than just “to improve customer support”.
It’s important to know what the key measurement of success is for your live chat support. Three main things to think about are cost reduction, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction.
Once you define a priority, identify key metrics to track your company’s progress. Defining and measuring your goals will improve the customer experience and help your employees focus on the right things.
3. Use automation
There’s a balance between human chat support and AI chat support. Contrary to what you might think, customers are actually receptive to chatbot interactions. 87% of customers have neutral or positive experiences with chatbots.
Use automation to help with simple customer inquiries and save more complicated issues for your agents to address hands-on.
4. Action key customer information
Collecting customer information like name, email, phone number, and problem details can give agents additional context into issues and help them lower resolution time.
Pro tip: Use conversation history, including bot interactions, as a resource to help customers on a more personal level. Remember to keep these details in one place to provide support across all customer messaging channels.
5. Track chat metrics
You created goals with clear metrics. Now it’s time to track them. Metrics like call volume, conversation duration, resolution time, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) help measure the performance of your customer messaging strategy. Pick the most helpful metrics to measure based on your company’s goals.
Chat metrics help improve your customer and agent experience alike. What you focus on, grows. When your agents know what to prioritize, it’s easier and faster for them to improve in those specific areas.
6. Utilize the right communication style
Live chat support is different from email and voice support. Prepare your agents for digital messaging with customers in real-time with simple prompts and scripts.
Agents should focus on sending clear explanations and brief summaries. Avoid overwhelming customers with lengthy, boring messages. They’re time-consuming for your agents and don’t help the customer.
Want to optimize your customer messaging platform and improve the overall customer experience? NICE offers a blended omnichannel platform that helps companies meet customers on their channels of choice. Take the guesswork out of messaging platforms with this ready-to-use solution.
