Summary:
Much like a hammer only produces results when a skilled hand wields it, live chat only works well when you have contact center agents with the right skills and technology to operate it. Here are the essential things agents must master to expertly manage live chat.
Live chat is often one of the first interactions a customer may have with a business, whether it’s to learn more or to get customer support for an existing purchase. This online communication system often drives parts of the customer experience. It allows customers to interact with an organization and typically to businesses get their website visitors get over the final hurdle in a purchase decision, resolve customer service issues efficiently, and most importantly, portray a professional, larger-scale image to their audience.
Chat technology is one of many tools in a unified communications technology toolbox that your contact agents must be comfortable with. Here are some top tips and tricks for your agents to be top-of-the-line and master that chat queue.
Start with the basics
When you’re looking to populate your chat agent team, there’s a list of core skills that simply can’t be overlooked. Before building out this core team, be sure they’re more than adequate in these key areas:
- Expert-level subject knowledge. Your agents are the face of your company. They must know your products and services inside and out to understand customer needs. Being able to respond to customer needs in an accurate manner can make or break customer experiences.
- Professional communication skills. While this may seem like an easy requirement to fill, look past a basic grasp of language and aim for someone who has keen attention to spelling and the ability to communicate without using technical jargon and acronyms. Keeping the chat within professional range and easily understandable is a careful balance to strike.
- Skillful software program navigation. No matter what platform or software you’re using, a chat agent will need to be familiar with all the ins and outs, especially with the use of shortcuts and other helpful time-reduction tools.
- Accurate typing. This is a must, especially in a fast-paced work environment like a customer response center. Whether inputting customer data, account numbers or notes, without accurate data, the ability to meet customer needs is greatly diminished.
- A need for speed. Working fast while maintaining accuracy and focus is truly an acquired skill, so find someone who has mastered it. Why? The faster your customers get a resolution, the more satisfied they will be.
- Integration of artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help speed up the answering rate and reduce handling time for agents, improving the overall customer experience. An agent that knows how and when to use AI in their work can enhance the rest of their compulsory skills. Often these perimeters can be provided by the company the work for, and the tools they have in their arsenal.
Consider soft skills
Beyond basic business skills, chat agents must possess a myriad of soft skills that set them apart from other types of customer service representatives. Consider the following before you hire anyone for your team:
- Ability to manage multiple tasks at once. Live chat allows agents to truly multitask—communicating with up to six customers at a time (seven if they are also answering voice calls). Thus, having the clarity of mind to keep things straight is paramount and requires some serious time management chops.
- Patience is a virtue. There’s no denying that it takes a special kind of person to work in a public-facing, fast-paced environment where helping people is the goal. Sarcasm, foul language or perceived disrespect are service-killers, and when dealing with irate customers, they can sometimes slip through. That’s why patience to get to the bottom of inquiries, empathy to feel things from a customer perspective and using the proper tone of voice (without using their voice!) are very important.
- Attentiveness. The highest-rated skill for chat agents is the ability to make your customers immediately feel seen and heard. And that starts (and ends) with clear, timely communication. In fact, there’s a tendency for customer satisfaction to increase as more messages are exchanged between an agent and customer during the chat conversation. That leads us to believe that customers truly prefer to talk to agents who take the time to ask more questions, thus getting to the heart of their inquiry (and a solution) faster.
Master live chat with the right team
If your organization is looking to add or upgrade your chat-based component to your contact center, it’s crucial to carefully select the individuals who will represent your company virtually. By identifying the specific skills required for success in a live chat role, you can concentrate on hiring agents who excel in these key areas.
But your agents don’t have to fend for themselves. There has been an incredible amount of technology dedicated to the contact center space that can help take live chat to the next level. Consider our Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), powered by Talkdesk, for example. This industry leading solution offers a highly integrated and secure platform for agents to provide a consistently excellent CX.
Talkdesk’s live chat agents can help businesses provide a better customer experience by offering a variety of features, including:
- Virtual chat agents. Your agents no longer have to fend the front line. Text-based virtual assistants can help identify customer needs and provide answers quickly while recognizing typos and misspellings. They know when it’s time to escalate complex inquiries to a live agent.
- Agent workspace. A unified interface allows agents to manage all customer conversations, including voice and digital, in one view, along with customer information (such as their location, account details and orders).
- Talkdesk Autopilot. No more sweating the small stuff. This advanced feature can manage routine customer queries, freeing up agents to deal with more complex tasks.
- 360 LiveChat. LiveChat provides a wide overview of customers by adding new contacts and chat transcripts to a Talkdesk account after each chat. That way, the history of each customer is captured, and an agent is never starting from nothing. This works over every and all channel of communications available (whether that’s through the website, social media or the phone).
These are a list of agent features that only begin to scratch the surface for contact center and agent support. Have we piqued your interest? Read more on our website to see how this managed CCaaS solution can support the needs of your agents and your organization. Our team of dedicated experts are on standby ready to answer your questions!
