Recently, we went over fantastic customer service phone etiquette tips guaranteed to ensure top-tier customer experiences (CX) via phone based customer service (CS), mentioning viable high-quality phone-based CS advantages. Though phone CS has its advantages, live chat (bundled with omnichannel customer support solutions) offers a more efficient, simpler customer service experience, ensuring your customers receive rapid sales/support assistance that meets service needs as/when needed; as live web chat, coupled with multi-channel customer service solutions, is preferred by Millennials (from Generation Y) — up to 23% of the global population within that age group as confirmed by a 3rd party — it affords a grand customer service live chat experience and offers superior advantages — such as:

• Greater Return-on-Investment (ROI) — that is, time, labor, and direct/in-direct cost savings — since real-time CS and handling multiple chat tickets at once significantly reduces service costs while improving sales.
• Sales Incrementation — as live chat along with omnichannel customer care solutions increases sales conversion rates by 23 percent and higher.
• Better Sales Market Competition — since most global brands haven’t caught on to the live chat customer service benefits, meaning you can get ahead of the competition by increasing your customers’ satisfaction through convenient, quick live web chat customer service.
• Heightened Long-term Customer Loyalty — as fantastic CS via live chat increases customer satisfaction and the positive view customers have about your brand, creating long-term relationships with customers that are worth up to 10x the value of first purchases.

Since fantastic CS via web chat, paired with additional communication channels, offers such top advantages, we’ll provide 10 customer service live chat etiquette tips to help you create the ideal customer service live chat experience and ensure customer-centric service that guarantee superior customer engagement experiences.

Customer Service Live Chat Etiquette: 10 Fantastic Live Chat Customer Service Experience Tips

Short Response Times

CSRs should provide rapid responses — as doing so ensures they won’t be kept on hold. According to a 3rd party, 50% of customers vouch for a 5-minute or less average chat service response time between interactions.

• Utilize chatbots/automatic welcome greetings for quick customer interactions while fostering proper multitasking efficiency.
• Ensure chat requests come as push notifications, preventing them from being missed.
• Integrate live chat functions with social media for ample customer connection opportunities.

Friendly Greetings

Short, friendly greetings quickly connect with customers while building rapport/trust — as they provide a positive first impression and show customers their value.

• Simple greetings — “hi,” “hi [name],” and “hi there” — are the best.
• It’s okay to respond informally if customers do; your CSRs shouldn’t overdo it.
• Don’t respond with long/overly formal greetings; have CSRs omit providing unnecessary info.
• If customers omit the greeting, going straight to the point, your agents should still friendly greet while getting to the point.

A Personal Touch

A personal touch to CSRs’ customer interactions increases sales by up to 20% — because, it’s a means of building a great first impression while demonstrating customer value.

• Have your CSRs use their customers’ name to build relationships right away.
• Forms for customers to fill out cut out texted awkwardness and ensure your CSRs have the preliminary info. necessary to foster smooth conversation and provide rapid support; use this when customers don’t give their names.

Active Listening

Active listening, as one of the most important customer service soft skills, means hearing what’s said, basing responses off customer feedback rather than a script/personal feelings. By practicing this, customers will feel empathy present.

• Have CSRs accept the “reality” of situations as described by each customer.
• Avoid having CSRs enforce their “point of view,” showing empathy instead.
• Have CSRs avoid unhealthily disrupting the flow of interactions by addressing only the key messages mentioned up-front.

A Proper Non-verbal Communication Tone

Matching the tone of voice (in the context of instant messaging) with customers’ reading expectations aligns the message meaning with your CSRs’ friendliness and resolve to help customers; inappropriate tone draws too much attention to CSRs’ messages’ connotations instead of their actual meaning.

• Have CSRs be friendly, polite, and positive.
• Don’t be too informal by being “overly-emojiful” or “over-GIF-fing.”
• Have CSRs evade hard-to-understand abbreviations/jargon.

Know When/How to Apologize

“Sorry,” “thank you,” and “please” are powerful when handling CS situations; with such phrases, customer engagements will be smoother and more beneficial for all parties.

• A simple “we’re very sorry to hear that” — coupled with consolations/effective solutions — go a long way in building rapport/trust.
• If your CSRs need to correct customers at all, they should take the blame themselves and show care while correcting.
• To compliment the above, CSRs should acknowledge when their customers had every reason to think the way they did, moving forward.

Stay on Topic

Staying on topic, focusing on the customer’s issues, is the best way to ensure they receive effective solutions quickly and can continue enjoying your brand’s products/services.

• Chatter is okay only when it’s the customers communication style.
• Avoid debating with customers; this only creates tension, making the live chat interaction worse.
• Have CSRs avoid disrespecting customers via swearing and/or inappropriate language.
• Have CSRs ask follow-up questions to better resolve the issue.

Resolve All Problems

Web chat can indeed be a bit asynchronous/chaotic at times; as customers often multitask, they can easily forget they’re conversing with your CSRs — and, it’s normal for them to write back after a few hours.

• Chat tickets should be treated as “open”/“pending” until customers say “thank you.”
• Your CSRs should ask customers if they need anything else.
• Remember: the customer closes the conversation — not your CSRs.

Collect Customer Feedback

Measuring your service quality via customer feedback helps your company to figure out whether CSRs are providing customer service live chat experiences that meet customer expectations or not, gain valuable insight on the overall customer experience quality, see what areas need to be improved upon, and also utilize customer feedback opportunities to upsell, cross-sell, or influence customers to leave positive reviews on social media.

Writing Professionalism/Correct Grammar & Spelling

Instant messaging via live chat comes with the risk of being more harshly judged — as customers see your CSRs as the representation of your brand — on the front lines of service.

As grammar/spelling mistakes cast a negative light on business:

• Have CSRs double-check live chat messages for spelling/grammar errors before hitting “send.”
• If available, utilize automatic spelling & grammar checker plugins — such as Microsoft Editor and/or Grammarly — for ensuring perfectly-written texts.
• Always have CSRs refresh their knowledge of the most common writing mistakes.

Callnovo’s Omnichannel Customer Service Outsourcing Solutions Guarantee Superb Customer Service Live Chat Experiences

To compliment the above-mentioned customer service live chat etiquette tips and associated benefits, we at Callnovo Contact Center can support you with fantastic customer service outsourcing solutions, ensuring top-tier CX, leading to heightened customer acquisition/retention rates and long-term brand loyalty/sales success.

Some of our advantages are:

• Omnichannel Support: our CS teams ensure accessible, quick contact solutions are provided through all communication channels — guaranteeing always-available support, leading to enhanced CX and long-term customer loyalty/positive word-of-mouth brand advertising.
• Quality Expertise: our global CS teams share expert service backgrounds/skills to ensure quality service with the utmost success; we ensure personnel are skilled in such areas as:
  • interpersonal communication skills,
  • customer-centric enthusiasm/service attitude,
  • logical thinking skills,
  • management/operations skills, and
  • product/troubleshooting service experience.
• Native Language Support: our localized language support ensures customer needs are efficiently met, conforming to culture and improving brand loyalty.

Conclusion

Through fantastic customer service via the above-mentioned customer service live chat etiquette tips, your CS teams can successfully ensure top-tier CS, leading to enhanced CX/brand experiences that motivate strong customer acquisition/long-term customer retention. To help you succeed, we at Callnovo offer a comprehensive omnichannel, multilingual customer service solution with customer-centricity in mind to meet your customers’ CS expectations through fantastic experiences that fortify your brand’s growth/loyalty and secure long-term sales success.