What can chat do for an organization?

Today’s tech-savvy, IM generation of consumers requires multi-channel support offerings and increasingly their preferred support channel is live chat. But other than ensuring that customers receive an immediate response to their inquiry what can chat do for an organization?

Organizations can leverage chat in both sales and support to increase customer satisfaction and generate revenue. Chat can enable support teams to deliver service and support where and when customers need it – whether it be in-game, in-application, a Web form, a shopping cart, or as an escalation channel for self-service – as well as providing an opportunity to generate sales leads, increase Web sales conversion rates and increase revenue by proactively inviting prospects or customers to chat with available sales or support representatives.

Chat enables end users to engage in live question and answer sessions directly with support representatives for improved contact resolution or with sales reps to increase the close rates of customers. Chat can empower multitasking representatives to become more productive across multiple support channels and to offer an immediate, seamless transition from a self-service to assisted channel at critical times during the sales or support interaction.

Does your organization have multi-channel support with chat capability? If so, is it used in sales, support or both? What are the advantages that you’ve experienced? Any disadvantages?

Within your industry, do you consider chat a support channel that improves your customers’ experience? As a consumer, do you prefer to have chat as a support option?

Parature Chat - CSR view

Parature Chat™ is empowering organizations across diverse industries to proactively initiate conversations with customers and prospects. Parature customers can leverage chat in both sales and support environments to increase customer satisfaction and generate revenue. Chat enables support teams to deliver service and support where and when customers need it – whether it be in-game, in-application, a Web form, a shopping cart, or as an escalation channel for self-service – as well as providing an opportunity to generate sales leads, increase Web sales conversion rates and increase revenue by proactively inviting prospects or customers to chat with available sales or support representatives.

Parature Chat is an easy-to-use next generation product that lets end users engage in live question and answer sessions directly with support representatives for improved contact resolution or with sales reps to increase the close rates of customers. This powerful chat module is a fully integrated, sales and support focused chat application designed to meet the needs of the newest generation of customer support representatives, sales representatives and customers. Parature Chat contains the latest cutting edge technology and enables efficiencies for sales and support professionals including supervisory capabilities that allow managers to view and “whisper” tips to their teammates during chats; chat shortcuts that significantly reduce keystrokes and the time to answer for support teams; in chat dashboards that allow managers and employees to see how many chats are open, how many are waiting and the SLA for those customers. Knowledgebase integration and high volume routing of chats to the appropriate queues or representatives – based on pre-chat questions, skills, issue type or availability – empowers multitasking representatives to become more productive across multiple support channels and to offer an immediate, seamless transition from a self-service to assisted channel at critical times during the support interaction.

Parature Chat - End User view

Chat enables organizations to manage feedback and measure customer sentiment via a custom chat experience that’s branded to match the ‘look and feel’ of any website, as well as customized chat buttons and links to extend the support presence where customers need it most. Customer sentiment can be captured and acted upon in real-time by utilizing custom chat feedback questions. Parature Chat provides complete oversight of chat activity with comprehensive reporting and monitoring enabling organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of their chat channel and analyze activity across the entire organization.

Parature Chat has been designed to meet the needs of the IM generation; the preferred support channel for this new generation of customers is, increasingly, live Chat.

Perhaps few understand this better than Steve Wilson, Customer Service Manager at Cartoon Network’s MMOG – FusionFall, whose customers are primarily boys age 8-13.

To determine what kind of customer support would best serve this audience, Steve’s team turned to focus groups. (To get the most participation, the focus group asked a lot of questions about the game itself, then Steve’s group ‘snuck in’ some questions about their support needs.) Not surprisingly, the findings showed that traditional support vehicles – phone, knowledgebase – didn’t work for this group. Instead, they discovered several recurrent themes.

First, kids distrust customer service. Many don’t like admitting (especially to adults) they don’t know something. So who do they trust for answers? Fellow gamers. So, Cartoon Network puts a lot of focus on community forums. They allow players to exchange ideas, and allow the support staff to support one to many, maximizing each agent’s time.

Second, reduce customer support hurdles anywhere and everywhere you can, or customers will leave. Forcing customers through the knowledgebase or pointing them to phone support won’t work. Chat is an important communication medium, but a great deal of priority is put on allowing gamers to chat with each other while keeping it safe. For that reason, safety alerts are always at the top of the queue, resolved within five minutes.

The demographics of each user base are unique. Are there support channels within your industry that meet resistance from the customer? If so, how did you reduce resistance or accommodate the specific needs of your customers? How important is a chat support channel to your customer base?