Don’t Just Buy the Chat Widget - Solve the Problem

The Software and Usage Waste Report from 1E found that on average, 38%¹ of software spendings are wasted, that’s a massive £34 billion US/UK total waste! The term for this is shelfware, a software that has been purchased but never used, but it may also be that the software is used, but not properly. In the new episode of our Everything eCommerce podcast, this week we discussed personalisation and platform with James White of Nosto, and one of the key points that came up was businesses investing in software that was not of benefit to them.

So What Is the Solution?

Identification

First of all, you need to identify the reasons you are looking for a chat service. Do you need someone to answer customer support queries, increase the number of leads coming through the site, or drive more sales? The answer to this provides you with the basis of searching for the right service to use. If you are just sticking some live chat code on your website because everyone else is doing it, chances are, it’s not well thought through and misdirected. By identifying your needs, you are able to look at which solutions will work best for you. With an average 50% increase in leads using live chat, and an industry-leading 99% satisfaction, it’s easy to see why live chat can be so effective if done properly.

Set-Up

Whether you are setting up a chatbot or creating a human chat service, you need to install and set it up properly. It’s tempting to just install a widget on your site or attempt to set up a chatbot yourself, but it can ultimately end in a poor-quality service for your customer. If you don’t understand the software and don’t have the internal resources to install the chat service, then hire a specialist to help you set this up.

Using our extensive experience on chat, we’re able to use this to create a personalised experience for your business. A proactive strategy can be the difference between a sale or not, as we are sure to appear to customers when they need it most, such as lingering on their basket for too long, or on pages where people often have the most questions. Using data-driven methods, we’re sure to do the hard work ourselves and implement a strategy that works.

The Actual Chat

With live chat software, there are a vast amount of companies offering ‘low-cost chat’ through a simple widget installation, but then they offer no further support when it comes to actually chatting, which is where the magic is done. It’s easy to fall into the trap of downloading the software and either forgetting about it entirely or putting members of your team onto the chat, who have no live chat training and quite frankly, have other things to do that would better serve your business.

Often customer service is grouped together, and the thought is if that you are good at phone support, you will do well on live chat, but that’s certainly not the case. Although you may have a customer experience background and phone skills, you may have a slow typing speed and inadequate knowledge of how to convey the right tone via an online format. Managed chat services are for people who want the best live chat has to offer. It provides a handsfree experience, where you are able to take a backseat and let professional chat agents do the hard work, and watch as the benefits pour in.

At the Chat Shop, we start with a team of highly trained UK and US-based live chat agents who have had over 100 hours of paid training on our knowledge bases and processes and continue to measure them over 20 different quantitative and qualitative metrics weekly with a personal development plan. It’s crucial to train on chatting techniques, conversation styles, customer service best practices, so we ensure that they have a 100% pass rate on their training before they go live on a client.

Final Thoughts

Industry software waste is a massive problem, and what may be even worse is software not used properly. Through investing in a managed chat service instead of just throwing your phone sales team onto a low-cost chat software, you are able to ensure your money is well spent. Investing in the right service can be the difference between a visitor becoming a customer or not. You can also use data tracking and ongoing collection of customer experience data through live chat to inform your wider strategy.

Read more about our managed chat solution here.

Watch the full podcast here.

¹https://www.1e.com/resources/report/software-usage-waste-report-2016/