Avoiding Potential Pitfalls When Offering Web Chat

 In my last post, I talked about how more companies are starting to offer Web chat because of customer demand and need.   This seems like an easy way to offer service, and most companies are managing and measureing it using the same basic approach applied to telephone inquiries.   Although there are many similarities with chat and phone, there are differences that can ultimately make it more challenging and potentially less efficient than other access channels.   Below are some pitfalls to avoide and suggestions to consider s for those you  thinking about or already offering chat to your customers:

 

• - Your overall cost to serve may be higher. Be sure you fully understand the success rate, handle time and agent utilization involved. I’ve worked with companies that have done the math and realized they were spending more — not less — to offer chat as a customer access channel.

 

• - Including long customer “non-response” wait times in the overall handle-time calculation will inflate the numbers and lead to inefficiency. Be sure to train agents on how to control the transition to help reduce the number of chat customer “hang-ups.”

 

 

• - If you’re in a multimedia routing environment, be sure to adjust the routing rules to treat chats differently than phone calls. Customers are typically much less tolerant when waiting on a key board than they are on a telephone.

 

• - Approach multi-session handling carefully to ensure that agents are not tasked with too much or too little. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t always work in the chat world, so be sure to spend some time looking at your inbound inquires compared to your agents’ skill sets.

 

 

• - Establish a staffing policy for chat that is based on meeting a set service objective and maximizing agent utilization. Even if agents can handle other transactions types (email, correspondence, etc.) you need to have a formal — and adhered to — interval scheduling approach for chat.

 

• - And last, but certainly not least, don’t forget about quality. Every access channel provides another opportunity to delight, or upset, a customer. Be sure to establish a quality program that’s focused on chat and the agent behaviors required for success.

 

Many of the challenges associated with chat are typically driven by an “it’s  different” approach to managing it.   The reality is that if you apply the same scientific approach that’s used for supporting telephone calls — with some slight modifications for this text-based channel — your transition to chat will be both efficient and effective.

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Web Chat is Finally Being Positioned the Right Way in Call Centers

 Several years ago, Web-based chat was getting a lot of hype, and many companies starting offering a “click-to-talk” button on their Web site.   Like email, chat was viewed as a more efficient option than telephone calls, and a nice alternative for customers.   However, something seemed to happen along the way — many companies quickly discovered that they’d adopted an access channel that hadn’t quite matured with customers and, in some cases, wasn’t used at all.    In fact, several companies stopped offering this access channel altogether, or began to limit its offering to  certain groups or market segments.    

 

After its initial hype, many of our traditional “call center” clients all but removed chat from their radar screen. But lately we’ve seen it evolve into a near necessity for companies that provide online retailing, technical support and Web-based services.    While there are a lot of opinions on the true cost savings associated with chat, we are seeing companies focusing more attention on the overall customer experience and worrying less about agent efficiencies.  Many have found that forcing agents to conduct too many chat sessions simultaneously can lead to lower quality, reduced response times and, in the end, customer frustration and defection.   Every indication is that chat is now evolving into a more respected access channel, and many companies are implementing and reporting quality and performance metrics for chat alongside their traditional telephone objectives.

 

One thing that seems to be driving  acceptance of chat is the recent increase in the use of Instant Messaging (IM) in the work place.  There have been several articles in mainstream publications touting the IM explosion.  In addition,  some of our call center clients have started using IM as a way for agents to ask questions, share real-time findings, and receive supervisor updates.   As more people become comfortable communicating via IM, it’s very likely to spill over into their expectations of all companies.   Yes, it does look like the users are finally catching up to the technology, and will soon expect the chat channel to be available, regardless of the industry.

 

The good thing for those of us running call centers  is that the dynamics we’ve struggled to master are easily transferred to supporting the chat-enabled world.   It comes down to setting an objective (service level/response time), understanding your workload (volume/handle time), and ensuring people are in the right place (adherence).   What is different about supporting chat is the out-of-the-box functionality that is typically available – skills-based routing, priority queuing, suggested responses/templates, etc.    Many of the tools that are typically on our call center “wish list” are immediately available when you implement a chat solution.

Get more, including Free web seminars and articles at http://www.servicelevelgroup.com/