Live chat has become one of the most widely used tools for customer service today. 75% of customers find live chat the most satisfying way to communicate with a business. While using live chat customers can multitask and get assistance without wasting their time waiting in a queue for phone support. On the other side, live chat agents can also multitask, handle several customers concurrently and this way assist faster and more efficiently. Both website visitors and businesses benefit from using this tool. However, for customer service agents it is important not only to reply promptly but also to stay professional, use positive language, and possess certain customer service skills. In this blog post, we prepared 10 best practices for handling live chat as an agent. Our recommendations are based on the rich experience of our customer service team and the experience shared by our customers who use Provide Support live chat software on their websites.
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10 examples of greetings which should be added to your canned responses
By using canned responses, you can significantly streamline the communication with customers. However, such responses should be used wisely, as otherwise the customer service will lose its personal touch and will seem robotic. Modern customers are fed up with chat bots and seek personalized experience while interacting with a business. One of the keys for creating a great customer relationship is the content you use to communicate with customers. In this blog post we will talk about the canned responses and will provide 10 examples of greetings which you can add to them to make your communication more customer focused and friendly.
Continue readingHow many customer support agents do I need on live chat?
Finding the right balance in staffing a live chat customer service team is the challenge many companies face today. If a company is customer-oriented and focused on excellent service and experience the main issue they need to solve is to find out how many customer support agents they need on live chat. It is not just about answering all chats fast and efficiently. It’s also about finding the right balance between operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. I.e. the number of agents should be enough to provide excellent service and their time should be spent with maximal efficiency. In this blog post we will answer the most frequently asked questions which arise when companies face live chat agents hiring challenge. We will also provide useful recommendations based on our experience and feedback from our customers who have been using our live chat software for more than 20 years.
Continue readingGetting Started with Affiliate Marketing: Tips for Beginners
Affiliate marketing is a great low-cost way to earn money without any investments and risk. Lots of online content creators partner with businesses, promote them and in return earn commission for each sale. This is how the affiliate marketing works. However, the main challenge for beginners in affiliate marketing is the cost and effort involved in building their website and audience. In this blog post we will share useful tips for beginners in affiliate marketing and will describe how to start affiliate marketing business for free. Click here to start earning affiliate commission with Provide Support Before we start it is necessary to understand what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
Continue readingBenefits of in-house data storage
Data security problem has recently become of the highest priority for business owners all over the globe. No matter whether your business is big or small, all issues related to data protection have become number one concern. IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report found that the average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million and moving in an upward trend. Thus, all measures for keeping company information safe should be taken. In this blog post we will discuss pros and cons of in-house data storage vs commercial clouds. Pros and cons of in-house data storage Self-hosting means installing, running and maintaining all the hardware locally, while cloud-hosting is about renting this service from a SaaS provider. Though hosting on-premise sounds scaring, there are a lot of advantages of the in-house data storage:
Continue readingBest tools for the effective remote teamwork
Today virtual offices became the necessity rather than an additional way of organizing the workflow. Lots of businesses have started hiring remote teams recently. However, Covid-19 pandemic significantly sped up this process and forced many businesses to move to virtual working environment. The necessity to transfer to remote offices made this process quite chaotic with various inconveniences both for employees and employers. In this blog post we will recommend the tools for effective remote teamwork to facilitate your remote office setup or improve the workflow of an existing one. However, before we start let us highlight the most important features for the successful remote teamwork:
Continue reading5 Reasons your Customer Service isn’t Human Enough
Digital customer service becomes more and more popular among businesses. And the reasons for switching to other than phone customer service channels are more than obvious: More cost saving customer service budgets; Faster customer response time; Lower load on customer service agents. At the same time with increased efficiency and profitability customer service loses its humanity that many customers are carving. Thus, to get higher satisfaction rates for customer service quality you should offer human touch and personalization. In this blog post we highlighted several reasons why your customer service isn’t human enough.
Continue reading3 Reasons You Need to Have a Reliable Communication Channel for Your Customers and Employees
Secure and reliable communication channel is one of the most important aspects of any successful business today. Information leaking can damage even more than destruction or theft in modern world. For ages people have been struggling to keep data secure and protected. They invented various ways of secure data exchange: private messengers, pigeon post and encrypted texts in Middle Ages invisible ink and more advanced texts encryption in late 19 and early 20 century password protected data in 1960th email invention in 1970th data protection with help of antivirus software development in 1980th the rise of firewalls to protect data exchange in 1990th more and more improvements against data leaks and more advanced measures to protect information exchange today
Continue readingHow to Provide Educational Customer Experience
Modern customer service is not a simple process of answering customer questions and solving their issues. First of all it is an essential part of any business operations that can make or break a business. Statistics shows that for 86% of consumers good customer service turns one-time clients into long-term brand champions. Providing a comprehensive customer education with your products or services while assisting your customers can help your company improve your customer service and bring it to the next level. When your customers have enough knowledge, they feel confident and do not bother your team with multiple questions. Thus it is important not only to provide good self service options, but also to train your customer service team to educate your customers while assisting them.
Continue reading3 Tips for Running a Successful Online Business in 2022
The revenue potential for online businesses continues to grow. In 2020, eCommerce accounted for 18% of global retail sales. That number is expected to grow to close to 22% by 2024. Still, maybe your business isn’t seeing the growth you would like. No matter how hard you try, you are likely missing out on potential sales, revenue, and profits. There are some steps you can take to make your online business as successful and profitable as possible. You don’t need to be a marketing genius. You just need to take advantage of some tools that are already available. Whether it is about choosing the right marketing software, adding live chat, or organizing everything around your brand, just making some minor adjustments can make a massive difference.
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