“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Theresa
The way you respond to your customers shows how you respect them and their business. In one of my earlier blog posts I offered useful recommendations for greeting your customers. Today I decided to talk about a proper conversation closing. This idea occurred to me while I was writing an email to a customer and was thinking about the proper closing.
We usually do not pay much attention to the words we write at the end of an email or web chat conversation. However, they really matter to those people who read them. Our conversation closing shows if we are interested in getting a response and what is our attitude to the recipient. My today’s customer service tips will help you to choose the right conversation closing and not to sound robotic each time you say goodbye.
Choose the right email closing
Choosing the right closing for an email seems quite an easy task. However, you may face a challenge while trying to personalize your conversation closing. This part of email is the place where you can add some personal touch and express your friendly attitude.
If you were discussing an appointment, you can mention the day and write “See you on Monday” instead of traditional “See you soon”. You can also send warm greetings to your customer’s family or wish a great weekend. However, you need to do this carefully and avoid awkward situations.
Here are some examples of polite email closing:
Expressions for showing your desire to assist:
- Please let us / me know if you need any further assistance
- Should you have any questions, please let us / me know
- I / We hope you will find my / our recommendations useful
Expressions for thanking:
- Thank you for cooperation on this matter
- Thank you for your assistance
Expressions with a future focus:
- I am looking forward to hearing from you
- I am looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday
- I / We would appreciate your attention to this matter
- See you in Chicago next Tuesday
Tips for live chat conversation ending
While chatting with a customer you may face various situations at the end of your chat conversation. Our customers mainly close the conversation politely by indicating their desire to do so. They let us know that the issue has been resolved and say goodbye. However, there may be different situations when customers switch to other tasks leaving the chat room open or you need to transfer the chat to your colleague. Below I described three situations which may occur during the chat communication.
1. Simple conversation closing
Your customer clearly indicates that the issue has been resolved or all questions have been answered. In this case you’d need to thank this customer for contacting your company and say goodbye. It is not polite to leave the chat room before the customer. You need to wait for your customer to close the chat room first since your customer may remember something just before leaving and may need your further assistance.
You can also take advantage of the real time monitoring and use this information while chatting with your customers. In the Local Time tab in the operator console you will find the information about your customer’s time zone. You can use this while saying goodbye.
2. Ending of the conversation in case you transfer a chat
If your shift is over or you need to invite a co-worker from another department, you need to notify your customer before you transfer the chat. You can do this by writing: “I am sorry, my shift is over, I will invite my co-worker Helen to assist you further” or “My co-worker Mary from tech support department will be able to answer your question. I will invite her to our chat room now, one moment, please.”
3. How to close a conversation where a customer left the chat room open
You can find yourself in a situation when you have already finished the conversation but your customer forgot to close the chat room and switched to other tasks. In this case you need to ask your customer politely if he / she needs your assistance and then wish a goodbye and close the chat room. Here are some examples for dealing with such situation:
- You need to ask if your customer needs your assistance: “Please let me know if you have any further questions or need my assistance”. Then you need to wait for 10 minutes and if there was no response say goodbye and close the chat room: “I will close the chat room. Please contact us should you have any questions or need assistance. Have a good day.” Before closing the chat room you can also mention when your support chat is available.
- If your customer has already said goodbye but has not closed the chat room, you can wait for 10 minutes and close the chat room from your side first. In this case you can write: “I will close this chat room. If you would like to save this chat conversation, you can email it yourself or print it out. Have a good day.”
Over to You
In my blog post I provided some general examples for email or chat conversation closing. While assisting your customers you may need to personalize some of them or update according to the purpose you would like to achieve. It is important to close the conversation politely because this is the final impression your customer has. And if for some reason you spoil it, your customer will feel disappointed and may give you a negative feedback. Live chat conversations as well as email conversations may be saved and then shared with other people. Please remember this and assist your customers politely and with respect.
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If you discuss an appointment, you can mention the day and write “See you on Monday”, not the traditional “See you again”