Chat Support Best Practices and Benchmarks - White Paper
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Live chat support is increasingly preferred by both companies and customers for its efficiency and higher customer satisfaction compared to phone and email. It allows concurrent handling of customer inquiries, resulting in significant productivity gains without adversely affecting customer wait times. When implementing chat support, organizations should consider key performance indicators (KPIs) and may benefit from partnering with specialized vendors for effective deployment.
Chat Support Best Practices and Benchmarks - White Paper
- 1. BETSOLThe Right Solution,Right Now Chat Compared to Phone and Email Why is live chat preferred? Chat Support and Productivity Metrics and Determining Success Chat Implementation Considerations and Best Practices Want to learn more or get started with chat support in your organization? 01 02 04 05 06 07 CHAT SUPPORT BEST PRACTICES. CONTENTS
- 2. CHAT COMPARED TO PHONE AND EMAIL Chat support is currently the generally preferred support methodology of both companies and their customers. As discussed in the Customer Satisfaction section, chat support regularly receives higher customer service marks. It allows customers to multi-task while also receive on-demand support. It is the sweet spot for current consumer expectations. From the company’s perspective, chat support is highly efficient. Support agents can handle concurrent sessions, which significantly reduces costs per transaction over phone support. Additionally, the live interaction helps avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary back-and-forth that can be prevalent in email support. The economics continue to favor chat as the leading option. TECHNICAL SUPPORT SATISFACTION LEVEL BY CHANNEL (ECONSULTANCY, 2014) CHAT 73% WEB 61% PHONE 44%
- 3. BETSOL Proprietary: use pursuant to company instruction or agreement AS STATED BY JD POWER IN THE 2013 US WIRELESS CUSTOMER CARE FULL-SERVICE PERFORMANCE STUDY: WHY IS LIVE CHAT PREFERRED? “The higher levels of satisfaction with online chat are partially due to the efficiency and immediacy of the experience” “Within the online channel, the chat feature has become the leading contact source, as 42% of full-service customers indicate using a live online chat feature vs. email (23%) or other social media forum (16%).Additionally, online satisfaction is highest among customers who use the chat feature.”
- 4. BETSOL Proprietary: use pursuant to company instruction or agreement 79% 51% 21% 15% I get my question answered immediatly. Because I canmulti-task 29% Because I’m in control of conversation. 29% Better information than if I emailed 22% I dont like talking on the phone Because I can chat while I’m at work Better information than if I called. 46% Its the most efficient communication method. 38% Once I used live chat I realized how well it works
- 5. Chat support gives individual agents the ability to handle concurrent issues at the same time. There is, however, a balance that must be achieved in terms of agent capacity, responsiveness, economics, and customer satisfaction. Key studies have been performed in this area, and while results may differ from based on support complexity, it is been routinely shown that two concurrent sessions per agent provides the best balance between productivity and customer satisfaction. When an agent moves from handling one issue to two concurrent issues, productivity increases by 85%. At this point, wait time between customer question and agent response typically only increases by 3 seconds. However, interaction wait time for the agent drops 82%, as the agent is now able to move question to question rather than waiting on the customer. Moving to three concurrent sessions, however, begins to show considerably diminished returns. Whereas with two concurrent sessions, the agent still has wait time on the customers, with three sessions, the customer is now purely waiting on the agent. Agent wait time drops to zero, netting an additional 13.6% productivity gain. However, customers are now waiting nearly twice as long as they would in a one session scenario. BETSOL Proprietary: use pursuant to company instruction or agreement CHAT SUPPORT AND PRODUCTIVITY By moving from one chat session to two per agent, you are able to increase your support center’s productivity by 85% with no significant impact to the customers.
- 6. WHEN DEPLOYING SUPPORT METHODOLOGIES, MANAGING TO SIMPLE BUT INSIGHTFUL KPIS IS KEY TO SUCCESS. FOUR KEYS AREAS SHOULD BE MEASURED FOR BEST RESULTS: METRICS AND DETERMINING SUCCESS Measuring these areas allows organizations to keep customer-focused while managing internal cost concerns. By leveraging industry standard KPIs, organizations are able to take a step further and benchmark themselves against both competitors and best-in-class. The following table provides industry standard measures, along with general North American averages. Organizations will want to dive deeper into their particular sector, and where possible, compare themselves against direct competitors. Quality Net promoter score 63.1% First time resolution 70.2% Productivity Handle time 12.9 mins Chat techs as % of support headcount 84.3% Service Level Average speed of answer 3.93 mins Abandonment rate 13.1% Cost Cost per chat $11.20 Cost per minute of handle time $0.90 SERVICE LEVELQUALITY PRODUCTIVITY BETSOL Proprietary: use pursuant to company instruction or agreement COST
- 7. CHAT IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS AND BEST PRACTICES IF YOU’RE CONVINCED CHAT IS THE RIGHT SUPPORT OPTION FOR YOU, THERE ARE SEVERAL CONSIDERATIONS TO KEEP IN MIND: BETSOL IS A LEADER IN CHAT SUPPORT, PROVIDING AN END-TO-END SOLUTION. BETSOL WILL HOST THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROVIDE STAFF WITH CLASS-LEADING RESULTS. • 75% LOWER TURNOVER THAN INDUSTRY AVERAGE • 2X INDUSTRY AVERAGE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION • 24X7X365 NETWORK MONITORING AND NETWORK ENGINEERING • 24X7X365 CHAT, EMAIL, AND PHONE SUPPORT • LARGE SCALE, PROVEN SUPPORT, WITH OVER 10,000 SIMULTANEOUS AGENTS SUPPORTED • PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENTS, DRIVING TRUE SUPPORT TRANSFORMATION LEADING TO INCREASED CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND REDUCED COST Low cost geographies are ideal for chat support. They can provide cost advantages, while minimally impacting customer satisfaction. Voice quality is notan issue with chat support. Additionally, the use of scripted dialogue can further enhance the quality of dialogue. Infrastructure components and integration with your support portals will be required. Specialized chat support vendors can quickly deploy and maintain these solutions in an off-premise, hosted environment. Staffing provided by a specialized vendor will allow you to quickly ramp up and down to meet seasonal volume, trial chat support, or meet changing customer preference over time BETSOL Proprietary: use pursuant to company instruction or agreement
- 8. WANT TO LEARN MORE OR GET STARTED WITH CHAT SUPPORT INYOUR ORGANIZATION? USA 1624 Market Street, Suite 202 Denver, CO 80202 Phone: +1 720-452-6577 INDIA Brigade Software Park, 'B' Block, 7th Floor Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore-560070 India Phone: +91 80 26710458 CONTACT US WWW.BETSOL.COM