In this issue, we move towards analyzing our Web Greeter service in terms of its viability as a live customer support service, with pre-sales and post-sales functionalities as its intrinsic qualities. We will do this by comparing Live Chat Support with conventional customer support services (telephone support and online help).
Synergistic in character, live chat support takes conventional help models as its unitary factors, and works by merging their best features while coming clean of their shortcomings.
| Live Chat Support versus Telephone Support |
Currently, you are probably extending customer support over the telephone, and from other such traditional platforms; this is a costly undertaking as such solutions require infrastructure, staff accommodation, training and maintenance. With this in view, a decision in favor of live chat support is, in fact, a decision in alliance with your own business interests. A partial replacement, for example, of call center operations by live support services implies, above all, a reduction in your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). We do not ask for a place in your office, nor do we solicit you to train the support team. Rather, we furnish you with a qualified staff that serves you from a global call center, and thus relieves you from employee related expenses and complications, and the task of organizing and managing the support team. Above all, our cost structure is favorable because the phone help model is inherently restrictive - a phone operator can assist only one customer at a time, which may result in long queues of customers who make repeated, unsuccessful attempts to reach support, and finally give up. A Web Greeter, on the other hand, can handle three to four visitors at the same time, which drastically lowers the number of neglected customers. Also, as opposed to phone support, web visitors do not have to get disconnected from the Internet to get a query answered because live operators are on the website to cater to them. Live chat support is most akin to tele-support in that it is a direct, personalized contact with visitors.
| Live Support versus Online Help |
Online help, though comparatively cost effective, is deficient in this personalized expression. Help is, indeed, as near as a mouse click, only visitors have to spend time in searching through it. This may as well not resolve the issue, for a cruise through online help desk may prove to be a little less complex than website navigation. The scarcity or overflow of information may either drive visitors away, or else lead them into confusion. It may also happen that help related inquiries, made through emails, go unattended, or are answered only after annoying delays; as an aftereffect, a company may lose customers or only succeed in building up a dissatisfied clientele.
Alternatively, live support is an instant help, giving visitors the precise information they're scrambling for (and that too in the minimum time possible and with the least effort all ‘round). Visitors do not even have to click a button for help; live operators initiate the conversation with a greeting and guide them through, like any good shop attendant. They are also efficient in taking messages from site visitor-customers and scheduling appointments. This timely response is liable to build customer confidence and hence, to enhance productivity and secure better investment outcome.
| Pre-sales and Post-sales Features |
Note that telephone support and online help are more of post-sale help channels, and do not pursue a clear-cut pre-sale objective, which is better defined as telemarketing. Live Chat Support, on the other hand, effectively amalgamates and streamlines these disparate activities. Aiding visitors in the navigation of the website, live operators can also effectively capture sales leads and strive to qualify them through targeted and relevant communications (by pushing marketing content in the most non-intrusive manner). The practice is not simply an effective visitor retention strategy; it also acts as a customer recruitment tool as it can generate sales.
Realizing that the performance of conventional help tools cannot be judged with strict precision, it wouldn't be wrong to say that live support remains the most comprehensive and scalable support system available on the market today. This is so because interaction with any visitor is safely recorded and transcripts of the actual conversation is forwarded to the website owner; while all statistics and traffic related variables are recordable and reportable in numerous beneficial ways. The method is adequate not only for review purposes, but is also meant to facilitate an immediate follow up, if necessary.
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