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Chat?
Do you use chat at work? Do you recommend using it over email or phone?
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5 Answers
I think chat is super useful in the office as it allows employees to communicate quickly and easily without disrupting the workplace. Since I spend a lot of my time at work on the phone, using various chat interfaces allows me to ask questions to other employees without disrupting my interaction with my customer.
I'm also a huge fan of companies who tie chat into their websites for customer service purposes. From a consumer's stand point it is so much faster for me to ask an easy question via chat, rather than wait on hold for several minutes for a customer service rep.
I’ve seen customer service reps try to use chat to increase productivity to over 100%. They’ll have chat windows open while they talk on the phone and write emails. It doesn’t work.
CSR might be trained in inbound and outbound voice but writing is a different ballgame. With chat you need to think on your feet, use correct grammar and spelling, and type quickly.
Cutting and pasting is not good customer service. Your users will know that you’re doing it. If you’re going to offer chatting, make sure that your CSRs are trained and ready to do it properly.
Do you mean chat for customer service or chat in the corporate world?
I think chat for customer service is fairly scripted but effective nonetheless. I give an even bigger yes for the corp world chat because it helps ties teams together. Workers across the globe or across the room can communicate quickly and easily.
I love chat. I have managed programs that used Chat/E-Mail globally. We skilled the chat agents because of service level agreements., and email agents can easily do both since most e-mail SLAs are more flexible.
I’ve found that Customer Satisfaction via chat is actually good and cost-effective. The user can even give feedback directly to the CSR they were in contact with—just create a satisfaction survey and send it to the customer at the end of the chat.
One note: It can look pretty bad when a chat window pops up in the middle of a conversation with someone near your desk. Or a presentation.
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