Live chat is rapidly becoming the most common channel for resolving customer service issues. Just within the U.S., usage of live chat has increased from 43% in 2012 to 65% in 2015. It’s not surprising – customers don’t enjoy navigating complicated phone menus only to be placed on hold, and companies are realizing that live chat is both time- and cost-efficient. A recent report by The Aberdeen Group reveals that companies save as much as 50% on support costs by using live chat versus traditional phone support.
What’s more, our clients are increasingly realizing that this type of data can reveal valuable and actionable insights. Luminoso partners with leading companies to analyze their live chat data and to drive specific strategic benefits, including:
Proactively solving issues before other customers experience them
This is perhaps the greatest benefit of analyzing live chat data, as it can prevent losses of up to millions of dollars of revenue. As an example, one of our clients, an industry leader in design software, surfaced a major issue with its online payment process that was preventing customers in Europe from purchasing products online. While the company worked on a comprehensive solution, the team acted quickly to notify its European customers about how to navigate the issue. This swift action prevented $11.5 MM in lost sales.
Another client, a leading office supplies retailer, provided rewards in exchange for used supplies. Chat logs revealed that many customers were confused about the details of the incentive and frustrated after trying to exchange supplies that did not qualify. Our client immediately took steps to clarify directions on how the program worked.
Improving customer experience by providing a 30,000-foot view of issues
Customer care teams spend their time interacting one-on-one with customers solving issues that are specific to an individual. While they may see some patterns, they cannot see what issues occur most frequently across all customer service representatives. Sharing insights from a strategic level provides a holistic view of important issues and enables representatives to be more informed about situations that need to be escalated.
Providing hard data to support “hunches” about issues and customer pain points
When an issue can’t be solved in a two-minute chat conversation, high level insights provide the data needed for other parts of the organization to understand the urgency of the problem. For example, approaching the development team with, “I need your help to solve this problem with our product,” becomes far more effective when you can say, “I need you to solve this problem because 35% of our clients experienced it last week.”
Collecting information about how other support channels are working
Interestingly, customers often reach out to companies via live chat to share what needs to be improved
with other support channels like phone or email support. In the case of phone support, we’ve seen customers share information about their dissatisfaction with language barriers, being put on hold for too long, or being disconnected.Our clients who use insights derived from live chat have all significantly improved their customer relationships by resolving issues more proactively and gaining a more comprehensive view of their customers’ needs. Learn how you, too, can integrate live chat into your customer feedback program by scheduling a demo with Luminoso.
