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Archives for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

E-mail might not be enough and a phone call might be too much. So, what exactly is the best way to communicate in different situations? Day to day, we all need to communicate with the world and workforce around us. We all need to keep our schedules synched and we need to keep the world informed and there are so many means to accomplishing this. In other words, the right way to “reach out and touch someone” will change with the specifics of the situation. It is up to you to adjust your method of communication accordingly to be a complete success in business.

Say you’re a successful online retailer that sells clothes for professional women. You’re at the computer when a Live Chat Message pops up. It is your best customer wondering what sizes you have in the black blouse on your homepage. In pops an instant message from a co-worker asking, “Where the heck did you put the packing tape?” As you are typing your answer, you see the window pop up for a new e-mail message. It is your drop shipper changing his pricing, ‘What now?’ You ask yourself. You open the e-mail only to see the charges went up drastically with a side note that they are sorry but shipping costs are unbelievable!! Go figure.

Your customer initiated the inquiry by Live Chat so you respond using that. Simple. You answer your co-worker’s question. That was easy – and fast. Now you sit and ponder how to best voice your frustrations to this company you have been dealing with for the past 11 years. With increasing communication tools, comes increasing demand for response. You need to evaluate what the best medium for communication will be?

• Picking up the phone?

• E-Mailing?

• Instant Messaging?

Depending on the situation, using some or all of your communication tools will work. Just think about what point you are trying to express. E-mails and IMs are a great communication tool, especially if you are including specific instructions or directions. The written word can sum up a situation or a list of tasks precisely. However, written words can be taken the wrong way, especially if you are trying to convey nuance or emotion. A phone call may be the better way to go when you need to express your feelings rather than leave your feelings up for interpretation. As they say, “Others can see you smiling or frowning on the other end of the telephone; they can hear your concerns or just feel your emotion.” Inserting smilies might work – but don’t count on it. They can also be interpreted as too informal or just plain silly.

So – in this situation where you need to discuss a lousy situation, pick up the phone and call your distributor so you can calmly discuss your concerns and hear their immediate response. A live conversation gives you the opportunity to massage a situation where a written message may be taken as cold or misinterpreted altogether. It also gives the person with whom you are speaking a chance to fully explain their side of the issue and “reach out and touch” you, too.

After the phone call, send a follow up e-mail thanking them for listening and summarize the call.

We’re fortunate to have so many tools at our fingertips but remember; with increasing communication tools, comes increasing demand for a proper response – and choosing the method of reply is paramount. When it needs to be specific and clear, write it out. When it needs to reach out and be flexible, to connect at a more emotional level, act accordingly and pick up the telephone. When in doubt about how to utilize them and which direction to take, remember to treat your customers as you like to be treated when you’re a customer.

Live chat provides personalized assistance to visitors in real time. Retailers can find what shoppers want, lead them to the right product page and even assist in completing orders using co-browse technology. It can increase average order values (AOV) by as much as 20 percent.

If a visitor places an iBook in the shopping cart and then requests gift-wrap during the checkout process, a live chat agent can upsell the order. Using LivePerson, an agent can proactively invite the visitor to chat. Do you need a memory card? Additional RAM? A convenient sleeve to carry it in? Chatting can increase the order value and result in a happier customer.

“PlumberSurplus.com has enjoyed remarkable success using LivePerson’s live chat solution,” says Vanessa Hofmann of PlumberSurplus.com. “Ninety-five percent of our visitors are satisfied with the experience and chat results in orders that are 15% higher than non-chatting visitors.”

Sophisticated live chat solutions tell retailers who is on their site in real time and segment visitors based on their interests.

LivePerson’s Operator Console provides an at-a-glance view of who is on your site, how they arrived there (via a search engine and which keyword they used, referring site, eNewsletter or some other marketing campaign), the visitors’ geolocation (IP address, city, state, country), Web pages they’re currently visiting and most importantly, whether they’re repeat visitors, chatters or customers. You can even see any items your customer has placed in the shopping cart. You can use these insights for upselling and cross-selling without having to ask time-consuming and annoying questions.

For instance, a retailer whose pay-per-click strategy includes the term “organic cosmetics” will want to monitor visitors who arrive via a search engine using that term. To upsell those visitors, chat agents can inform them of specialty products and offer an incentive such as free shipping if the visitor purchases an additional item. Likewise, retailers who include promotional offers in e-mail campaigns can identify campaign recipients as soon as they arrive on site. The Operator Console flags these visitors so the chat agent may engage them.

LivePerson options to upsell orders:

• Offer incentives to visitors to increase orders

Entice visitors to increase their orders using premium promotions: free gift-wrapping, buy-three-get-one-free, free shipping on orders totaling $200 or more. To implement, simply create a few promotional invitations and proactively invite visitors to chat to learn more.

• Chat with visitors who select big ticket items

Shopping cart abandonment is an online fact of life. Research shows that visitors use the shopping cart in their decision-making process. So if a visitor places a big-ticket item in his or her shopping cart, alarms should be going off. Proactive rules can alert your chat agents whenever visitors place such items in their cart and can automatically send invitations that read: “Need help selecting the right components? Click to chat with a product specialist.” Or you can offer other promotions that upsell the order.

• Reward visitors who reach your site via a paid search term or SEM campaign

Most retailers deploy costly pay-per-click campaigns to attract visitors to their sites. Retailers should couple them with a chat strategy to ensure conversion. Offer a promotional discount to visitors who arrive on your site via a paid search or free shipping if they purchase the item right then. Inform visitors that they’ll be chatting with a product specialist, not a customer service representative.

• Offer special incentives to chat

Customer surveys indicate that visitors who chat are three times more likely to convert. Offer a special incentive that entices a visitor to accept a chat invitation, such as “Chat now to get $5.00 off your next order” or even free shipping on this item.

• Offer discounts on next purchase

If visitors linger on your iPod product page, encourage them to buy with a special offer. Buy the iPod now and you’ll include an iTunes gift card on the next visit. It is easy to track such offers through the Operator Console reporting features.

For additional best practices to increase average order value, attend the joint LivePerson/Solid Cactus webinar this July 17, 2008 (see ad for details), or visit http://www.solutions.liveperson.com/events.