Live Chat for Customer Success: Overcoming Adoption Hurdles
In today’s fast-paced world, customers expect instant gratification when it comes to customer support. This is where live chat comes in. According to a study, 57% of customers prefer to get help by chat over other mediums. However, implementing live chat for customer success can be challenging, especially when it comes to adoption during onboarding. In this article, we will discuss how to overcome adoption hurdles and make the most out of live chat for customer success.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. The Challenges of Live Chat for Customer Success
3. Testing and Measuring Results
4. Finding the Perfect Place for Chat
5. Optimizing Chat for Effectiveness
6. Managing Expectations with Trial Customers
7. Using Chat for Other Goals
8. Conclusion
9. FAQs
The Challenges of Live Chat for Customer Success
Implementing live chat for customer success can be challenging, especially when it comes to managing instant gratification expectations. Customers expect quick responses, and if they don’t get them, they may feel like they’ve had a bad experience. Additionally, executing quality interactions at scale with chat can be difficult, especially when chat traffic is unpredictable.
At Help Scout, we were a small team of five when we first implemented live chat. We had no plans of changing that, and chat traffic was unpredictable, which made us nervous. However, we decided to give it a try, and here’s what we learned.
Testing and Measuring Results
When testing live chat, it’s important to start slowly and test one page at a time. This makes it easier to get good, clean data on where chat is most effective. Additionally, it’s important to set specific goals for chat based on exactly what you want to gain from it. Otherwise, it can feel like it’s not working.
At Help Scout, our first goal was to increase visitor to trial conversion. We planned to measure this by cross-referencing the email address of chatters to new accounts created later than their chat date. However, we found that chat wasn’t effective for this goal. Instead, we found that chat was most effective during onboarding in the 15-day free trial.
Finding the Perfect Place for Chat
Finding the perfect place for chat is crucial. For us, it was during onboarding in the 15-day free trial. For your business, it may be different. If you have blocker issues in your shopping cart, for example, it may make more sense to put chat there. The important thing is to test and be thoughtful about where you place it.
Additionally, it’s important to get enthusiastic buy-in from the support team. This can be difficult if you don’t have data to show how impactful chat can be. However, once you have the data, it’s easier to get buy-in from the team.
Optimizing Chat for Effectiveness
Once you find the perfect place for chat, it’s important to optimize it for effectiveness. This means figuring out when it’s most effective to have on and creating a schedule for your team. It’s also important to monitor chat during low traffic periods to minimize exhaustion.
Managing Expectations with Trial Customers
When implementing live chat, it’s important to manage expectations with trial customers. At Help Scout, we didn’t hear many complaints when we turned off chat after the trial period. However, we did have an idea to implement a little message or something that was like, “Hey, where’s my chat?” and then point them to the help menu for Beacon.
Using Chat for Other Goals
Live chat can be used for other goals besides increasing visitor to trial conversion. For example, it can be used to increase the amount of qualified leads to sales. It’s important to test and optimize chat for specific goals to make the most out of it.
Conclusion
Implementing live chat for customer success can be challenging, but it’s worth it. By testing and measuring results, finding the perfect place for chat, optimizing chat for effectiveness, managing expectations with trial customers, and using chat for other goals, you can make the most out of live chat for customer success.
FAQs
Q: How did introducing live chat impact your overall conversion rate?
A: It’s difficult to say exactly how live chat impacted our overall conversion rate since we tested many things at once. However, we did see positive indications in places that we know increase our conversion rate.
Q: How did you manage expectations with trial customers so they weren’t disappointed to no longer have chat for support when they were a live customer?
A: We didn’t hear many complaints