Live chat is a great way to provide excellent customer service and build relationships with your customers. But live chat can be challenging if you don’t know how to use it well. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the basics of live chat so that you can increase your effectiveness as an online agent:

Maintain a professional tone

Live chat on a website is not the place to get personal, which is why you should be polite and courteous when talking with your customers. Don’t use slang or colloquialisms, such as texting abbreviations in place of words (e.g., “lol” instead of “laugh out loud”). You also shouldn’t use emoticons or emojis because they can make it seem like you’re being sarcastic with your customers—a mistake that may alienate them from your site entirely!

Be knowledgeable

Live chat on a website is a great way to engage with your customers and get them talking. It’s also a great opportunity for you to provide product information, answers to specific questions, customer service assistance, and technical support. If you want people to feel comfortable with using live chat on your website before they make a purchase decision (or during the process of doing so), then it’s important that you’re knowledgeable about what they can expect from your team when they contact them through this medium.

Be clear and concise

  • Be clear and concise. The best way to get your message across is with short, simple sentences that are easy to understand.
  • Use bullet points instead of long paragraphs if possible. This will help you make it easier for the customer service person to read through your message and understand what you’re trying to say in less time than if they had to wade through a longer document or email chain. You can also use bullet points as a way of making sure that everything has been covered before moving onto another topic—you don’t want someone getting stuck on an important point because there was no space left between them!
  • Consider using FAQ pages or knowledge bases so that customers know where they can find answers when they need them most (and maybe even why some things aren’t included). These pages should be easily accessible so people who visit regularly might not miss anything important when using live chat services.

Use personalized greetings

  • Use the customer’s name.
  • Use a greeting that is friendly and professional, but not too formal. You want to make sure they know you are listening and that they are important to your business, but don’t overdo it! Don’t use generic greetings like “Hi” or “Welcome.” Make sure your message comes across as personal and tailored to their needs—and remember: customers want personalized service!
  • Thank the customer for calling and ask how you can help them. You want to make sure that you are listening to what they have to say, and that your message is clear. If they’re having trouble explaining their problem or need, try asking a question or two about it.

Don’t take too long to respond

You need to be quick, but you also need to be clear.

  • Don’t make the customer wait too long before responding. If it takes more than three minutes for a response and they haven’t reached out with any more questions or concerns, then something is wrong. It could mean that:
  • Your chat agent isn’t listening closely enough
  • Your chat agent doesn’t understand what you’re saying (for example, if they’re not familiar with your business) or are misinterpreting it (for example, if they think that “I’m busy” means “I don’t care.”)

The customer isn’t getting what they need from the conversation (for example, if your chat agent is giving them bad advice) or doesn’t feel comfortable talking with you then it can have a negative impact on the business.

Don’t have all of your agents in one chat room

Having all of your agents in one chat room can be a recipe for disaster. A good rule of thumb is to have a queue for each product, department, location and individual agent. This way you will have some control over who is chatting with whom and when they are doing so.

Also, if you want to ensure that the agents are only talking about your products and not personal topics, then set up a separate queue just for those conversations.

Use canned messages

Canned messages are a great way to keep your responses consistent, save time and personalize your responses. They also help you answer frequently asked questions in a simple, concise manner.

  • Use canned messages when:
  • You have many different types of customers who ask similar questions on live chat
  • You want to make it quicker for the customer to get their answers without having to type them in yourself (and then wait for a response)

Display online status

The most important thing to consider when displaying the agent’s name, location and time zone is that it should be visible for both customers on the website and people looking at their profiles in our social media accounts. If you want to display more information about your agents such as their picture or biography, this can be done by using an image embedding service.

Track your data

It’s important to track your data, so that you can see what is working and what isn’t. This will help you improve your service and make sure that it’s delivering results for customers.

  • Use live chat on websites as an additional channel for customer support: NinjaChat is one of the most powerful tools available for customer service, but it can also be used in other ways too! For example, if someone has trouble signing up to your website or app, they might ask questions via live chat instead of emailing you directly (because they don’t want their message sent through spam filters). Tracking this kind of behavior could prove invaluable when planning future features or promotions based on past successes with live chat usage.

Live chat is a valuable tool when you’re looking to provide excellent customer service

Live chat is a valuable tool when you’re looking to provide excellent customer service. It can be used for:

  • Answering questions about your product or service
  • Providing information on how to use your products and services (including FAQs)
  • Providing customer service, including answering questions and resolving issues quickly

Conclusion

So, there you have it—live chat on website is more than a convenient way to communicate with your customers. It can actually make the difference between someone buying from you or not. The key takeaway here should be that live chat on website is a valuable tool when you’re looking to provide excellent customer service and should be used whenever possible.