A live chat solution is a great way to serve customers where they are - online. Communicate with customers in real-time, offer higher response rates and reduced wait times. It's best to follow these live chat best practices as they play a crucial role in improving customer experience and help small, medium, and large businesses support customers 24x7. Here are some live chat best practices for your business.

Why Should Businesses Follow Live Chat Best Practices?

A live chat feature on any website allows customers to engage with businesses in real-time. Customers are one click away from customer service agents to ask questions without having to make a phone call or send an email. A live chat feature is a great way to deliver outstanding customer service.

Adopting live chat best practices allows businesses to monitor daily communication between customers and representatives and ensures consistent service. The standard protocols and work culture improve the accountability of each customer care agent, ensuring a productive workflow. These best practices focus on enhancing the customer experience and improving customer service efficiency. The best practices for a live chat impact three key factors:

• Real-time Communication - Businesses can connect with their customers in real-time with the help of live chat tools or chatbots. Customers get immediate answers instead of waiting on calls or email replies. 
  
  
• Multitasking - Live chat allows agents to enhance their productivity and efficiency. Live chat enables agents to communicate with and handle multiple customers simultaneously.
  
  
• Instant Response - Getting answers immediately improves customer confidence and drives sales, ultimately improving ROI.

Live Chat Best Practices for Your Business

Businesses that follow these live chat best practices can provide real-time responses to their customers and play a vital role in improving customer relationships. These best practices can be followed by small or large-scale businesses.

According to Research and Markets, the live chat software market is expected to grow at 7.29% CAGR by 2026.

The days of long phone call wait times and emails are gone. Now customers expect customer service centers to address and resolve their issues immediately. Here are some of the live chat best practices businesses can use.

1. Correct Page Placement

One live chat best practice involves thinking like your customer to understand their needs and behaviors. Placing the live chat window on the bottom right is the most common placement. 

• A live chat window should be placed on the right side of a webpage
• The chat window should open automatically and be clearly visible
• Use bright colors for the chat window to catch users' attention

2. Be Present on Relevant Pages

Different users visit your websites through various channels, and many of them do not reach your website through the homepage. So, when deciding where to add the live chat window, analyze the most popular pages and then implement live chat on each of those pages. The most visited pages should be capable of handling questions about all the topics on a particular page. This also helps to generate valuable leads for the business.

3. Use Artificial Intelligence

AI-driven chatbots boost online presence and conversion rates. It is easy to integrate live chat software with AI-infused chatbots, as it eases the burden of human agents. AI chatbots can handle customers and respond to their queries whenever human agents aren't available.

AI chatbot conversations are human-like thanks to technology like Natural Language Processing (NLU). Chatbots can match customer questions against common keywords and knowledgebase articles. However, not every conversation can be handled by AI chatbots, but these bots are capable of solving frequently asked questions and can escalate customers to human agents when necessary. 

4. Communicate Simply and Clearly

Communication is essential to understand and assist your online customers, and it is a vital best practice for live chat. The responses received by the customers can lead to resolution issues and plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction. Here's what customer care teams can do to improve communication with their customers:

• Read customers' queries and messages carefully
• Provide detailed solutions
• Use common language and keywords
• Proofread messages before sending

5. Remember Proper Chat Etiquette

Poor communication and customer experience can negatively impact a company's reputation. Following the proper chat etiquette while interacting with customers is critical. 

Listening patiently to customers and allowing them to share their experiences and struggles is very important. Setting a positive tone and using the right words will make them feel welcome and valued. When customers hesitate to share their issues, it is ultimately a drawback for the business, so make sure to use correct phrases to make them feel comfortable.

6. Eliminate Wait Times

When customers are on your website for live chat, make sure you don't keep them waiting. If your business does not offer a 24x7 live chat functionality, mention it directly on the chatbot window and provide hours of operation.

All queries that come in during operating hours should be addressed before the window is offline so that no customer query can go unaddressed. Solving customers' questions in the first contact itself is better than connecting with customer care service multiple times. 

7. Train Your Team Properly

Communicating with customers via chat is entirely different from phone calls and emails, and representatives need to have good communication skills for live chat. Focus on the following to evaluate how customer service agents are doing.

• How do customer service agents greet the customers?
• Does the representative break down long and detailed answers to make them easier to understand?
• Is the customer confused?
• When and how will the chat escalate to a phone call or email?

8. Support Multiple Languages

Most live chat software defaults to English, however, many systems also allow customers to change the language. It is good practice for live chat to support multiple languages which is an added layer of excellent customer service. The live chat window can provide a dropdown menu for users to select their preferred language.

9. Integrate with Mobile Apps

Many businesses offer a mobile app so customers can connect with the business anytime, anyplace. If your business has a customer-facing mobile app, the live chat feature should be present there too. 

10. Use Automatic Triggers

• Start a conversation with customers who have been on the website for a while
• Open chat window who repeatedly visit your website
• Focus on customers with specific geographical locations
• Open chat for customers who visit FAQ pages or product pages

11. Use Pre-Made Answers

Many customers expect quick replies when there is a live chat tool, and many inquiries can come in at once. With live chats, you can handle incoming requests faster and use chat scripts to answer. Pre-made messages can be used to answer common questions to save time and provide quick responses.

12. Ask for Feedback

One of the essential live chat best practices is to ask for feedback. Without feedback, you will never know how well your live chat is working. Feedbacks allows you to run a thorough analysis of the results of the live chat and understand how to continuously improve.