As I give thought to the exciting use of live help services like those offered by ProvideLiveHelp I began thinking about you as an online chat operator and the multiple challenges you face. These include:
The first thing you need to recognize is that many of the customer who you have contact with may not know how to use online chat, have clarity about their issue, or know how to ask you about it. But, most of the time they’re contacting you for one of these reasons, to:
Having both been a customer service rep for 4 years and having a background in communications I want to see if I can give you some helpful hints on managing your calls. The key to being more efficient and successful in your role is for you is to be able to get to the heart of your customers call quickly, get clarity on what it is they are calling about. And meet their reason for contacting you.
The most helpful tip I have ever received was when a peer explained to me that every time I made contact with a customer I was speaking to someone who speaks a “different” language. They may speak English, be certain words and phrases differently than you do. You can’t assume that when they use a certain word or phrase that you know exactly what they are talking about.
That’s what this next tip is important. It is one I’m sure you already are aware of, but it’s one that easily slips out of view. You need to take charge of the contact. No timid souls allowed…but always remember you can be assertive without coming across as aggressive. Depending on the policy of your company and their flexibility toward your script consider writing out for yourself a script that you can use during that initial contact. It might look something like this:
“Hello and thank you for contacting XXX company. My name is YYY and I’m here to assist you with your issue. During our conversation I will need certain information which I will specifically ask for. Understand that I may need to clarify with you some of the details of that information. Let me begin n with asking you how I can help you. Please respond by only answering one of these four questions. Once answered I will ask for additional information from you. Are you calling about help in solving a problem, to get an answer to a question, to make a suggestion or for some other reason?”
If you can get both yourself and your customer focused on the reason for the call everything else that follows will be much easier.
Once you have taken charge of the call and know the reason for the call you are much better equipped to assist them quickly and with the correct information. You should know or have available to you the information and resources necessary to address the reason for the customers call.
In the end you can take a sometimes stressful situation and turn it into a win-win for everyone. After all, that is the goal of customer service, right? Now it’s time for me to get back to ProvideLiveHelp and see what’s new.
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