Please, please, please don’t implement web chat into your contact centre if you’re not going to do it properly.
Speaking as a user, not a marketer, this is the most frustrating experience I think I can experience.
Maybe I’m on the phone already, maybe I don’t feel like talking to anybody today or maybe it’s just quicker than holding in the queue but web chat shouldn’t just be a handy tool but a powerful weapon for businesses. So, don’t shoot yourself in the foot with it.
Web chat is great. I can navigate to your website, talk to someone in seconds and, in theory, resolve my one-off query just like that. CSAT through the roof, bills continue to be paid on time and I’ll likely come back and buy another product.
Where does it go wrong?
What happens when it’s more than just a quick fix? A complex query, if you like. I am asked to email something in for review or the selected agent isn’t the correct person to deal with my issue.
"Thanks Rosie, can you check you’ve got my email and let me know the outcome? No? What do you mean no? Come on, Rosie."
Or the second example:
"Okay Jim, can you transfer me to them or get them to give me a call? No again? Well there was me thinking web chat was great and we were getting along fine, Jim."
You see, adding that web chat icon to your website and getting someone to field the queries isn’t the end. Far from it.
Each channel needs to marry up.
If you called Rosie outside of a contact centre environment and she asked you to email her, you’d expect her to have access to that email. Rosie asked you, don’t forget. So, now you must wait for someone in the “email team” to pick that up and get back to you – this could take 5 days, Rosie informs you.
Worst-case scenario should be that Rosie doesn’t have access to that inbox but can Instant Message her colleague to confirm receipt and check everything is okay.
Finding the right person
You’ve got through to Jim. He’s friendly enough but he’s just not the right man to help you. You accept this and ask nicely to be put through to someone that can help. He refuses and you must ring around the houses and sit in the queue trying to find the right person, making the web chat redundant.
Jim should be able to transfer that web chat to his colleague or his supervisor or put a call back in that person’s queue. Again, worst-case scenario is that he must Instant Message the right person to get them to call me back.
Losing the human element
From the outside, it appears that agents are hiding behind poor technology and using this as an excuse to deliver poor customer experience.
If you were having a conversation with this person face to face, the behaviour simply would not be the same.
