Customer service is about making your clients come back and shop with you again. And every business needs repeat customers to thrive.
But—
It’s impossible to deliver outstanding customer service without skilled chat support agents.
Live chat support requires a whole range of competencies. Operators with these skills can do more than just answer customers’ questions. They can foster positive experiences.
Here is a list of crucial skills your live chat operators need:
- Good typing skills
- Multitasking skills
- Communication skills
- Mastery of positive language
- Knowledge of the live chat features
- Empathy skills
- Care about customers’ privacy
- Listening to customer feedback
- Positive attitude towards new ideas
- Industry expertise
Learn how to leverage AI to streamline your customer support processes
Later on, you can also read other articles about customer service to expand your knowledge:
- 19 Best Customer Service Training Ideas
- Customer Success 101: Metrics, Stories, Apps & More
- 7 Ways to Deliver Excellent Customer Service With Examples
So, to jump straight to the point—
Let’s go through the list of the most important online chat support skills and discover each one in more depth.
1. Good typing skills to keep response times low
Customers demand an immediate response, and if they don’t get it, they may just turn their back on your business and choose your competitor. Our customer experience study confirmed that 44% of online shoppers expect response times below 5 minutes.
Make sure that you keep your response times as low as possible—train your live chat agents to have a few conversations at the same time, and keep the conversations short, but helpful. Quick typing skills are very useful.
If the chat cannot be answered on the spot, inform the customer about the delay so they don’t feel neglected. Remember, the more the customer waits for your response, the more likely they are to give you a negative review.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Quick responses—pre-defined/“canned” responses that can be sent with a single click of a button in a matter of seconds. These can be anything: welcome messages, large chunks of text, templates, or even links to website pages.
- Live typing—you can see the question the customer is typing and prepare the response long before the question is sent
- Chatbots—automatic conversation scripts triggered when customers do something or ask a specific question
And if you’re considering adding live chat functionality to your website, head straight to our reviews of WordPress live chat plugins.
2. Multitasking skills
Having multiple chats at the same time can be a challenge. And let’s face it—your agents will most likely have to handle several customers at once.
On top of having to handle their tasks in a timely manner, live chat agents also need to be able to avoid distractions and stay focused. So, it’s important to earn time management and collaborate with other colleagues from your team.
A good tactic to approach multiple chats at once is to identify conversations that will turn into more complex ones and the ones that can be answered almost on the spot (this skill comes with experience). Do not pick up several complex chats to handle simultaneously as this will drastically decrease the chat quality.
Another option is to transfer a chat to another operator. Live chat allows operators to join and leave chats at any time without the customer even knowing it.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Reassign operator—easy chat delegation to another operator who is less busy or more knowledgeable to handle the chat
- Email and Messenger integration—all the incoming chats and emails can be responded from a single admin panel so you do not waste your time by switching from one app to another
- Analytics—shows live chat statistics concerning operators: their total number of messages sent, chats concluded, as well as reaction time during a selected period of time. This can give you an insight when your operators are the busiest and assign an extra pair of hands if needed.
3. Language and communication skills
Communication should be a two-way process between the sender and the receiver, with both parties understanding each chat message. That’s why written and spoken skills are among the most important assets a customer service rep needs to have.
For the most efficient and clear communication with clients, your agents should simplify their language and avoid complicated technical terms. Just because something is obvious to you does not necessarily imply that it is obvious to others.
Keep in mind that your customers may be new to your business—that’s why you should put yourself in their shoes and use terminologies that are potentially least likely to be misunderstood.
Another important skill is the use of language—correct grammar and punctuation are critical. There is a strong correlation between your writing skills and customer satisfaction. Additionally, if you serve customers who speak a language that is foreign to you, be aware that you may not always have time to look up correct words or spelling.
Pay attention to the tone and style you use during the conversation—avoid colloquialisms, slang, or phrases that could be deemed too informal. Be mindful of global customers—not all of them are fluent in English (or any other language you use for communication) so do not use sophisticated vocabulary or complex grammatical structures.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Visitor list—see who and how many visitors are currently browsing your website. This feature, among a few others, shows what is the language of the browser the visitors use
4. Mastery of positive language
An online chat should always be carried out in a professional manner—each step of the live online customer service process matters. Regardless of whether you managed to solve the problem or not, strive to imprint a positive impression in the customer’s memory.
Using positive language will minimize accidental conflicts.
If you are unable to fulfill the customer’s order at the given moment, offer an immediate solution so that the negative undertone of the message is shifted to the positive one:
👿: “Sorry, we do not have the sneakers in stock right now and they will not be available for another 3-4 weeks.”
👼: “The sneakers you are looking for will be available next month. If you want, I can place an order for you immediately so they are dispatched to you as soon as we receive them.”
Addressing all customer queries in a positive manner can be difficult, but it is one of the most essential skills for customer service chat operators.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Quick responses—canned responses can be a real-life-saver in many situations. You can find them particularly useful for sending standard greetings and welcome messages, and when about to conclude the chat.
5. Knowledge of the features offered by your live chat solution
Live chat software was designed with business owners in mind. Apart from the features mentioned in this article, live chat has plenty of amazing hacks and features to help your operators with their job. It is an essential tool for delivering great customer service.
The more knowledgeable about the online chat app they are, the smoother their job will become. And on a side note, with Tidio you can do more than just chat (tracking, statistics, automation).
Live chat features that can help you:
- Offline hours—set up live chat appearance, heading text and message sent when all of the operators are offline to make the customers aware that there is no support agent available at the given time
- Visitor ban—block visitors who waste your time
- Chat transcript—export chat to review later (e.g. for quality purposes or problem analysis)
6. The ability to connect with customers
Customers love to feel that they’re valuable to your business. Why wouldn’t you show them that they are?
We’ve mentioned the ability to put yourself in your customers’ shoes earlier. If your service reps can empathize with your clients, they’ll be able to connect with them on a human level. This means they’ll possess a level of patience and understanding needed to handle most, if not all of their issues.
To emphasize this human connection, you can try doing little things like sending season greetings and anniversary wishes. In the process, you’ll be able to keep a long-term relationship with them and make them feel important.
Another thing to help you keep a close relationship is personalization. It is one of the core customer needs. Statistics show that 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with you if you offer personalized experiences. Address the customers by their name, offer personalized discounts, or give helpful and personal advice.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Visitor’s profile card—consists of the visitor’s personal details. Additionally, you can add notes, tags, and custom properties (and more). The more details you collect the more personalized experience you can deliver
- Tags—simple labels that can be attached to any visitor
- Custom properties—special properties you can assign to any customer
7. Prioritizing customers’ privacy
For your customers to have complete trust in your business, avoid asking them for sensitive information (like their card details). Most customers are skeptical about sharing this type of information online.
Moreover, never ask for details that are unnecessary to resolve the customer’s case only because you think it could be beneficial to you.
Place a priority on the customers’ privacy. Make sure that no chat between customers and live chat agents leaks outside of your company. If the customers are reluctant to give you any of their personal details, spend some time explaining your privacy policy and any security-related matters.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Pre-chat survey—a survey that is run before a visitor sends their first message to you. Among a few pieces of information, you would like your visitors to provide, you can also ask the visitor to agree with your GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) policy
8. Asking for feedback
It’s essential to ask your customers for feedback on their satisfaction with your live chat customer service. This helps you to determine your operators’ strengths and areas they need to improve.
Customer feedback also helps to measure the strengths and weaknesses of your business. It’s definitely worth having a well-functioning and efficient feedback mechanism.
The best way to gather customers’ feedback is to use a post-chat survey—thanks to this feature customers will be able to comfortably say what’s on their mind.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Chat rating—once the chat concludes, you can send a visitor a request to rate the chat. If you have collected an email through the pre-chat survey then you can also consider sending an email through the Admin Panel (if an email integration was done).
9. Being open to new ideas
Customers have knowledge that you don’t because they’re directly affected by your products and customer care. They see things differently and can suggest what needs to be done to improve their satisfaction.
Live chat serves as a great way to introduce customers’ ideas. Encourage them to share their knowledge and ideas, and have room to implement them.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Chat rating—once the chat concludes, you can send a visitor a request to rate the chat. If you have collected an email through the pre-chat survey, then you can also consider sending an email through the Admin Panel (if an email integration was done) and invite the customer to write a review or provide some suggestions.
10. Becoming an expert in your industry
Many skills related to customer service are universal and mastering them is crucial to helping your customers (be it via live chat, phone, or any other medium). But equally important is to know the product you help your customers with.
Knowing the ins and outs of the product or service is critical. Even with the best problem-solving skills, you won’t be able to help your customers out if you are not familiar with what your business is all about.
While live chat customer service agents can easily consult additional resources, they are expected to know the product well enough to solve the majority of technical issues instantly. Even if the product or service is subject to frequent updates and changes, the operators’ overall core features expertise and experience will enable them to troubleshoot more effectively. Get acquainted with your knowledge base.
Live chat features that can help you:
- Quick replies—you can set up any sort of response, not only a welcome message. An operator who is familiar with the product and common questions associated with it can prepare links to external resources for customers to read more about the issue or feature they are interested in
Live chat customer service best practices: final words
Businesses that prioritize live chat customer support enjoy higher profitability, sales, and customer retention compared to those that spend their resources on advertising. Live chat customer service is important (just like any other type of customer service)—the live chat operators should be expected to treat the customers the way they would treat them in any other setting.
Live chat, unlike other tools, gives support agents unique features that can help them to manage their workload better and faster. On top of that, this sort of support can be automated with chatbots to make the work even more efficient.
