Many businesses do not realize however that setting up a live chat service is really just the tip of the iceberg. If you want this service to truly be an effective customer relationship tool then you need to look very carefully at how you position it.

Initiating Live Chat

In general you could say there are two different types of live chats – passive and active. A passive live chat is one where the customer needs to actually initiate the live chat by clicking a link that indicates they want to talk to an agent. Needless to say, this is the most normal way of doing things.

However more and more businesses are starting to realize that sometimes it can be useful to opt for a more active sort of live chat, where the live chat initiates automatically when the customer triggers a certain action.

Timing is everything when it comes to initiating a live chat, and if you find (for example) that your customers tend to leave at a certain juncture of browsing your customer service page then you might want to have a small live chat window pop up and ask them something simple like: “Hey, need help?”

Initiating a live chat at a juncture where you know that most customers end up leaving your website could help you to improve your conversion rate, deal with customer issues better and all in all improve your relationships with them.

Also, sometimes it is better to focus on certain groups of people that you know live chats might be more effective with. For example, initiating live chats with new visitors will help introduce them to the customer service that you provide, whereas older visitors would already know about it.

In a nutshell, the live chat feature that customer service software provides is a powerful tool that allows your agents to communicate personally with customers – and if you pay attention to where and how you’re placing it you could really improve the level of customer relationships that you’re able to foster.

Think about how you can maximize the potential of live chat systems and you should see that there is a lot that you could be doing that you probably aren’t already doing – so why not get to it and improve your customer service by leaps and bounds?

One thing that you need to know right from the start about mobile apps is that there needs to be a solid reason why people would want to download and use the app in order for it to be successful. Sure, you might feel as if having a mobile app will help you to provide better service to your customers – but if they don’t feel the same way and don’t download it then it is really going to just go to waste.

So here’s the question: Do you think that your customers really want or need to get customer service through a mobile application?

Think of it this way: Most customers look for customer service when they have some sort of issue or other with the product or service that you’re supplying. That is when they want help and need to have their questions answered or find a solution for their problem.

When that happens do you really think that your customers are going to go online, find your mobile app and download it just to get the service that they require?

Assuming you’re already offering customer service through other channels such as a website and so on – why wouldn’t they just go to the website from their mobile device? While it is always nice to provide customers with more options, having a mobile app is an option that puts another step between the customer and the service that they require – which is never a good idea.

Long story short, you’ll find that having dedicated mobile apps for customer service is really stretching it. If you already have a service that runs a mobile app and you want to add the option to allow customers to contact customer service through that app – great. But otherwise it would be better to devote more resources to the areas of your customer service that really do matter rather than essentially just creating an app for the sake of creating an app.

In the future this might change – but for now the idea behind mobile apps is that they should have functionality that the customer is going to find useful – and not just be a dedicated channel to the customer service department of your business. In short – it really just isn’t necessary at all.

Twitter Should Not Just Be Reactive

The approach that most businesses use when it comes to utilizing Twitter as part of their customer service is as a reactive tool. What that means is that they use customer service software to link up with Twitter so that customers can contact them through this social network and have their issues dealt with.

While it is certainly nice to give customers the option of linking up with a businesses’ customer service via Twitter – that is not the same thing as engaging the Twitter-verse.

All said and done, Twitter is all about dialogue between people and just sitting back and reacting to customer issues isn’t enough to actually encourage customers to communicate via Twitter. Ideally, you should be engaging them, by providing regular Twitter-based updates, talking about topics related to the product or service that you’re offering, and basically just chatting to your customers.

By doing so, your approach to Twitter will be less reactive and more proactive.

Chatting through Twitter allows businesses to connect to their customers in an unprecedented manner, and slowly but surely you’ll find that you’re able to build up a community of customers around your Twitter presence. That is really going to help improve your relationships with customers, and it will prove to attract new customers as well in the long term.

When you first start out however it is important that you let your existing customers know that your business is on Twitter and there is a reason why they should be following you and the updates that you provide. That is the first step, and the more you use Twitter to actually connect to your customers, the more you’ll find that more customers are connecting to you via Twitter.

Reciprocity is really the name of the game.

Although having Twitter integrated into your customer service software is essential, having agents who actually manage, update, and develop customer relationships via Twitter is even more powerful. This is where the line between simply serving customers’ needs and developing customer relationships becomes increasingly important – and you’ll find that if you use Twitter for the latter purpose instead of just focusing on the former, then you’ll gain far more advantages.

Long story short, engaging the Twitter-verse could help you to increase your sales, conversions and overall performance.

Most of the time businesses do this by addressing concerns on a ‘as needed’ basis, but the problem with that is that not all customers want to have to wait to be tended to by a customer service representative.

Some would much rather be able to go online and see for themselves exactly what their options are.

In order to cater to this preference, customer service departments in businesses need to provide for the option of self service. This idea is far from new and most businesses already do it in some small way or other. A common example of this in websites would have to be FAQ sections that attempt to answer some of the common questions that customers may have.

Unfortunately when it comes to providing a larger scale of self service for customers, FAQ sections aren’t going to cut it – and that is why most of the software designed to manage customer service nowadays allow for the creation of what is commonly known as ‘knowledge bases’.

The exact manner in which these knowledge bases are generated tend to differ, but the idea is that whenever a solution is implemented to a problem that a customer is having, that solution is added to the knowledge base so that future customers having the same problem can locate it and find a solution.

Allowing and providing for this sort of self service is advantageous because it not only frees up some of your own businesses’ customer service staff but it also caters to the needs of a specific group of customers who would like to have the option of self service. In a nutshell, it really is a situation where everybody wins.

Of course no knowledge base is going to cater to absolutely every problem that could arise, but having one that is expandable and constantly being added to as new issues crop up ensures that a lot of the more common problems and even some of the less common problems are covered within it.

Considering just how common this feature is in modern day software for customer service, it really doesn’t hurt to at least entertain the option. Some of these features are even semi-automated, so the workload will be kept to a minimum.

At the end of the day, a business stands to lose very little by allowing its customers to take their time and help themselves as and how they see fit.

Many businesses nowadays try to run this sort of live chat without realizing that there is more to it than just setting up the software. If you are using one of the more notable customer service management systems on the market then the fact of the matter is live chat options should already be provided and so on the technical side there isn’t much for you to worry about.

That being said, if you intend to run a live chat, the question you need to ask yourself is: Do you have the resources to do so?

Unlike ticket based customer service solutions where the customer service team can respond to queries as and when they get to them, with a live chat you need to have representatives who can interact with customers right there and right then. After all, that is the idea of the chat being ‘live’.

What this means is that you need staff who are manning the lines, so to speak. When a customer opens up a live chat window, those staff must to be ready to respond and then help them to find a solution.

If customers are kept waiting, chances are they’ll simply close the window – and that will cost you in terms of customer relationships. That is why you need to be able to estimate the amount of queries you’ll be getting and ensure that you have staff on hand to deal with them at all times.

Most customers expect that live chats run 24 hours a day, and so this means splitting up your workforce so that they are able to provide that sort of coverage as well. If the problem is not something that can be solved over a live chat, these representatives need to know how to forward the query to the appropriate part of your business so that it can be dealt with.

Starting to see just what it takes to run an online live chat as part of your customer service? It is certainly going to take more than just the software needed to run it – if you want to successfully do so, you need to ensure that you have the resources that allow you to provide this kind of ‘live’ support in a dependable and effective fashion so that your customers use it.

Gone are the days when telephone-based customer service was the norm. Instead, there is website-based customer service, social network-based customer service, live chats, knowledge bases, and so on.

For many, it might seem as though the best way to deal with these options is to provide for all of them – but what most businesses don’t realize initially is that this can be quite a strain on the resources that are available.

For example, if you were to try to embrace all avenues of customer service nowadays, that would mean:

• Having a ticket based customer service system that integrates with all avenues
• Setting up a Twitter account to allow customer service via Twitter
• Setting up a Facebook account (and possibly a MySpace account) to allow customer service via Facebook
• Making sure there is a live chat feature on the website
• Allowing customers to email the business
• Generating a knowledge base for self service

And all of this does not include other more conventional methods of customer service such as call centers.

The good news is that most of the better customer service software solutions out there provide for these avenues already, and so setting up the backend system isn’t going to be all that difficult.

The problem with trying to embrace too many avenues of customer service all at once however is that it is going to take no small amount of resources to have enough staff to deal with queries coming in from multiple fronts. If you hire too many staff then you’re going to find that you’re wasting cash if there aren’t that many queries, whereas if you hire too few then you’ll find that despite catering to all of these fronts it takes customers too long to get the support they need – rendering it all pointless.

Long story short, as much as it is a good idea to try to cater to all the differnet methods in which customers might try to get in touch with your business for help, it is best not to overextend and try to cater to too many avenues all at once.

The best way to proceed may be to slowly implement new avenues as and when you feel that your business is capable of dealing with the additional demands that will inevitably be placed on its customer service.

All said and done, customer service is only going to be advantageous if the customer can get the solution they desire promptly and effectively.

Generally speaking, one of the main reasons for this failure in implementation is not due to the software itself, but rather to the commitment that the business has in implementing it.

Make no mistake, even the best software in the world cannot guarantee that your customer service is going to be top notch. All that the software really does is provide the framework for your customer service to operate within, and the real test will be how much commitment your business is willing to show towards making it a success.

In order to implement any customer service software, a business needs to be willing to devote the necessary resources to it. No matter how you slice and dice this issue, the fact remains that it takes a good customer service team to cater to the needs of customers and it needs to have the numbers to be able to respond promptly so that customers don’t have to wait too long for solutions to the issues that they may have.

Not only that, but the business also needs to show a commitment in ensuring that the customer service software is fully utilized. At the end of the day although the customer service division will be making use of the software the most, the sales department and technical departments will also need to use it in order to ensure that there is a seamless flow of communication and so that queries are answered by the appropriate division.

This is the one area that most businesses do not fully commit to. Partially this is due to the assumption that with the right software everything else should fall into place. Unfortunately this isn’t true, and all said and done the software really just provides the framework for a business to communicate and answer its customers’ queries.

The effectiveness and capability of a business in doing just that depends on the resources that they’re willing to devote as well as how much commitment they show when it comes to using the framework that is provided.

Last but certainly not least, a business that is truly committed to implementing customer service software needs to be willing to take into account what the customers want in terms of customer service to begin with. Otherwise no matter how committed the business may be, it isn’t going to be effective considering the customers views will not be taken into account and so it won’t deliver the way they desire.

Essentially, customer service consists of liaising with customers and helping them out when it comes to any queries, problems or issues that they might have with the products or services that your business is providing them.

On the other hand sales consist of actually promoting and selling those products or services.

While these two divisions may not seem to be related on the surface, if you start to look at customer service as not just a troubleshooting initiative but rather as part and parcel of managing customer relationships.

Once you make that connection it should be easy enough to see that one of the biggest reasons why you would want to manage customer relationships is to encourage customer loyalty, and due to the possibility that they could turn into repeat business.

Even the initial sales team should be aware of customer service procedures because it can be part of a powerful sales pitch. By letting potential new customers know that your business is going to back the products or services that it provides with comprehensive customer service, they will know that they are going to be taken care of.

It could make all the difference to customers. After all, if you had a choice between two similar products but you knew that with one you would have the option of getting prompt customer service via various options such as live chats, social networks, and even self-service by browsing the knowledge base – which would you choose?

On top of that the other crossover between customer service and sales is more on the customer service side of the fence. After the initial sale is done, th e subsequent correspondence is more likely than not going to be with the customer service division to handle any queries. When this takes place, the representatives of the business could actually recommend certain additional products or services that they feel would help the customers.

Because the customer service division is helping to manage the customer relationships, it is perfectly poised to enable any cross-selling and up-selling initiatives.

As you should be starting to see there really is quite a big crossover between customer service and sales. Most people don’t notice it right at the start, but if you’re running a business then you need to be sure that both sides of the fence (i.e. sales and customer service) are taking advantage of each other to do a better job.

In part, that is also the reason why sales teas often need to know how customer service systems operate.

A business is a living and growing entity, and with time it is only reasonable to expect that it will evolve in any ways. As such, any solution that you choose needs to cater to the potential growth that your business has – and not just its current needs. This could not be more true than when it comes to customer service software.

Let’s just say that right now your business is still rather small and most of your customer service revolves around answering customer’s emails. How long do you think it will remain that way?

What happens once you start getting more and more emails and it becomes extremely difficult to keep track of them all? Can your business afford to continue by solely having email support or should it expand? How will your customer service staff liaise with one another to cater to this increased demand?

These are some of the questions that you should be asking when you’re considering the scalability of customer service software!

Future Requirements and Room for Expansion

When you’re thinking about the scalability of customer service software you should be considering your potential future requirements and how much room for expansion the customer service software provides you.

Most of the better pieces of software on the market provide rather comprehensive options – and even though you might not use them right now, the question is: Do you think that you could use them in the future?

Rather than purchasing and implementing customer service software that only has the features you need right now, and then having to purchase and implement something totally different a year or two down the line – why not just save yourself the time and money by finding a solution that not only works right now but will also work for you when you need to expand?

Not only will this be easier on your budget, but it will also save you from having to re-train your customer service staff to handle a new system. Instead, they’ll be able to continue using the same customer service software and only need to familiarize themselves with the additional features that are being used.

See how scalability is a huge issue when it comes to customer service software? Ideally, you should be considering this before you buy any software, and make sure that it will last you at least until the point when you need something even bigger or are considering outsourcing your entire customer service division!

Basically ticket-based customer service software involves the creation and subsequent resolution of ‘tickets’.

What this means is when a customer contacts the customer service division, a ticket is created that contains the details of their problem. The exact manner in which the customer contacts the customer service division is often left open and most customer service software allows many different types of contact such as email, phone calls, social media (i.e. Facebook or Twitter), web forms, and so on.

Once a ticket is created, it is then forwarded to the relevant department. If it is something that customer service can resolve internally then they do so, but if it needs to be forwarded to the engineering department, web design department or any other part of the company then it is.

Normally, customer service software then allows the ticket to be ‘tagged’ with various fields such as ‘work in progress’, ‘resolved’, or even ‘unresolvable’ in order to indicate the status of the ticket.

In a nutshell, the ticket-based system allows customer service queries to be handled effectively even a large numbers because it is easy to keep track of the progress of the ticket itself and thus keep track of the status of the customer service query.

On top of that, as you can see the ticket itself can be created by the customer service software through many different means and channels of communication – providing the company with the opportunity to handle their customers’ queries no matter where it comes from.

Some ticket-based customer service software even go a step further and convert ‘resolved’ tickets into a knowledge-base automatically. What this means is that the resolved tickets are then stored in a browse-able knowledgebase that can be accessed by customers or staff (depending on your preference) to see how certain issues were resolved.

If this knowledgebase can be accessed by customers, it provides yet another customer service avenue and will allow customers to solve their issues without even having to contact customer service!

Truth be told, ticket-based customer service software is really extremely powerful and has a large degree of scalability. That being said, it is up to you to decide whether or not it suits your purposes.

Although this type of customer service software really excels when dealing with large numbers of customer queries, it can even be used for small start-up businesses and will grow as they grow without the need to introduce any new system to the mix!