The day before yesterday I was shopping online. More specifically, I was looking for some rock climbing shoes as some vacation time was coming up and the great outdoors beckoned.
As I clicked on the shoes and read the descriptions I saw some great options. But shoes are not books- you really need to be sure of the size, the fit and many other things before pulling out the credit card.
I needed to talk to a human. I needed to “chat”.
Is great customer service only answering customer queries?
Up on the right hand corner of the site I spotted a chat box. I clicked there, entered the details required and was soon talking to a rep named Brad.
Brad knew what he was selling; he answered all my questions and then some. Unfortunately his answers made it clear that I could not buy the shoe I fancied- a great product from a well known brand- because of lack of return policies.
I appreciated Brad’s candor at being upfront and honest with my concerns. The site lost my business this time but left me with a positive impression regarding customer service.
Two hours later I ultimately bought a pair of shoes from another shopping site.
Fast forward to today.
One of my climbing partners wanted to buy a climbing helmet and since he had no access to the net I offered to do some research on his behalf. Because I had such a good impression two days ago I landed on that site and starting looking around. While I found several good looking helmets I also spotted a shoe that seemed better than the one I was looking at the other day.
I fired up the chat and confirmed my suspicions with another rep. When I found out that the shoe fit all my requirements and also came with a return policy I asked him if it was newly added to the inventory. He confirmed that it was added yesterday.
Selling, upselling and cross selling – increase ROI with chat
As I exited the site I realized that the site could have easily converted me to a paying customer. After all Brad just had to mention that new shoes were likely to arrive soon and I would have held off on my purchase.
Customer service folks are, by definition, at the frontline of customer interactions. It’s not enough for companies to have well trained reps so that they can respond to customer queries. They also need to be constantly and intelligently marketing and selling.
If you are running a company and people love your customer service, chances are that they would be interested in you. They might be agreeable to be on your mailing list (provided you maintain one) and getting mails from you regarding new products and services. However they have to be given those options.
But most reps don’t ask because their chat software is not integrated with a CRM suite. And companies thus lose the chance to kill two birds with one stone and lower their lead generation costs.
Besides, think about this. Assuming that you have a solid lead nurturing email campaign going on and you have mapped the content according to the buying stages prospects might not need to start a second live chat with a rep to get their questions answered. That translates into huge dollar savings over time depending on how many people are using your chat system.
Chat software or a CRM suite? You decide.
Because you asked for it the LiveHelpNow Live Chat System is now fully integrated with Salesforce, the most widely used CRM software suite. With this integration your reps can import and record vital customer data with a few clicks.
Use this data to painlessly merge your lead generation with your customer service. Provide prospects with product or service information that increases the chances of them buying from you. Cover all your bases and don’t leave a potential goldmine of information untapped.
