5 Proven Strategies to Drive ROI for ChatPanel: TELUS International, Dell & SPOT Consulting

Webinar on-demand at: telusinternational.com/chat

Sponsored by TELUS International

Moderated by

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5 Proven Strategies to Drive ROI for Chat

Emily MillarVP Client RelationsTELUS International

Jeffrey HutchingsDirector, Sales Dell Inc.

Kim KeatingVP Client Services SPOT Consulting

Panel / speakers:

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Objectives

Why every company should consider chat for care & sales

Why effective online chat is important

Five proven best practices to drive ROI from chat

What the ideal chat session might look like

How Dell, a customer service leader & chat pioneer, uses best practices to drive CSAT & sales ROI

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Why chat is important?

Chat has many well-known benefits:

Serve customers in their preferred communications channel

Address customer issues in real-time in the online environment

Attract a hyper-digital generation that will not phone or visit a store

Reduce shopping cart abandonment by assisting with order forms

Take social interactions into a more private & secure online setting

Reduce expensive calls into the call center

Achieve higher customer satisfaction scores over other channels

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Why chat is important?

Growing expectation for instant online support; chat gets good reviews:

Once a shopper has used live chat, more than 2/3rds will actively look for sites that provide it – Bold Software survey, 2010

77% of chatters agree that the technology positively influenced their attitude about the online retailer – Bold Software survey, 2010

63% of survey respondents said that they were more likely to return to the website where they had originally experienced live chat – e.Marketer.com, 2009

Reactive chat (or click-to-chat options) earned a 15% ROI whereas Proactive chat (or chat by invitation) earned an impressive 105% ROI – Forrester, 2008

Live chat was the best way to reduce shopping cart abandonment – e-tailing group, 2011

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Yet, surprisingly…

CompanyAmerican Customer Satisfaction Index

(ACSI)

No Sales Chat at time of

study

Industry Leaders in Customer Experience & Loyalty

Netflix 87 xAmazon.com 86 xNewegg 86 xFedEx 85 xBarnes & Noble 84 xUPS 82 xCostco 81 xBorder's 81 xTarget 80 xSouthwest Airlines 79 xCharles Schwab 79 xExpedia 79 xLowe's 79 xMicrosoft Office 76 xNokia 76 xAT&T 75 xMacy's 71 xTime Warner Cable 61 xDisney - xUSAA - x

The chat channel is immature despite benefits, ROI and consumer preference for it.

And sales chat, specifically, is not widely available.

Still lots of opportunity to interact with customer online.

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Benchmark study

Research methodology:

Team of subject matter experts

60-indepth chat sessions with 6 Fortune 500 customer service leaders

Analyzed a further 150 chat transcripts

Customer Experience (CE) based on three major criteria:

Agent Skills

Chat System

Communications Style

Provid

er

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The customer experience can be improved

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How?

What makes up the ideal chat customer experience?

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Top 5 best practices

Make chat feel like a phone call -- strive for < 60s response rate

Provide up-to-date product training with feature comparisons

Effectively facilitate the sale or resolve the customer issue

1 Agent Training – don’t underestimate it

Training needed:o How to ensure accurate answers (access to knowledge bases)

o How to up-sell / cross-sell & uncover needs

o How to personalize as appropriate

o When to use canned vs. free form responses

o How to use chat system features to benefit CE

o How to write for chat; construct a conversation flow

o How to best represent the brand online

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Tip: Strong Agent Skills Can Reduce Effort

Most people scan for information while multi-tasking, so keep it simple in online interactions:

1. Skip a wordy greeting; offer help right away:

Welcome to [Company] Live Chat! My name is David. Thank you for waiting. How can I help you?

 

  2. Appear seamless. Avoid transferring customers to different departments. If a transfer is required, make it a warm transfer:

It sounds like it could be one of several issues, but I am unfortunately not equipped to diagnose the problem you are experiencing. I think the best course of action is to call Technical Support at 1-800-***-**** or e-mail them at support@company.com. I could also connect this chat to their department. Would you like me to?

 

3. Stick to the point. Support the customer with links to the specific resources they need.  Use short and to-the-point answers:

Customer: Is your site protected? Agent: Yep! http://www.company.com/shop-with-confidence Customer: Okay, I see. Can you tell me about your shipping policies? Agent: Yes, it is free shipping and free return shipping. Standard shipping is about 4 - 5 business days.

 

4. Like the opening, the closing sets the tone and supports the overall corporate brand:

Agent: Did you have any other questions or anything else?Customer: No. I'll call-in later.Agent: If anything else does come up, we are here 24/7 for you! Have a great day!

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Top 5 best practices

Strong writing skills are critical to conveying an accurate message & upholding the company brand

Focus on Customer Effort

Don’t make customers work to understand responses or find answers

2 Improved Chat Writing = Better CRM

Focus on:o Brevity & staying on point

o Grammar, spelling & sentence structure

o Voice & tone

o Terminology

o Personalization

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Tip: Chat Etiquette

Establish a chat etiquette up front & measure via transcripts

Agent is polite & ‘speaks’ positively about the company, products & competitors

Agent offers empathy when appropriate

Agent is energetic, engaged and upbeat with the customer

If needed, agent asks permission to put customer on hold (explains reason, sets

timeframe, thanks customer)

If needed, agent asks permission to push urls to the customer

When transferring a chat, agent explains where chat will be transferred & why

Agent responds to customer within 2 minutes of customer/agent last response

Agent checks in with customer within 2 minutes if customer is unresponsive

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Top 5 best practices

Maintain the human element online

Know how to construct a conversation flow: Most important info up front One or two ideas per response Multiple back & forth exchanges

Use the right balance between free form vs. canned responses:

For efficiency – aim for 50/50 use of hot keys

Personalize using customer provided info

3 Be Human!

Answer initial concern-Ask if customer was satisfied with the given information.

Question-Collect more Customer Info,Budget, Question for Needs,Probe and Position. (continue the conversation to close)

Offer additional help (e.g. configuring their system)

If customer agrees,proceed to “Question”

Open- with appropriate (short) spiel

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Top 5 best practices

Hours of operation

Entitlement process

Queue position

Wait times

Typing notification

Encryption of sensitive info

Ability to change font size

Post-chat transcripts available (via email)

Added features: co-browsing, page pushing

4 Optimize Customer-Facing Features

Avoid the dreaded question:

o Are you still there?

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Chat features help set expectations

Chat transcript easily obtainable

Increase or decrease font size

Personalize with name, if desired

Hyperlink to security/ privacy statement

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Top 5 best practices

Metrics need to promote a balance between productivity & quality

Traditional metrics like Average Response Time or Chats/Hour need to be combined with quality metrics the agent can control

5 Right Metrics = Right Agent Behavior

E.g. Metrics for quality Measured by:

Accuracy of response Quality of chat transcript

Quality of response Quality of chat transcript

Contact resolution rate Successful close of chat conversation

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) Post-contact survey (usually email)

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Best Practices: ROI

Within weeks of launching chat queues, our customers have realized chat as a huge source of untapped potential:

Quick & convenient for customers

Efficient: agents handle multiple chats at one time

Up to 1/10th the cost of voice

Up to 10 to 15 points higher in CSAT over voice

Up to 30% higher revenue margins vs. voice

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Putting it into action

Dell chat sales

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Dell | chat sales

Looking at best practices, three key areas emerged where we could improve the chat customer experience:

1. Improve chat training with a heavier focus on CE

2. Revise current metrics to foster the right agent behavior

3. Reduce Customer Effort in the chat channel

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Dell | chat sales

1. Chat Training Curriculum Focus – Before & After

More emphasis on customer experience & salesmanship

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Dell | chat sales

2. Revise current metrics to foster right agent behavior

Original curriculum focused heavily on efficiency metrics: AHT, Chats/Hr

Needed to increase emphasis on CE to drive right agent behavior

More time to build rapport, uncover needs, cross-sell, up-sell

CSAT took priority alongside other chat sales metrics

CSAT

Close Rate Scores

Revenue per Chat

Margin per Chat

Transcript QA Scores

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Dell | chat sales

3. Reduce customer effort in chat

Focus was on improving the conversation flow to engage customers, make them feel secure & ideally, uncover further needs / opportunities

Use chat flow diagrams to guide agents (pre-crafted scripts of important questions as the chat progresses)

Conversation flow sample:

After a standard opening statement followed by addressing the customer’s initial concern, the chat agent should uncover a customer’s budget and purchase timeframe. The chat flow suggestion might look something like this:

Customer’s Budget: Rep asks about customer’s budget either in monthly payments or total cost.

Agent: I can help you get the biggest bang for your buck; what sort of budget are you looking to stay within?

Purchase Timeframe: Rep asks the customer for a general or specific timeframe in which they are looking to purchase.

Agent: I can check which promotions will be available to you. How soon are you looking to purchase your new system?

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Dell | chat sales

Measure and QA post-chat:

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Dell | results

To measure results of new chat training curriculum:

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Dell | results

The results were impressive:

Results

Milestone Improvements In Program That Was Already Meeting Goals

CSAT Increase

Close Rate Increase

Revenue Per Chat Increase

Margin Per Chat Increase

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Summary / Q&A

Chat has many benefits (customer preference, cost, efficiency)

Take a measured approach to implementation

Hire & train for chat

Model of control

Consistent focus on customer experience (CE)

Leverage the technology to make customers feel secure

Set customer expectations upfront

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Questions Voice vs. Chat comparisons

Chat popularity

Rise of video chat

Hiring for chat

When to use canned responses

Transactions more suited to chat vs. voice

Role of social media + chat

Maximizing chat efficiency

Connect!

Learn more about our chat & contact center outsourcing practice:

TELUS Internationalinformation@telusinternational.comtelusinternational.com

SPOT Consultingkim@spotconsulting.bizspotconsulting.biz

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