Just like any physical store has its store assistants, every website should have its chat operators. You can’t leave your physical store without any employees. The same goes for your website.
When people visit your website, you want to have someone to greet them and help them with any questions, they may have. The best tool for this is live chat. And the chat operator is the person, standing behind that tool, helping your customers.
Live chat used to be something that is ‘nice to have’ on your website. Nowadays, it is a must. To grow fast in your field, you better listen to your customers and meet their expectations. Nowadays, 41% of people expect to see the live chat button on your website and the percentage is expected to rise quickly in the near future.
So you made the right decision and you have live chat on your website. Now you need chat operators as well. But what are chat operators, what do they do, and where to find them? Read on to find out.
Who Is the Chat Operator?
The chat operator is the person who deals with the chats that are started by the visitors on your website. Once a visitor has a question, they can start a conversation from the chat button on the website and the chat operator receives it. And so the conversation begins.
Depending on your business, the chat operator can help your customers with common questions, give more information about a product or service, check orders, guide them through the buying process or help with any issues they may be having.
These are the people that have the key to an exceptional customer experience. They are the face of the company and how they deal with your customers is extremely important. Well-trained and customer-oriented, they make the great customer experience easily achievable.
What Do the Chat Operators Do?
The chat operators are your customer service specialists. They are the ones making sure the customers are correctly guided and informed. And they make sure the customer is satisfied with your company’s services or product.
From their agent interface, they are dealing with the incoming chats, using different chat features such as quick replies, screen share, message preview, and many more. They help your customers with any questions or doubts they may have. This highly increases the conversion rate – by 40% according to Forrester research.
By leading friendly, yet professional conversations with your website’s visitors, they help with turning each one of them into loyal customers. Such conversations not only increase customer satisfaction by providing an excellent experience. But they also build your customers’ trust in your brand and make sure they come back for more.
Hiring a Chat Operators Team
You can, of course, help your customers with live chat on your own or with your own customer service team. They can undergo training for the chat software and begin with wooing your visitors.
Another great option, however, is hiring a team of chat operators, that are already trained. They will be able to start right away, providing high-quality and fast customer service.
This is very convenient, especially in case your customer service team is already very busy with the phone line and emails. You can also combine the two, by hiring the chat team to be available outside-office hours or in case it gets crazy busy for your team.
Chat Operators’ Importance
In any case, the role of the chat operator is very important. They are the ones representing your company. They are the first point of contact for your visitors. And it is always far easier to get in touch with a chat operator than with a call agent or via email. Live chat’s response time remains the fastest one with an average of 2 minutes and 40 seconds and the fastest response – 7 seconds!
Live chat is the most convenient, fast, and efficient way that constantly grows in popularity. It is the channel that the customers are most satisfied with (82% according to Comm100). And your customers expect to see the chat button on your website too. So better make sure it’s there when they need it.
Go ahead and hire a dedicated team of chat operators or start with live chat for your own team here!
