Dave: Jaime thanks for joining us. Let’s start with your work related experience with Live Chat.
Jaime: In the past I spent five years working as a Live Chat Agent, Live Chat Supervisor, Inside Sales Rep, and Inside Sales Manager at VeriSign in the Payments and SSL businesses.
Dave: Do you think Live Chat is a “nice to have” or a “must have” for businesses?
Jaime: If a company has a web site and an Inside Sales or Field Sales organization I believe it is a must have. I can’t imagine anyone trying to compete in today’s market without it.
Dave: Why is Live Chat a “must have”?
Jaime: Once you’ve spent the time, money, and effort to attract visitors to your web site, why would you leave them unattended? If you don’t engage them effectively they most likely will never return.
Dave: So you’ve seen positive results in the past?
Jaime: Our conversation rates when using Live Chat were significantly higher than without it. As an integrated tool with inbound sales teams, Live Chat was a coveted sales tool.
Dave: Can you estimate by how much?
Jaime: In some cases, at least 5 times higher.
Dave: Were you able to quantifiably measure results?
Jaime: Absolutely. You have visibility into conversion rates by person, by group, by Live Chat Users vs. non Users, etc.
Dave: Wow! Okay so assuming the results speak for themselves, let’s shift the conversation to your advice on how to best implement Live Chat in an organization.
Jaime: The two most common ways to implement Live Chat in an organization is to either add Live Chat tools and techniques to your existing Inside Sales Reps or establish an independent Live Chat group. Purchase a tool that best meets your infrastructure, hire adequate staff (three at minimum, or expect to have it offline more often), train, and manage. Also, even if you have your own separate Live Chat group I recommend that all of your Inside Reps have Live Chat access.
Jaime: Another thing to keep in mind is page visibility. It is very beneficial for companies implementing Live Chat to make it available, above the fold, on all pages that include:
· Product Information / Detail Pages
· Pricing
· Sales/Customer Service/Renewals Pages
· Frequently Asked Questions
· Contact Us
· Support or Help
· And especially Cancellation Pages
Dave: Is it hard to manage a distinct Live Chat group?
Jaime: Not at all. When it is used as Lead Gen it requires very little management and when well run can function like a well oiled machine. With direct sales you need to manage the compensation and credit aspect, as well as customer tracking.
Dave: Where do you recruit Live Chat Agents?
Jaime: The best recruits for Live Chat are recent college graduates within the past five years who are looking for an entry level sales or customer service positions. These candidates are most likely to have the most intuitive instant messaging skills and the most enthusiasm for the job — and they should be able to type fast. JDave: Is it hard to train Live Chat Agents or Inside Sales Reps on Live Chat?
Jaime: If they are computer savvy, not at all. If they aren’t, then yes, and its probably not the right position for them. The right Live Chat Agent will have the ability to communicate well using an instant messaging tool, and of course have a sales personality.
Dave: What is it they most need to learn?
Jaime: It’s critical that they be able to identify the purpose, direction, and sale in a chat, and handle it accordingly. Aside from that, the basics include the features of the Live Chat tool, Instant Message etiquette, timing of chats, and proper rerouting paths.
Dave: Can you expand a bit more?
Jaime: Sure. It’s not hard to learn how to use a Live Chat tool but you need to train your team on reading into the chat, controlling the conversation, and getting them the information and answers they need to make a buying decision. It can be difficult to remain professional in an otherwise casual environment, i.e. if the customer starts getting flirty, or using more abbreviated IM language, don’t reciprocate, remain professional. They need to know that all typed content is considered legal communication between our company and third parties, as well as a direct reflection on their performance. So flirting, no cursing, no sexual references, never angry, no comments on company performance, etc, it’s considered inappropriate. They also need to know how to cut off predatory IMs.
Dave: What is a predatory IM?
Jaime: Sexual Predators sometimes visit Live Chat groups for sport.
Dave: Are you kidding me?
Jaime: I wish I were. They engage as prospects and then type inappropriate things, hoping that we will start a live sex chat or something. This happens to male and female Live Chat Agents, and is typically of international origin. We train our Reps to just quickly identify and drop these visitors.
Dave: Have you encountered any other strange visitors?
Jaime: We also have to train Live Chat Reps to be on guard for visits from competitors chatting for competitive intelligence. We train Reps to know their competition and to pay attention to URLs and contact information.
Dave: You mentioned timing, what did you mean by that?
Jaime: Ah, I meant the best time for a Live Chat to be initiated. Most systems have rules that prompt your Rep to initiate a Live Chat at an optimal time but sometimes Reps will free wheel and prompt when they want. We train our Reps that if the content on the page is considerable, they must allow ample time to read it, on average 60 – 90 seconds for packed content and 45 seconds for basic content.
Dave: How about routing?
Jaime: Visitors don’t always click to chat on the page they are actually interested in learning more about. It’s not difficult but Reps need to learn the organization and transfer chats to the appropriate individuals. i.e. Support chats need to go to support, sales to sales, etc.
Dave: How do you measure Live Chat Agents or Inside Reps using Live Chat?
Jaime: The best tools provide tons of metrics data to measure effectiveness. For example, LivePerson™ provides ample reporting on a Rep’s performance, not to mention excellent visibility into customer activity on your web site.
Jaime: I also love the visibility you receive from post Live Chat Surveys.
Dave: You mean a survey that pops up after a visit or chat?
Jaime: Yes.
Dave: Does anyone really complete them?
Jaime: Not everyone, but the visitors that do provide very important information. In fact I love them because they are extreme.
Dave: How so?
Jaime: You typically hear the really great feedback or the terrible feedback, so you instantly know where you team is performing well, and where you require change or improvement. It provides a written transcript of the interaction and a Rep’s performance. Even negative customer surveys can show how a Rep handles a difficult situation in a highly professional way. Positive scores range high, between eight and ten. Most bad scores will be a one or zero. Chat tools typically provide these surveys and I encourage everyone to use them.
Dave: Speaking of customers. What do you think they want from a Live Chat experience?
Jaime: They just want to get their questions answered.
Dave: Of course.
Dave: What is the best window of time to provide Live Chat say for example in North America?
Jaime: 6am Pacific Standard Time – 6pm Pacific Standard Time. This twelve hour period tends to cover the most time zones in North America.
Dave: Is Live Person difficult to implement?
Jaime: It depends on the complexity of your web site and the integration with your CRM system. If both are not overly complex then I would say no. I have worked with small web sites and a small tech team, and integration is fairly straight forward. However, I have also worked with a five thousand page web site with multiple, independent receiving Live Chat teams, and a complex feed into our CRM system. In that case the integration was much more cumbersome and costly.
Dave: What advice would you pass on when setting up a Live Chat system?
Jaime: First, make sure your reps are receiving sales training. Next, I would recommend LivePerson™, which I really enjoyed using, or Instant Service. I wouldn’t spend too much time with the minute details like the .jpg image in the Live Chat box nor the location. Pick an attractive looking individual and place it in a box embedded on the top right of the screen; unless it’s a phone line they are answering, nix the headset. I witnessed far too much time and debate on this subject in the past. Get it up and running.
Dave: Do you recommend outsourcing Live Chat to a third party?
Jaime: When being used as a sales tool I would never recommend outsourcing Live Chat because no third party can sell your product as well as you can. If Live Chat is used as Level One Customer Support then I believe outsourcing can work well for that purpose.
Dave: Assuming a company has successfully implemented Live Chat and staffed and/or trained, what are some of the Do’s and Don’ts companies can keep in mind when using Live Chat?
Jaime:
Do:
· Make sure your Chat Agents have sales and customer service skills.
· Make sure Reps are engaging as if in a professional conversation
· Reps should be skilled at collecting contact information from a Visitor
· Be sure Reps know how to control a chat conversation.
· Have the ultimate goal of the chat be closing the sale. If they can close on a chat great, but keep in mind many customers want to speak to a person on the phone when providing credit card information. Reps should have a professional phone presence as well.
Don’t:
· Overload Agents with more chats than they can handle. An average Agent can handle three at once and the best chat stars can handle up to ten but they will probably break out in a sweat.
· Get lured into non-professional communication.
· Expose your company to legal issues.
· Let your chat go on for hours.
· Use canned phrases as the primary form of communication. Use custom conversation whenever possible.
Dave: Jaime thanks for speaking with me. Your advice is excellent. It’s obvious you have strong expertise and I appreciate your sharing it with my blog readers
