Chat for customer service - the difference between the haves and the have nots…

Is chat an effective and efficient customer interaction channel for customer service? Absolutely yes. However while chat adoption for customer service is healthy the leverage of chat as a strong service channel is not so. There are many myths on chat. Consequently its effectiveness as an alternative channel to voice gets constantly questioned by both adopters of chat as well as by those who have not yet adopted chat.

Some of the common myths are that cost per contact in chat is more expensive than phone, customer experience and first contact resolution in chat is lower than voice and that it is not possible to reduce phone volumes through chat. All these myths have some common underlying realities. One, the common approach to implementing service chat has either been a technology or as a website experiment, through small pilots to evaluate the ROI and other benefits compared to voice. Second is the low awareness levels on how to leverage and grow chat as a service channel.

Consider this. 90% of customer service chat experiments/ pilots fail to produce the desired results within 4 to 6 months despite choosing a best in class chat technology. Chat cannot be tested as a technology or a website experiment. Running a customer service chat is not about putting a button chat on the website and seeing if customers click to chat or creating simple rules for targeting website visitors. Creating effective chat interactions requires deeper understanding of consumer contact behavior across channels, segmenting, targeting and driving smart interactions that can avoid potential calls from the website.

Secondly, most chat pilots start with less than 10-15 agents, with the expectation that it can be grown once the ROI is proved. This is a recipe for disaster. Such a small pilot cannot decisively prove anything vs voice and it is guaranteed not to get any executive attention especially in large contact centers. Chat programs need to start with an optimum number of agents that is modeled based on contact volumes using analytics. Growing the chat volumes requires an integrated execution of the analytical models with sophisticated operations. In addition chat also needs to be run as a unique channel without trying to lift and shift practices from voice operations. Many chat pilots start with tenured voice agents under the assumption that tenured voice agents have the product/ process knowledge and would be the best fit for a pilot. Incorrect. Chat operations require different skill sets, personality types that impact performance and productivity.

In effect running a service chat program effectively to produce significant results needs to be done with the vision to make the service transformation happen, backed by executive commitment and with a clear project plan that is not restricted to pilots. It is a science and not an experiment in art. And only few companies that have truly succeeded in transforming their service operations have cracked the code.

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