Live Chat Agent VA

According to conversion rate optimization experts Invesp, 73% of customers prefer using live chat to communicate with a business. With such a high rate of preference, it just makes sense for any business to consider providing live chat support on your website or social media platforms. But if you’re already providing phone and email support, why do you still need live chat?

Unlike phone support, live chat makes it easier for your customers to get the support they need on their terms. Also, more and more people are hesitant to talk to someone over the phone for various reasons. Email support, on the other hand, is just way too slow for many customers. Many companies typically respond to emails within 24 hours, but this is still not fast enough. Meanwhile, chat support allows your customers to get the answers to their questions instantly.

Even though chatbots and artificial intelligence have come a long way in giving your customers easy access to important business resources and answers to frequently asked questions, they can still feel impersonal. Unlike a self-service chat box that provides automatic responses, a live chat support team can increase potential sales conversion by providing your customers with accurate, straight-to-the-point responses to their concerns and queries.

Aside from faster resolution and more personalized responses, which are related to improving customer experience and increasing customer satisfaction, live chat support is also proven to increase leads and improve conversion rates. A study conducted by ClickZ found that online shoppers are more likely to click on links if there’s a chatbox available (24%). Also, websites that provide this support option have an improved conversion rate (20%) compared to those that don’t. In short, truly successful businesses can simultaneously provide live chat, phone, and email support.

So, you know that providing chat support is a cost-effective way to find more potential clients and please more customers. But how do you set it up? The first step is to find chat support tools or software that you can integrate with your website. There are a few free ones that you can use, but most of them have limited features. If you’re serious about providing a chat support service to your customers, you need to invest in a good chat support tool.

Aside from setting up the tool, you will, of course, need agents to man your chat support software. Unfortunately, hiring a local live chat operator isn’t always feasible or practical, especially if you’re a startup or small business or if you have already invested most of your resources on phone and email customer service agents. The solution? Hire a chat support virtual assistant.

A live chat support virtual assistant is an online customer service representative who works on behalf of a company to provide information about the company’s products or services to customers. Live chat support virtual assistants usually do this by communicating with the customer via a “chat window” (a text box containing a record of previous messages so that either party can refer back to them).

Because of the increasing demand for real-time customer service, more and more companies hire chat support virtual assistants to improve the customer experience. Offshore chat support virtual assistants can work during your business hours or after your business hours so that you can give 24/7 support to your clients or customers. A chat support virtual assistant is also more cost-effective because they have their own computers and won’t take up office space.

An efficient chat support VA can do more than just answer questions. Here are just a few things you can assign to your chat support virtual assistants.

Customer Support

The most obvious task to assign to your virtual assistant is customer support. Using your company’s knowledge base, they can provide your clients with the assistance they need.

Lead Generation and Qualification

Although customer service is their main role, your chat virtual assistants can also reach out to potential leads or qualify any leads they get using your chat software. After qualifying the leads, they can forward the leads to your sales team for nurturing and follow-up.

Feedback Gathering and Management

Your chat inbox is a treasure trove of feedback and opinions from clients. To make the most of this feedback knowledge base, you can ask your chat virtual assistant to keep track of useful feedback and send them over to you or your quality team. They can also ask your chat visitors or users to leave you reviews on your website or social media pages.

Here are some of the most useful skills to look for when hiring a live chat virtual assistant.

Good Listening Skills

Listening skills, in this case, pertain to their ability to understand and interpret the question or request of your customer. Many customers will be annoyed if they get generic or incorrect responses, so your VA has to have excellent reading comprehension skills.

Excellent Written Communication Skills

If you’re hiring a phone support agent, phone ability or verbal communication is the core skill you need to look for. Similarly, written communication skills should be your priority when hiring a chat support VA. Have high expectations for your VA’s writing skills, and make sure that they deliver.

Ability to Multitask Efficiently

Your VA will be juggling many screens, from your company knowledge base page to the chat window to online search results, so they need to be efficient when it comes to multitasking.

Finding qualified candidates for a chat support virtual assistant position can be challenging, especially if you try to do it all yourself. The most effective way to find reliable virtual assistants who can match your skill requirements and schedule preferences is to work with a company that provides managed virtual assistant services.

20four7VA Virtual Staffing Solutions is a full-service agency that can immediately match you with a pre-vetted, pre-trained chat support VA. Since we don’t require long-term contracts for our clients, you can avail of our services with no risk to you.

Book a free Business Growth Session to talk to one of our expert agents today!