Today, customers expect human support in real time. That’s why 79% of consumers prefer Live Chat over the legacy support channels like phone calls. Live Chat offers immediacy, the freedom to multitask, and places you—the customer—in the driving seat of the conversation.

However, in reality, this isn’t exactly the case - almost 47% of consumers haven’t had a positive Live Chat experience in the past month. While companies are investing more into delivering the perfect customer experience, their support teams are repeatedly bottlenecked with high request volumes, time zone differences, and team availability. 

Customers expect a human response within 10 minutes, but average response times have spiked significantly in 2020. Why? More customers are turning to Live Chat and popular messaging apps as their weapon of choice for real-time support while household names, like Netflix, suspend legacy support channels in favor of Live Chat. This shift in behaviour has seen Live Chat’s previously undisputed CSAT of almost 90% come under significant pressure as companies struggle to deliver a “live” experience in Live Chat.

We’ve all had at least one unforgivable experience on Live Chat. You’re trying to change a flight reservation for a few hours. You’ve provided all your information and now unsuccessfully trying to get around the Chatbot’s wall of automated replies - “Thanks for your message. We’ll be with you in just a few minutes”. The doorbell rings - package arrived! You leave your desk to grab the package and by the time you return, you’ve connected to a support agent who, on a very busy schedule, has both opened and then closed the conversation due to inactivity. Back to the end of the queue you go! All that precious time you spent waiting for an answer on Live Chat has gone to waste. This evokes flashbacks of waiting on hold, listening to classical music on loop on the loudspeaker when the call suddenly disconnects out of nowhere 😭

When you take the “live” out of Live Chat, you will create a very frustrating experience that will leave a bad taste in your customers’ mouths. “Don’t leave me hanging!” - this is what all your customers are saying while they wait patiently on Live Chat. If customers don’t get the support in the medium, platform, and timeline they expect, they’ll up and leave. The customer support experience is a dealbreaker.

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So, this begs the question - how do I fine-tune my Live Chat go-to market to ensure my customers have a delightful experience? ‍

Here at MessageBird, we help hundreds of businesses design truly unique and effective customer support experiences that scale. Just by leveraging a simple combination of Flow Builder, Inbox, and the Omnichannel Widget, you can set your team up to manage an ever-growing number of requests while maintaining the world-class omnichannel support experience your customers seek.

The first step towards scaling your Live Chat experience is to master the art of human-like conversation. That’s where automation using Flow Builder comes in. Whether you're deflecting low-quality conversations from reaching your support team, collecting important data your support team needs to pick up a ticket, or qualifying inbound leads, you need to keep your customers front of mind when designing your Live Chat automation flows.

Start by giving your chatbot a name and a profile picture. Ask some simple questions and allow for even simpler answers in a conversational tone, making sure to not overload customers with too many questions. And lastly, add some time delay between automated messages and replies to give the feel of a human on the other end of the keyboard. Not offering 24 hour follow-the-sun support? Set up your business hours in Inbox’s new Automations page to let your customers know when they can get in touch. These are just a few of the quick wins you can roll out in a matter of minutes to keep your customers happy. 

So, your customer has just completed your automation flow - now what? Although your agents are at capacity, you need to make sure your customers don’t go cold waiting in the queue. Give them the freedom to multitask and take the conversation wherever they want to with our new Omnichannel Queue management feature for Live Chat - called Conversation Bridging. Simply define the maximum time that your customers should be left hanging on Live Chat awaiting a response. If the maximum wait time is reached, your chatbot will automatically reach out on Live Chat prompting the customer to seamlessly and securely connect their ongoing Live Chat conversation to their preferred communication channel like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Email, and many more. Your customers can now carry on with their day, no longer bound to Live Chat waiting for a response. If they’re happy to wait, your customers also have the option to sit tight and “stay on Live Chat”. 

These are just a few of the many ways you can leverage MessageBird to provide world-class Omnichannel support to your customers when they need you the most.