Agent Development - Best Practices. Agent Development - Best Practices

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2 Introduction Chat agents have a tremendous impact on your online business. Their interactions with potential customers create lasting impressions, so when customers request help, it's up to your agents to assure them that you value their business. Live chat is a powerful tool, but it requires skilled agents to use it properly. Overview This Best Practice guide offers strategies for improving the selling and service skills of your Live Chat representatives. It leverages the experience LivePerson has garnered from helping 7,000 customers worldwide deploy and use Live Chat. Each strategy is presented as an analysis of a Chat scenario, along with our recommended best practice in the discussed scenario. The following tables describes the Best Practices presented in this guide. Best Practice 1 Make customers feel welcome. 2 Make sure the customer's needs are met. 3 Don't just answer questions, guide customers through a sale. Ensure chat agents are thoroughly familiar with your website and product line. 4 Keep Visitors engaged while you research their questions. 5 Keep chats clean and user-friendly. How is it done? Make sure your agents have proper Canned Responses for greetings and closings. Use Enhanced Canned Responses to personalize your communications with dynamic data. Use follow-up and probing questions. Avoid the need for customers to repeat a question. Develop selling scripts, with appropriate Canned Responses for your agents to use so that they can guide visitors through the product selection process. Agents should provide the requested information but also offer to help the customer place the order, as well as identify opportunities to promote ancillary products or add-ons. Use On-Hold Messages to keep the conversation going and assure the customer that you are still there. Utilize LivePerson features such as Send Link to create easy, clickable links to send to customers. 2

3 1. Make customers feel welcome What will you learn? In this section you will learn how to ensure that your agents welcome the customers they are chatting with in a professional and courteous manner, as well as ensure them that they are chatting with professionals who can address any issue. Canned Responses for greeting and closing, as well as personalized responses using macros, can help you create an inviting and professional environment for your customers. What features should you pay attention to? This section deals with the Canned Responses feature. You need to be familiar with the Canned Responses that are defined for your account, as well as the procedure of creating new and editing existing responses. 3

4 A practical example Let's look at this Chat, which utilizes a Greeting type response. The agent greets the customer and ensures that she is there to answer any questions about the company's products. If you were a customer about to chat with this agent, you'd already gain a sense of security. 4

5 Now let's look at a similar chat, after the Canned Response has been enhanced with the use of macros. The agent presents herself by her screen name, then greets the customer using a macro that inserts the customer's name (as it was typed by him into the Chat window). This chat instills more trust, as well as a sense of welcoming. LivePerson's Enhanced Canned Responses feature let you incorporate the visitor's name as a macro into the chat. 5

6 To summarize Make sure your Canned Responses include proper greetings and closings. Enhance your Canned Responses to include macros with the customer's name, the agent's name or a product name. How is it done? Click here to learn about creating and editing Enhanced Canned Responses. 6

7 2. Make sure customers needs are met What will you learn? In this section you will learn how to use follow-up questions to ensure the agent is accurately reflecting the visitor's concerns as well as add efficiency to the chat. What features should you pay attention to? This section deals with the Canned Responses feature. You need to be familiar with the use of Canned Responses. A practical example In this example, let's assume that a customer is chatting with an agent who represents a website that sells electrical appliances. 7

8 The customer is interested in a certain type of refrigerator. The agent doesn't notice that the customer has requested a certain type of product and responds by using a Canned Response with a link to the company's product page: The agent was quick to use a Canned Response without fully addressing the customer's request, so the customer now needs to ask an additional question, as well as browse all product pages, an action he could have done without the help of the chat agent. 8

9 Now let's look at the same chat, but this time, the agent notices what the customer is asking and uses a follow-up question to narrow down the products the customer can choose from. 9

10 To summarize Canned Responses are an extremely helpful, time-saving tool, but there is always a need to thoroughly read the customer's request and provide value-added assistance. Train your agents to be familiar with your products and services, as well as with the Canned Responses they have at their disposal. They should be trained to identify situations in which a Canned Response does not provide any additional value and follow-up questions are needed. This can shorten the process, resulting in higher customer satisfaction. How is it done? Click here to learn more about using Canned Responses. 10

11 3. Don't just answer questions, guide customers through a sale What will you learn? In this section you will learn how to spot up-sell opportunities while chatting with a customer or a prospect. Alerts to your agents about the availability of certain products and similar products that should be offered if a product is missing can clue your agents that they can try to close a sale even if the customers' initial request cannot be met. What features should you pay attention to? This section mentions the Operator Alert feature. You should be familiar with this feature, the possible alerts you can set and the way alerts are displayed in the Agent Console. A practical example In this example, a customer asks a question about a certain product, which is currently missing. 11

12 The agent has answered the customer's question quickly, but has not provided any additional information that would have helped secure a sale. 12

13 Now let's look at the same chat, but this time an alert popped up in the Agent Console, guiding agents to an alternate product. The agent takes longer to address the customer's question, but eventually sends the customer a link to the alternate product's review page and takes the opportunity to add a cross-sell. 13

14 To summarize Answering a customer's question is not enough! Alerts will help your agents to up sell, cross-sell or offer alternate products. Alerts in the Agent Console can also help agents identify targets of a marketing campaign, so they may offer incentives or customer deals if customers meet certain criteria. How is it done? Click here to learn about Operator Alerts. 14

15 4. Keep visitors engaged What will you learn? In this session you will learn how to keep your customers engaged in the chat in the event that the agent must put the visitor on hold to research an answer or complete a procedure. What features should you pay attention to? This section deals with On Hold Messages. You should be familiar with the characteristics and use of these messages. A practical example In this chat, the agent needs to gather some information in order to answer the customer's query. This is taking a few minutes, and the customer feels that there is no longer someone listening on the other side. 15

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17 Now let's look at the same chat, this time On Hold Messages are automatically sent to the customer when a pre-determined amount of time has elapsed. 17

18 To summarize Use On Hold Messages that are displayed to visitors when the agent does not respond during a chat session for a specified amount of time. These messages use the same fonts and colors as the agent's text. How is it done? Click here to learn about System Messages. Click here to download the On-Hold Messages Best Practice Guide. 18

19 5. Keep chats clean and user-friendly What will you learn? In this session you will learn how to make sure that your chats are clean-looking and userfriendly. Direct customers to a specific page on the website or send them documents using clickable links that are presented as text. What features should you pay attention to? This section deals with the Knowledgebase and Send Link features. You should be familiar with the characteristics and usage of these features. A practical example In this chat, an agent sends the customer a link to the page he has requested. However, the link is long and cumbersome. 19

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21 Now let's look at the same chat; this time the agent uses Send a Link to direct the customer to the same page in a cleaner and more user-friendly fashion. The agent also sends the customer a relevant Knowledgebase article in the same manner. To summarize Agents should avoid using long, un-clickable or cumbersome links. The Send a Link feature enables the agent to type clickable text and send it as a link. How is it done? Click here to learn about the Send a Link feature. Click here to learn about the Knowledgebase. 21

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