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The Benefits of Call Center Outsourcing to the Health Insurance Industry

The health care industry and structure of health care organizations in the United States are in a state of accelerated evolution. Recent updates, such as the Affordable Care Act, have expanded the need for health insurance organizations to provide members with quality communication that are timely and achieve a high member satisfaction rating while reducing operating costs. Outsourcing is a logical choice for the health insurance industry. Hospitals, insurance providers, and private practices find that outsourcing provides a cost-effective, efficient solution to member service, collections, and sales. Contact centers offering a varied portfolio of resources, such as voice, chat, email and SMS can have a strong, positive influence on the level of communication conducted between the provider and member. Call center standards for the insurance industry are among the highest anywhere. According to the US Census Bureau 2012, the US Health Care Industry Annual Revenue was pegged at $1.668 trillion with 784,626 healthcare companies in US. Call centers use the latest technologies and customized software applications for effective medical information protection, secure sharing, and coordination with adherence to HIPAA compliance. Exceptional call center infrastructure paired with agents who have appropriate skill sets and training are key imperatives. Interactions with a knowledgeable and trained representative create positive brand perception and member experience. Another value-add is flexibility – call centers have the ability to provide around the clock staffing, including holiday’s and weekends. Partnering with a qualified health care call center not only supports quality interactions, but provides “Voice of Member” services that deliver long term benefits. Constant evaluation, member feedback and process improvement are invaluable in helping clients improve business practices. This results in an optimization of overall performance, lower labor expenses and enhanced strategic position, which in turn support a healthy bottom line.

Best Practices for Training Chat Agents

As every person who has used online chat knows, a great chat experience can convince a person to purchase a product or service immediately, or can cause them to look elsewhere on the Internet for their business. With so many options at a customer’s fingertips when using the web, it is critical that chat agents offer a great presentation the first time they interact with a customer – there are few second chances with live chat. By now, everyone knows that chat is the fastest and most effective method of interacting with customers online. Having a well-trained staff of live chat agents is critical to making that first impression and creating loyal online-first customers. As live chat has grown, best practices have been developed that have led to increased sales, lead generation, chat quality, and overall customer experience. By following the general outline below, your chat team’s performance and quality is sure to improve. Encourage Rapport Building A chat is just like a verbal conversation – agents need to build rapport with a customer before they can properly address a customer’s reason for chatting. Chat can be a challenging medium because agents cannot rely on their tone of voice to show their emotions to customers. While emoticons (things like 🙂 and :\ ) and acronyms (“LOL”) are generally frowned upon in a professional chat, there are other ways to let a customer know you are engaged with them. Quick responses to customer messages are a must. During a chat, 30 second responses can seem like a lifetime to a customer, so it is important to respond quickly to any customer questions. Most chat platforms offer prewritten messages that agents can customize to allow quick responses. Directly answering customer messages is also critical. If you have ever used online chat or even exchanged text messages with someone, you can understand how messages can become confusing if one party changes topics mid-conversation. Addressing each customer question before moving on to the next will create a smoother chat flow and a better customer experience. Understanding the Needs of Your Customer The reason customers initiate a live chat is to fulfill a need, whether that is to buy a product or service, for customer support, for billing questions, etc. It is your agents’ job to determine what a customer needs and provide that to them while providing the best customer service possible. During rapport building, agents will have the opportunity to ask questions of their own to determine exactly what a customer wants. Often, the customer won’t know exactly what they want. “What is the fastest internet speed available?” “How can I pay my bill online?” This is your team’s opportunity to acknowledge a customer’s messages and ask discovery questions to find a solution that best suits a customer’s needs. Provide a Solution Now that your agents have built rapport with a customer and determined what they need, this is their opportunity to meet their customer’s needs. During this step, the goodwill that the agent has built during the rapport building and understanding needs phases can be used to offer solutions that a customer might not be as receptive to otherwise. For instance, an agent might be able to offer a phone plan that is more expensive than what the customer originally had in mind, but that better suits their needs because it has features not included in the less expensive plan. Going for the Close As with most interactions, especially sales interactions, the close can often be the trickiest part of the process. Research has found that many organizations have a gap in their “Rapport Building” through “Provide a Solution” steps, and that many new agents often skip from their introduction at the beginning of the chat to trying to close a sale. This step builds on the previous three steps to be effective, and here is where your leaders will spend much of their time coaching. Key coaching techniques in this phase are teaching agents to identify key phrases that indicate a customer is ready to buy and hold regular practice sessions with agents, giving them the opportunity to role play their closes in different scenarios. Review Chat Transcripts A final obvious but sometimes overlooked step is to have leaders and their agents study chat transcripts. Letting agents look over their own transcripts will allow them to acknowledge and correct any of their areas of opportunity, while sharing the transcripts of top performers will allow best practices to spread throughout your team. Customers themselves can provide great data for your organization. What products do customers like? What promotions? What would they improve about your live chat experience? These questions can often be answered by taking a look at your previous interactions with customers. If your team doesn’t have the bandwidth to do a deep dive into your transcripts, there are organizations available who specialize in reviewing and analyzing customer interactions and can provide trending and voice of the customer data. Summary As you can see, by following some simple best practices, you can have well-trained, live chat agents on your team. You can provide outstanding sales and service for your online customers leading to increased revenue and reduced costs.

Servant Leadership

The dramatic globalization of industry and the rapid enhancement of technology have changed today’s business environment and will continue to do. In today’s fast paced global market, businesses are called to move more rapidly than ever before while doing even more with less. While globalization and technology are the drivers behind the change, I firmly believe that the only way to achieve and sustain success is through the empowerment of people. The most effective way to engage everyone to reach their potential is by developing high-trust cultures which empowers everyone by turning bosses into servants and coaches. This concept is at the heart of what it means to be a Servant Leader. At Etech, our leaders are not about power or prestige; they are about truly serving and developing their people, their customers and their communities. I believe that Servant Leadership has never been more important than it is today. Companies are looking for leadership philosophies that work… and people are looking for a deeper meaning in the workplace than just meeting deadlines and drawing a pay check. By embracing and cultivating a leadership culture centered on servant leadership, Etech recently celebrated its 9 year anniversary having grown from one call center in East Texas with a couple hundred employees to seven global centers across Texas, Jamaica and India with 2,000+ team members. And the best is yet to come. Servant Leadership not only works, but it brings meaning to the workplace that is bigger than any of us.

Multi-Channel Contact Centers Help Deliver Exceptional Customer Experience

Contact centers are constantly focused on narrowing down on a right mix of channels to provide a unified communication platform for great customer experience. They are experiencing the necessity to undergo transition from a conventional center into a more dynamic multi-channel contact center offering customer service through multiple touch-points. With rapidly expanding technological innovations, customers are exploring new touch points to get in contact with businesses. In order to efficiently cater to the growing base of tech-savvy customers, contact centers need an optimized integrated platform that encompasses all types of contact channels to improve their customer-engagement methods while reducing the costs and increasing revenue. According to Right Now Multi-Channel Contact Center Survey of more than 300 companies, more than half say their average cost per call is $6 or less, more than half state that their average email response time is 12 hours or less, and the majority says their chat agents handle one to three chats simultaneously.¹ Interactions in Multi-Channel Environment Customers use different channels such as voice, IVR, email, chat, and web to reach contact centers to get their questions answered. According to a recent study by Enghouse Interactive and ContactBabel, the way customers contact call centers has changed significantly.² Phone interactions accounted for 76.2% of entire inbound interactions in 2007. This number falls to 71.6% in 2011. Emails accounted for 6.9% of entire inbound interactions in 2007, and rose to 10.2% in 2011. Live chat accounted for 1.2% of total inbound interactions in 2007, but it showed significant growth settling at 1.8% in 2011. IVR accounted for 6.9% of total inbound interactions in 2007 and increased to 12.2% in 2011. Live chat showed significant growth prospects with figures jumping from 1.8% in 2011 to 2.5% in early 2012.³ Customers are favoring the online chat channel as it better addresses their needs and queries. The agents can handle multiple chat sessions while offering cost-effectiveness as compared to voice and IVR. Live chat has gained greater acceptance from customers due to its ability to provide real-time responses to queries, ease of use, faster resolution, and convenience. According to the study, the live chat channel will account for 5% of the total inbound interactions to the contact centers by 2015.³ Strategy for Multichannel Handling As contact centers embrace the multi-channel environment to serve customers, they face the same issues as any other contact center including agent skill sets, workforce management, metrics and reporting. Many contact centers employ multi-skilled routing strategies across multiple sites in order to provide quality customer service. There is the need to have a robust and proven multichannel contact center management strategy in place. One way to handle multichannel contacts is to create dedicated agent pools. Dedicated groups can cater to each channel individually. One group can handle inbound calls, another can handle emails, one can handle web chat, etc. Another method of effective contact handling is Universal Queue wherein contacts are routed to agents as they come. Thus, the agents may handle an email first, then a web chat, then an inbound call. This method facilitates cross-training and leads to management issues as agents have to face difficulties traversing across different channels in a short span of time. In order to overcome all these issues, the skill-block scheduling approach is being adopted. In skill block scheduling, agents have to focus on specific multi-channel contact types over a given period of time. The contact center must determine the service goals based on the types of channels the center is handling. The center can define separate service goals for each channel as a uniform service goal will result in inconsistency. Volume forecasting in a multichannel contact center helps to successfully achieve service goals set by the center. Volume forecasting is done in two steps. First, the contact center derives the arrival forecast from the history of multichannel contacts. Second, the center must create a handle forecast for deferrable work. Creating volume forecasting enables centers to take advantage of agent availability when there is low contact volume and use it to handle various channel types. It is necessary to correctly determine the Average Handle Time (AHT) for contacts based on history. Determining AHT is crucial for creation of exact volume forecast. Determining AHT can be a difficult task for work such as emails because it is deferrable work. Correct AHT can be entered in a Workforce Management System to accurately conduct volume forecasting and build staff plans. Workforce Management System (WMS) plays a crucial role in multichannel contact center operations. It helps to accurately determine service goals and staffing plans, and helps to properly disperse the volume across multiple sites. WMS will also help to create the right schedules taking into account skill-block scheduling. As some advanced WMS allows real-time viewing of multichannel contact handling, it ensures efficient change management as centers can modify staff plans based on changes in call volumes. Metrics are crucial in any contact center. When contact centers are expanding to include various contact types, skill types, and functions, it is necessary to develop new sets of metrics that provide the right insights and deep analysis to help management better gauge the health of the contact center and make proper decisions. The metrics need to help control costs and improve the productivity of agents. New generation metrics can give more detailed agent evaluations, provide greater visibility, insights into investment, and improve morale. Customer Satisfaction across Multiple Channels When a customer has the freedom to interact with the contact center in their medium of choice, it gives them an immense sense of satisfaction. The multi-channel environment makes sure that the customers receive the same level of service on any channel and entire customer history and information is seamlessly distributed across all channels. Efficient skill-block scheduling ensures that the right agents are staffed to attain service goals. Properly staffed agents means less stress, higher job satisfaction, and ultimately higher customer satisfaction as happy agents provide excellent customer service. Agents who have exposure to cross-training on multi-channel

Who Should Really Be Listening and Evaluating Your Calls?

A well-established Quality Assurance program ensures a higher level of customer satisfaction due to improved customer service, which can lead to greater profitability for a business. Companies have the option of employing front line supervisors, establishing a dedicated internal Quality Assessment team, or hiring an independent third party QA service provider to implement the QA program during daily operations. All of these QA service providers have their own benefits and limitations. Sound Expertise and Proven Experience Every enterprise wants to efficiently manage its resources. Third party QA service providers have solid and proven experience along with expertise that can readily be put to use. This experience and expertise is gained after successfully handling QA programs involving call recording and monitoring, one-on-one call coaching, establishing the QA program and training the internal team, QA calibration, auditing, etc. An independent QA service provider can handle the entire value aspect while the operations team fully concentrates on providing quality customer service. Also, the capability and understanding gained enables third party QA providers to provide intelligent data that unravels the crucial business drivers. An in-house QA team might take years to actually acquire the same expertise and experience. Accountability Independent third-party QA service providers maintain a high-level of accountability and professionalism when dealing with clients. Independent QA service providers know they are entirely responsible for handling the QA program for their clients, and failure on their part will lead to customer dissatisfaction, decreased revenue for the client, and loss of their customer base. Companies interested in an in-house QA team will invest in infrastructure, manpower, technology, and software to build the team. And if this same team fails to perform, it can be a detrimental loss to the company. Objectivity A third-party QA provider will conduct an independent assessment of calls, entirely free from any kind of influence or internal bias. An independent QA provider will conduct analysis from a customer-centered point of view and can provide an informed judgment, while an internal QA team or analyst might be challenged to maintain objectivity while assessing calls. Satisfied customers lead to successful businesses. Choosing an independent, third-party QA service provider can help companies ensure that all processes maximize customer satisfaction and business results.

Why Customer’s Initiate Chat?

Chat is increasingly becoming the preferred solution for online consumers. Click-to-chat technology is gaining international momentum. Based on our experience with several Fortune 500 companies, live chat is the most effective channel in terms of customer service and satisfaction. Internationally, the next great area of customer contact is live chat. From a customer perspective, regardless of a customer’s geographic location, a successful chat experience is a fast, contextual interaction with a knowledgeable, real person. The customer will have the opportunity to print or email a transcript, remain anonymous and save on the time and cost of placing a telephone call. Some facts from surveys: 67% of shoppers with a previous chat experience continue to actively seek chat options on merchant websites¹ 77% of chat users agree that this new interaction method positively influences their attitude about the retailer they consider buying from² 63% of respondents reported they were more likely to return to a website after experiencing live chat³ 38% purchased from an e-commerce website as a direct result of the chat session itself? Below shows several reasons why your customers would initiate chat and how you can take advantage of that opportunity. Having trouble finding the right plan for them – Discover needs during conversation and help them choose the right plan. To ask general questions about products – Understand the question and answer directly, further probe to discover needs and help them order. If they experience an error during the navigation or check out process – Directly provide a solution to overcome the error, or as an alternative, provide them a new link to start the order process. To inquire about any promotions available – Check if they qualify for the promotions. If not, show them what is in it for them if they order and what will they lose if they do not order. To ask about terms and conditions – Provide the link to read or encourage them to read it carefully and ask questions, if any. To inquire about the order that was placed – Provide them status or direct them to the appropriate department. Compare plans of their interest – Discover needs and assist accordingly. Benefits of Online Chat for Consumers Online chat delivers rapid, personalized and timely communication through direct interaction, resulting in a wide range of benefits to include: Reducing overall connection time, while allowing customers to quickly and easily access additional information online. This leads to happier, more satisfied customers and fewer future calls. Helping consumers to connect to and be assisted by agents quickly through concurrent chat sessions handled by agents before they abandon a transaction. Shortening the sales process by creating additional positive impressions that move a prospect quickly and efficiently through the sales cycle while resolving customer issues and objections immediately. The figure below displays some facts about live chat aspects appreciated by consumers.

Being the Positive Influence Your Team Needs

Being a positive influence is a character commitment that every leader should be required to make. Not only will being positive have a productive impact on your company but there are personal benefits to be gained as well. There have been many studies done on the power of positive thought and the conclusions drawn show that positive thinking has been proven to reduce stress, help people live longer, improve one’s overall well-being and enable people to better cope with the anxieties of this world. Many people understand the benefits of being positive; the real challenge is the execution! I have often been asked, “How can I remain positive especially when others around me are so negative?” I have recently read several articles and books on positive thinking. There were several common strategies that these articles contained that I wanted to share with you below. I have tried many of these in my own life and they work! 1. Admit you are negative! The first step to overcoming any problem in life is to admit that there is a problem. Whether it is gossiping about a fellow team member, or complaining about a comp plan, or believing that you can’t achieve something … these attitudes all contribute to a non-healthy situation. 2. Avoid Negative Influences. This includes the following: a. “Friends” or fellow team members who are always complaining. You don’t have to look very far or hard to find these people. Fire them from your life!! b. The news….Murder, war, rape, fiscal deficits, rising gas prices… During my recent recovery from back surgery, I had much time to watch a lot of Fox News. How discouraging! If you need your daily news fix, then turn to resources such as www.happynews.com or www.goodnewsblog.com. 3. Surround yourself with positive people! I love hanging around people with positive people. Why? Because after interacting with them I always feel better. Their positive nature is contagious! Their smile alone energizes me! 4. Saturate yourself with positive books, quotes, e-newsletters and music. You can never have enough positive influence in your life! Commit to being a lifelong learner and make sure part of that learning is focused in this area. 5. Take care of yourself! Eat healthy, eliminate soda from your diet and drink lots of water, exercise, and stop smoking! The better you feel about yourself, the more positive you will feel. The more positive you feel, the better you will take care of yourself. Try it! 6. Form a relationship with God. Pray, meditate, have a conversation, seek Him. We live in a fallen world but God has created each of us for His purpose. The closer you draw to Him, the clearer His purpose for your life becomes. There is nothing more positive that I have experienced in my life then when I finally realized and accepted the fact that God had a purpose for me. 7. Be a positive influencer by serving others! There is no greater reward that I have ever experienced than helping someone in need. As you incorporate the 6 strategies above into your own life, you will want to share your new found positive thinking with others. Serve them well!

What is Proactive Chat?

Businesses can provide a quality customer engagement experience through proactive chat. Proactive chat involves initiating automated chat invitations to potential customers based on specific pre-defined rules or website visitor behavior metrics. Proactive chat invitations based upon advanced chat intelligence rules can efficiently target the customers, leading to higher customer satisfaction and attaining business goals. Proactive chat invitations can also be initiated by live chat agents while monitoring the live website traffic, better targeting specific customers that show a higher propensity to make a purchase after being assisted. According to a North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey conducted in 2009 (Q4), 44% of the U.S. online consumers saw online assistance by a live person during online shopping as an important feature on a website. Apart from its use in providing quality customer service, proactive chat helps to improve conversion rates, shorten the sales cycle, increase revenue per order, and lessen shopping cart abandonment rates. Provides Instant Live Help Businesses maintaining an online presence constantly face issues such as shopping cart abandonment, application abandonment, high bounce rates, etc. from website visitors. Moreover, a North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey conducted in 2009 (Q4) found that 57 % of U.S. online buyers are likely to abandon their online purchase if they cannot find an answer to their queries. Inefficient targeting of these customers will result in fewer online sales and revenue earnings. Businesses can lose much of their customer base, to their competitors gain. Providing instant live help during the shopping process will cast a positive impression on consumers’ minds as help is offered to solve their queries. Live assistance through proactive chat has even been found to be immensely beneficial for consumers in the middle of online shopping, resulting in higher conversion rates. Higher Revenue Earnings Businesses can witness higher online sales and revenue earnings by providing instant live chat at the right time. Proactive chat improves overall customer satisfaction, resulting in higher average order value and higher conversion rates, combating the incidence of shopping cart abandonment. High shopping cart abandonment rates continue to affect online sales for businesses. According to Forrester Research, the number of website visitors abandoning the shopping cart at the payment stage stands at 88%. Each abandoned shopping cart amounts to revenue leakage. Proactive chat can alleviate the queries of the customers in real-time on a variety of issues regarding purchase, shipping, pricing, and more — all prominent factors in shopping cart abandonment. Proactive chat also leads to cost reduction for businesses by lowering the number of phone calls made from the website. Better customer engagement will lead to satisfied customers, decreasing the number of phone calls made. Thus, businesses can experience a reduced cost-per-contact as calls from customers are reduced. Using proactive chat, businesses can provide high quality customer service to high-value customers, as well as promote product sales. In order to establish a successful proactive chat system, businesses need to focus on staffing talented professionals that have the right skills to provide excellent customer service, and formulating chat intelligence rules that match up to the chat goals.

How to Evade Shopping Cart Abandonment

It seems to happen for no apparent reason, and it appears that there’s no way to prevent it—or stop it once it’s started. Any retail business with an online shopping website fears it, yet very few know how to deal with it. Exactly what is this ever increasing, revenue-damaging phenomenon? It’s a common occurrence known as shopping cart abandonment—when a customer buying from a retail website fills their cart with items to purchase, but they never follow through with a transaction. Some revisit the site to purchase items later, but the majority of customers never return. The scale of this issue can be fully realized simply by the sheer numbers and a little imagination. According to a recent Listrak marketing article, the rate of cart abandonment rose from 71 % to 74% within the first six months of 2011. Internet World Stats has determined that over two billion are people using the Internet worldwide (as of March 2011). If, according to recent recordings, nearly three fourths of the users currently shopping don’t follow through with their purchases, the amount of potential revenue never earned is staggering. Shopping cart abandonment is the second most important metric for businesses to maintain, second only to conversion. Advertising and maintaining a website practically becomes pointless if the site itself is ineffective in generating revenue. This loss of business can be halted and reversed, but the reasons why it happens must be brought to light first. Online shopping seems simple enough, and often more convenient than driving to the nearest retail store. But just as it is in a physical retail store, problems arise for customers that result in leaving the business without making a transaction. Customers on ecommerce sites typically expect to find an indicator that sites are credible (such as an SSL certificate). Even if the web site is credible, customers will exit if they can’t successfully navigate the pages, or if links don’t take them to the pages they expected to see. More often than not, shoppers tend to leave due to high or unexpected shipping costs that haven’t been clearly stated during the shopping process. Most online shoppers want to know how much they’re paying while they are still shopping, not when they go to checkout. Some patrons that leave a site without making a transaction typically may have read a negative customer review before they proceeded to checkout, and others decide to comparison shop on competitor’s websites. Questions that cannot be answered by “FAQ” pages can also result in visitors exiting the site. This problem, along with most of the others, can be alleviated by online web chat—something that 33% of shoppers immediately look for when making a purchase, according to a study conducted by OneupWeb. Businesses and their clients alike can greatly profit from a web chat experience. When a retail website provides chat options, customer service ratings tend to go up and it’s been found that Generations X and Y prefer chat as a method of communicating with the companies they purchase from. A web chat conversation is essentially like speaking with and being assisted by a sales associate at a retail store. Strangely enough, web chat almost seems to benefit the business more than it does the paying customer. Not only do web chat services improve sales and lower operational costs, they’re also one of the most valuable ways for a modern firm to learn about their practices. Chat conversations can supply an unbiased look into the company, potentially leading to changes in product development, marketing, IT issues, and general business related actions. Information obtained from chats can even serve to make adjustments to prices, promotions, and company policy. Web chat can be broken down into two basic categories: live chat, and proactive chat. Live web chat is a relatively simple tool to use, where the visitor only needs to click a link—no downloads or plug-ins required—to begin the process, and the operator can simultaneously sustain up to ten different chat conversations. Live chat is also extremely convenient due to the fact that the customer can take a break from the pop-up window to find information or follow an operator’s troubleshooting instructions. Proactive (or “Rules Board Invite”) chat is a program that automatically opens up when certain online customer behavior patterns are followed, or when certain pages fail to load. The settings for inviting customers to chat are easily customizable and interchangeable. Customers nervous or unfamiliar with the website often benefit greatly from this software, especially if they’re nervous to initiate a chat with an associate, or if they don’t know how to find the information on their own. One of the greatest obstacles to a company’s establishment of a web chat option is the method in which they implement the service. These two basic options are typically the purchase, installation, and implementation of the web chat software to operators within the company itself, or outsourcing to an experienced business that specializes in chat services. Each method has different components that benefit different types and sizes of companies. Even if the description of a web chat type seems to fit a certain company, either approach can be put to use to fit a company based on their unique needs. Plenty of websites offer easy to install chat software that can be put to use immediately. Some websites don’t even require a download to utilize the software—all that’s necessary is an account on the web chat company’s site. The software is often tested and updated by the company providing it, making the process much simpler than creating and customizing the software internally. These programs include everything needed to begin using a web chat option—everything except the employees to maintain the chat program. Despite its simple installation, a few issues come along with the easy to install package. Oftentimes, the chat programs require that the webmaster, as well as visitors to the site, to have certain software and special firewall settings in order to allow the chat window

Chat Intelligence Rules Defined

We’ve all heard of web chat service and most of us have used it as a consumer. But you may be wondering, what exactly are chat intelligence rules, how do they work and why are they important. Customer Expectations are Higher than Ever The online channel has grown into a popular communication channel due to significant advancements made in technology, predictive search and the ability of social media to affect customer sentiments. The expectation of consumers from the online channel to provide good customer service has increased due to advancements in internet, smart phones, tablet PCs, PCs etc. Companies face the challenge of meeting the high expectations of online consumers while reigning in their costs. According to the investment banking and securities firm, Goldman Sachs, worldwide retail web sales will reach nearly $1 trillion by 2013. According to Forrester Research, online retail sales in the U.S. will hit $250 billion by 2014. They also estimated that online retail sales will grow 10% per year from 2010 to 2015. This is a growing area that companies need to understand and capitalize on. What are Chat Intelligence Rules? Chat intelligence rules can help companies uniquely segregate, focus, and engage key website visitors and prospective customers showing disposition towards making a purchase. If companies can correctly predict customers’ needs and desires then they can deliver excellent customer service at reduced costs. Chat intelligence rules help businesses establish good customer relations by segregating and targeting high-value customers who have been identified based on certain criteria. The intelligent rules filter out key prospective customers whom have greater propensity to make a purchase from the website. Some of the criteria include: Keyword searches on a search engine Specific geo-graphic regions Website searches for a specific service or product. Having specific items in the shopping chart Visitor’s path through the website Return visits Membership groups And more…. The intelligence rules can then be used to route the flow of specific website visitors to those chat agents who are highly skilled and trained to handle such type of customers. Businesses can also integrate chat intelligence features into automated chat invitations so that chat invitations can be made automatically when specific criteria are satisfied. Why Chat Intelligence Rules are Important Live chat intelligence rules can help businesses provide greater value and service to its customers by correctly predicting the needs and requirements of its customers. The customers can be proactively engaged and offered help based on their requirements. The different criteria defined in the chat intelligence rules can help to focus the proactive chat interactions to a specific group identified as ‘hot leads’ on the business websites. Proactive chat invitations to this targeted group on the business website increases the chances of making a sale and improve conversion rates. It also increases the changes of providing a better, more targeted experience. Proactive chat invitations that are extended to quality leads identified through various intelligent rules can help online retailers increase online sales, average order value and overall customer experience. Even shopping cart abandonment rates can be effectively brought down by targeting customers showing consistent behavior of abandoning shopping carts. Customer retention can be increased by extending complimentary products at crucial points while sales assistance can be provided during the crucial checkout process. Chat intelligence rules lead to better engagement and interaction with the prospective customers who show greater propensity to make a purchase when assistance is provided to them. By triggering targeted online chat interactions, businesses can increase the chances of completing those ‘incomplete’ sales that might be abandoned. Proactive chat invitations based on chat intelligence rules at various crucial stages of the customer engagement lifecycle can help reduce revenue loss and lead to better conversion rates. Better customer experience can be ensured since these online interactions are targeted and based on intelligence derived from various criteria set in rules. As you can see, chat services are quickly becoming a must-have for organizations doing business online. Online revenue is growing year over year, customers are demanding better service, and properly utilizing chat intelligence rules is another way you can make sure you are providing a great customer experience while improving your bottom line.

Live Chat Software Features You Shouldn’t Live Without – Part III

A solid live chat software with the right features can help a company instantaneously provide answers to customer queries resulting in enhanced overall customer service. In my last blog, I elaborated on some of the features of live chat software that make life easier. Now I will discuss the remaining nine features. 256-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Encryption: SSL encryption ensures high-level security during chat sessions and keeps the entire chat session between the company and customers totally secured from unauthorized persons, hackers, etc. With SSL encryption, vital information that customers furnish is kept secured while at the same time, if someone accesses the chat transcripts they are in an unreadable manner as transcripts are in a fully encrypted form. Multiple Chats: With this feature, a chat operator can interact with multiple customers at once. This feature is useful at times when there is heavy chat volume and fewer operators available. Visited Web Pages: This feature provides details of different web pages that were visited by customers. Knowing which web pages were visited by customers enables companies to optimize those web pages. Saving Chat Transcripts or Sessions: This feature allows storing or saving of chat sessions which can be viewed by the operators for reference, learning, or any other useful work. These stored chat sessions or transcripts can be easily reviewed to respond in case similar situations arise during the interaction. Canned Responses: This feature allows operators to quickly respond to customers’ routine questions on pricing, products, services and more through already prepared or canned responses. Since customers are less likely to stay for more than 15 seconds on a website, these canned responses can provide quick help, more answers, and also speed up chats when handling multiple customers. Transfer Chat Session: This feature is useful when a chat session needs to be transferred to an experienced chat operator in case the customer wants more in-depth details. This feature is also helpful in learning as the new operator can also watch the live chat session. The experienced chat operator can monitor the chat session and provide crucial inputs during the chat session. More than one chat operator can interact with a customer without the customer knowing that there is more than one chat operator. Chat History: All previous chat sessions with a particular customer or operator can be viewed using this feature. This becomes helpful when the same customer returns for a chat. It is valuable to understand customer behavior and helps in training new chat operators. If chat history is visible, then a customer can be efficiently served from the inferences drawn from previous chats. Co-Browsing: Through this feature, the movement of a visitor on a website can be followed. The operators can also take control of web pages that customers are viewing and can even change the web pages being shown on a customer’s monitor. This feature is also helpful while filling out forms, check out process and much more. Reporting Tools: Reporting of operations is essential as it helps to improve business efficiency. Reports are available on chat statistics, ratings per operator, detailed history of chat invitations, most visited web pages and much more. Reports can even be generated which provide details about the referring pages through which visitors landed on a website.

Live Chat Software Features You Shouldn’t Live Without

The way companies’ conduct business has changed significantly due to the internet. Maintaining a robust online presence has become an integral part of any business activity as large numbers of consumers are shifting to online at a quick pace. According to eMarketer, the number of U.S. consumers researching or shopping online is steadily growing and will surpass the 200 million mark by 2015. With the online community growing on a similar path, the need to have live chat software to provide efficient customer service is also growing. Selecting the right live chat software needs to be done carefully. The features of the software determine the level of customer service provided by a company and can leverage possible leads to drive sales. Before making a final decision on live chat software, make sure it has the right features. Below are some of the prominent features that should be present in live chat software. Multiple Users/Operators Live Monitoring and Tracking Easy Installation and Integrating Customizable Geo Location Details Proactive Chat File Transfer Departments 256-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Encryption Multiple Chats Visited Web Pages Saving Chat Transcripts or Sessions Canned Responses Transfer Chat Session Chat History Co-Browsing Reporting Tools We will discuss each of these features in our next several blogs.

What to Look for in a Live Chat Software Solution

There have been drastic changes in the business world due to technology advances. Technology has made it possible to increase collaboration internationally, promote flexible work hours, and shop online. In today’s environment there are numerous channels of communication that can be employed; more choices than ever before. Your business most likely already uses some sort of technology for teleconferencing and file sharing. Now it is time to find the right software to invest in for your live chat needs. Making the right choice of customer interaction methods and technologies is one of the most critical tasks for decision makers in businesses of all sizes. Live chat can be used internally for employees to communicate with one another, or externally to talk with customers. Investing in the right software really depends on the size of your company and the functionalities you are looking for in the software. With every business aiming to improve their online sales, it is essential to have a credible and reliable live chat software solution to cater to the online customer. There are many chat software options available in the market for your business needs. According to a survey conducted by Bold Software in 2010, 53% of online shoppers who interacted through live chat on business websites spent more than $500 online. And 56% of entire respondents showed inclination towards making a purchase if a web site offers live chat. Choosing a live chat software solution will help businesses avoid dwindling online sales and customer service experience. The right live chat software can increase the online customer base and improve conversion rates. Selecting the right live chat software solution vendor is an important process as this vendor will be involved in direct communication with customers. There are a handful of best practices that will help you make the most of your live chat implementation. The following are a few items that a business should consider when selecting a live chat software solution. Web-based Software vs. Desktop Software Chat software is everywhere. Its presence is seen in phones, in desktop computer screens and other web portals we use daily. Many of the legacy live chat software solutions have been desktop based and need to be installed on each computer separately. These softwares also come with a cap on number of times the software can be installed and require licenses for additional installations. These solutions are meant for handling low chat volume on low-traffic websites and require IT expertise to set-up, install, and maintain the software. Also, the operators are only allowed to use the machines on which the software has been installed to interact with customers. This provides for less integration while interacting with customers using mobile devices like smartphones. Web based live chat software solutions offer greater benefits than desktop software in terms of flexibility, scalability, reliability, and better integration with web browsers on mobile devices. It allows operators the flexibility to login from any web browser from any location. Web based solutions are free from firewall conflicts, upgrades, and can handle high chat volume on high traffic websites. Offline Customer Support Tracking of visitors in real time can improve sales. Chat software for websites provides the force to have client support and technical aid on a 24/7 foundation. Providing a 24/7 live chat service on a website increases the chances of making a sale and customer loyalty. Questions can be answered faster along with assistance in finding particulars for interested shoppers, supply incentives, and receiving feedback. Many web based chat solutions ensure easy integration with mobile web browsers and are compatible with any phone. This means that when an operator is not present online, a text message can be sent to the operators when they are needed. When an operator clicks this message they are directly connected to customers through a mobile web browser. Canned Responses Attracting customers to a website is one thing, getting them to buy your products and services are another. A guest will spend no more than 15 seconds to find what he or she is searching for before leaving the site. Live chat software installed on a website is an outstanding way to save time for visitors and quickly help them locate what they are looking for and turn them into customers. Canned responses can also be used by operators to step up even more responses to visitors’ questions. Canned responses can greatly increase the speed of chat and lead to higher customer satisfaction. It is important to select a live chat software solution that offers operators a quick reply to customer queries or complex questions. These solutions can store useful information from day to day operations and form a comprehensive knowledge base. This knowledge can be leveraged to prepare canned responses that can be used to speed up chats when operators are handling multiple customers. Web Analytics and Reporting Tools Apart from the basic features like canned responses, proactive chats, co-browsing, and more, live chat software solutions should also include robust reporting tools and free web analytics. The web analytics feature provides insight into visitors to the website, how many times they visited, which pages were visited most, and more. Web analytics can reveal crucial information regarding online behavior of the website visitors. A Customizable Solution Businesses have the challenge of keeping up with change. A conventional live chat software solution does not cover all the needs of change. In order to better adapt with changing situations, the solution must be customizable to keep up with business requirements. Some solutions provide a cut and paste method to easily integrate code into multiple pages of the website. The solutions should also allow for easy customization of chat buttons, chat skins, themes, customer facing interface and more. Easy customizable solutions ensure that businesses can maintain consistent brand identity across all marketing and customer centric channels. Pricing Customer service through chat is an excellent way to keep customers happy. Not only is it a relatively inexpensive way to provide the attention customers

Leveraging Online Chat for Effective Interactive Marketing

The internet has empowered businesses to extend their scope of ways to reach their customers and effectively market their products and services. Businesses can reach customers by using different mediums like email, social media, online advertisements, press releases, and more. Incorporating online chat in these mediums of online marketing can help improve interactivity with customers. Businesses can leverage online chat to escalate their communication and marketing efforts and convert visitors into customers. Step Up Your Marketing Initiatives Introducing your new online chat feature in email, social media, online advertisements, press releases and more takes your marketing initiatives to the next level and makes it interactive, personal, and increases its profitability and ROI. The customers can click on the “Chat” button and have a direct one-on-one interaction with an online chat representative. They can get instant solutions to their problems, gain product or service information, and get technical support without having to make a phone call, send email, or go to another website. This results in higher response rates to your marketing campaigns and greater conversion of leads into buyers. Make Marketing Interactive For effective marketing, a deep understanding of the customer’s needs and choices is required in delivering quality service of superior value. Using online chat in a wide variety of marketing channels like emails, press releases, advertisements, and social media establishes a two-way dialogue to ensure greater interaction. A personal one-on-one interaction through online chat helps bring the prospect more closely to finalizing the sale. Innovative software that support online chat allows customers to choose from text, audio, or video-based chat thereby making online chat a potent online marketing tool. Online chat helps move the lead generated web traffic to the business website to forge a two-way interactive dialogue between the prospective customers and chat agents. Online chat further boosts the marketing strategy of businesses as it is easy to integrate and can be customized to portray and strengthen businesses’ online branding. Contact info@etechgs.com to learn more about Etech’s online chat customer service.

Ecommerce Customer Service Make Customers Feel Valued

With many businesses taking the Ecommerce route, it is essential to provide Ecommerce customer service during and after a sale. Efficient Ecommerce customer service ensures satisfaction, customer loyalty towards the business, and increases the chances of a customer reverting or referring the services to others. Since direct conversation is less in the online environment, providing Ecommerce customer service during the sales process builds long-term relationships and credibility of the business. Absence or poor Ecommerce customer service can be detrimental to the growth of business. Efficient customer service is realized by providing the following: Accurate Purchasing Information Providing clear and precise information about purchasing a product makes the entire purchasing process easier for the customer. The customer feels more comfortable with the quality of Ecommerce customer service provided and ends up making a purchase. Providing accurate customer service on purchasing can be ensured through online chat customer service, email, or phone based support. Providing the correct information on shipping, return policy and other charges goes a long way in creating a positive customer impression. Email Communication Sending an email after the customer makes a purchase ensures that the customer builds a positive reputation about the business and feels that they have made the right purchase. Getting in touch with customers provides an opportunity to create a positive image of your business and increases the chances of making a sale. Emails notifying the customer that a product is out of stock should include recommendations about other similar products that the customer might be interested in purchasing. Sending emails containing flyers, promotional events, online sales, and discount coupons help in building customer loyalty. Provide Help Desk Facility An Ecommerce customer service fulfilling the post-sales queries of the customers helps in customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and retention. Assisting customers even after they have purchased a product makes them feel that the company cares about their customers. Providing Ecommerce customer service through online chat customer service, email, or phone based support builds a satisfied customer. Ecommerce customer service makes customers feel recognized and valued and makes them loyal to business. You might like this: Shopping Cart Abandonment: How Online Chat Can Help

Building Positive Customer Experiences through Online Chat

As more companies turn to online to carry out their business, the online chat channel has proved to be a cost-effective, fast, easy, and efficient way to provide quality chat customer service. With many advantages such as increased FCR, higher CSAT, reduced cost-per-contact and more, the online chat is being actively incorporated by businesses as a primary channel for carrying out sales and customer service interactions. Controlling customer experiences Today, customers spend more time online hovering on social networking sites or tweeting. Internet accessibility through mobile applications on smart phones and tablet PCs has further extended the scope of customers sharing their bad experiences over the Internet. Customers can easily use these places to share their bad experiences of customer service, information unavailability on a website and more. To reign in the probability of customers going viral with bad experiences, businesses can effectively leverage online chat to deliver positive experiences to customers. Proactive chat is the solution Contact centers use various predictive tools that analyze the online customer behavior to provide crucial insights. The predictive tools help to initiate a proactive customer service chat when certain parameters indicate that the consumer is likely to have a bad experience. A proactive chat at this instance provides instant redressal of customer grievances with no hold-times or long call queues. This results in customers creating a higher positive experience framework about the business. The data and information that is captured during customer interactions are crucial and reveal significant results. These analytical results and inferences from previous customer interactions can be effectively leveraged to add an element of surprise while interacting with customers. The customers can be provided with probable solutions derived from predictive tools just as they begin their interaction. Positive customer experience is further achieved through various features like push-URL, screen sharing, and co-browsing enabling early resolution of customer problems.

Shopping Cart Abandonment: How Online Chat Can Help

The Internet has changed the way business is done between companies and consumers. With large companies offering their services and products online, shopping cart abandonment is the biggest issue faced by many companies wanting to improve customer conversion and maximize revenue. According to Forrester Research, the number of website visitors abandoning the shopping cart at the payment stage stands at 88%. Online chat services enable businesses to efficiently target these customers and help them complete their online orders. It greatly increases online order conversions of borderline customers. Also, online chat services reveal crucial insights into customer behavior that can help reduce abandonment rates in the future. Get a Solid Grip on Your Potential Customers Incorporating online chat services on your website helps answer questions and ease the doubts of customers in real-time on various issues ranging from product pricing, shipping costs, exchanges, returns and more at their ease and convenience. Shopping cart abandonment can be reduced as customers facing difficulty at any stage of the purchasing process can easily click on the chat icon and get their questions answered quickly. Offering online chat services on specific pages of your website helps in prevention of shopping cart abandonment as it increases the customer experience. If customers are having trouble finding any specific product or information, experienced agents can provide them with specific information through a Push URL feature. Advanced features like co-browsing, web-alliance, or screen sharing can also be used through online chat to alleviate customer challenges. Online chat services also prove resourceful in conducting pre-sales and post-sales surveys and studies have revealed that customers show greater willingness to participate in such surveys while using online chat. A Human Touch Does the Job Customers who are purchasing online are primarily concerned with shipping costs, delivery time, promotional offers, and the return or exchange policy. When the customers look for this information during the crucial checkout stage, providing a live chat service operated by a trained agent ensures that the customer receives relevant and correct information quickly. A human touch provided over the secure, safe, and private channel of online chat solves the problem instantaneously. Online chat services streamline the entire purchasing process for the customers thereby improving the customer experience resulting in reduction of shopping cart abandonment. Shopping cart abandonment is a real problem for companies. Online customer services are a viable, cost-effective option for solving this growing issue.

Benefits of Investing in an Online Chat Sales Channel

The online behavior of the consumers is fast changing as companies continue to grow and provide services online. According to Forrester Research, the online retail sales in the U.S. will hit $250 billion by 2014. When consumers are increasingly shifting towards online shopping and business transactions, the need to have efficient customer service and support functions has emerged. This serves as the right opportunity with significant potential for companies to leverage their online presence to expand their customer base as well as provide quality customer care. Investing in establishing a robust online chat sales channel ensures greater ROI and improves customer satisfaction. Boosting Online Sales With customers taking the online route to making purchases, companies are aggressively adopting online marketing strategies to boost their online sales. To generate this revenue, companies are increasingly gearing towards the online chat sales channel as it offers direct interaction with potential customers and ensures a higher ROI and customer satisfaction. The online chat medium can effectively focus on qualified leads in the form of visitors on the website and convert these leads into sales. The entire sales process can be effectively shortened through chat by positively impacting the customer through quick resolution of queries. Shopping cart abandon rates can also be reduced by targeting such customers through proactive chat and offering assistance during the buying process. Also, a higher Average Order Value (AOV) can be witnessed due to efficient up-selling or cross-selling by agents through online chat. Ensure Higher Customer Satisfaction The online chat channel is an efficient mode of communication for providing information that is convenient, easy, and comfortable for the customer. Online chat is a dynamic medium used to promote sales and offer information in real time ranging from technical to product to service. The skilled chat representatives can provide customers with relevant responses and correct information while driving them along a sales path. This ability to solve customer queries in real-time improves the overall customer satisfaction and makes the online chat sales channel a sought after medium. Cost Reduction Reducing the overall operational costs is of great importance to companies today which is an integral part of the process to increase profitability of business. The online chat sales channel reduces the average interaction costs by speeding up the resolution process. Future calls to contact centers are also reduced significantly due to timely resolution of customer queries. Investing in an online chat program is a cost-effective option for both business owners and contact centers as less investment is required to establish infrastructure, technology and staffing of trained chat representatives. Create Robust Brand Image Online Having a solid online brand image is essential for generating web traffic and attracting qualified leads. The online chat sales channel can assist companies in creating this brand image by enhancing the customer experience. The online chat sales channel is rapidly replacing other modes of communication channels such as voice, email, and web as preferred mode of communication to provide customer service and sales growth. Investing in an online chat sales channel can help companies add value to their business.

Healthy Work-Life Balance The Etech Way

Creating a healthy work-life balance program is important for any contact center. At Etech, we’ve found that combining fun with work provides an environment which yields high productivity. Etech’s centers across the globe maintain a continuous flow of enthusiasm, and energy while remaining focused on the disciplines which drive quality customer interactions. Etech leaders use innovative activities to motivate team members and reduce stress during the work day. The company culture defines a healthy balance between the personal and professional priorities in each team members’ lives. It is the company’s philosophy that team members are most productive when all aspects of their lives are centered. By providing an environment which includes competitions, contests, celebrations, rewards and recognition programs, games, and other such activities, Etech provides much needed energy for a productive day. Competition – The Etech Way Healthy competition plays a key role in providing high energy focus to the work day. As agents are the key resource to the contact center, activities focused on motivating and reenergizing the agents is imperative to the process which drives performance. Competitive activities on the floor include dividing the campaign into two teams and competing for the most sales during a set time period. The team which ends up with fewer sales must perform some recreational activity like dancing or singing, to reward the winners. This simple activity boosts the morale of the team and prepares for good interactions with customers. Other activities include POP quizzes, games such as bingo, fun and financial contests and cash contests fire up the entire Etech campaign with enthusiasm and zeal. Continuous Improvement in Productivity – The Etech Way The benefits of implementing work-life program activities can directly be to better customer experience and exceptional service. The work-life balance programs help our agents to achieve their sales targets and tackle their workload more efficiently. When agents are in a healthy mindset, they provide quality service to customers and resolve issues. Even product knowledge improves through quizzes, games, POP quizzes, competitions, spot incentives etc. It motivates the team in a fun way as well as reinforces key learnings. The activities initiated at Etech to attain work-life balance provide a high energy and enthusiastic environment for team members to enjoy their work and meet their professional targets. These activities play a role in enabling team members to actively serve our customers. About Etech Etech is a leading provider of intelligent sales and service solutions utilizing inbound and outbound voice and web chat. We understand the importance of customer relationships. That’s why all of our solution strategies are driven by the ‘voice of the customer’. Our stringent QA process ensures an ever-improving customer experience. We also gather critical business intelligence data from each customer interaction. And we do everything with the highest integrity and quality possible. These differences allow us to provide industry-leading service, stellar CSAT scores, and high performing sales and service solutions that enable our clients to increase revenue and delight their customers.

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