Live Chat Vs Phone Support: Choose the Right Solution for Your Business

Posted by George Herry on July 12th, 2019

Gone are those days when customer service used to be managed by one-size-fits-all tools. Today, businesses should be reachable through different communication channels – phone, email, social media, chat – each of them is important to the company and to the customer. There is no denying that when you are looking for highly personalized, on-demand customer service, the phone, and live chat support are the most dedicated options for you. In this digital age, both live chat and phone support have become an integral part of a business. Although both these communication channels serve the same purpose, they have a few key differences as well.

To help your team understand the distinction between live chat and phone and know how to leverage these two channels to ensure the best customer service experience, read on the article below:

Proactive vs. Reactive Support

Phone support is typically reactive where customers initiate the conversation. On the contrary, live chat can be deployed as a proactive channel where the conversation starts when a customer browsing the site. During that time, live chat agents can nudge customers to purchase by answering their questions and appealing them to click “Buy” something which is not possible for the agents over the phone.

High-Volume, Minimum Waiting

In the live chat support, agents can simultaneously continue the conversation to multiple customers, which offers great support to service departments handling a high-volume of easy and moderate customer queries. So, live chat has undoubtedly reduced the waiting times while easing call pressure on agents. However, the chat is not always the best option, especially when the issue is difficult or related to VIP or long-standing customers. Here, it is better to deal with such situations with attention and human connection offered by phone. Hence, providing support through both live chat and phone can be an ideal solution.

Keeping Records

Both live chat support and phone support allow agents to record and review customer conversations. But chat has an additional facility to search text in the middle of a conversation when customers need critical help. Nowadays, live chat support comes with typical analytics with insights such as referral links, idle or active status of the customers, time spent on the site, location, number of chats and so on.

An Omnichannel Experience

With the ever-changing habits and expectations of customers, businesses need to focus on both live chat and call center supports. At the present time, customer support should be designed for omnichannel experience by customers which ensures their extra convenience: phone support when they are on mobile and live chat when they are on the computer. 

The Bottom Line

You cannot sum up this discussion just recognizing one solution “better” than another. In this digital era, it is important to ensure a blended, omnichannel solution to customers, for which contact centers need to design a strategy combining different channels into one single experience. Of course, live chat support offers an instant and easy way for customers to reach out to the business. But it doesn’t mean that live chat should be the best method to communicate in all scenarios. Some customers may prefer personalized connections through phone calls. Hence, businesses need to recognize the strengths and drawbacks of each solution to ensure the best customer experience.