business operations

Can live chat outsourcing deliver excellent customer service and boost sales? Here are the facts

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by   Mui Yoon

Customers in any industry, from ecommerce to SaaS, love solutions delivered with a human touch in real-time. These are the hallmarks of a great live chat experience.

When customers seek answers, advice, or resolutions, live chat delivers customer service where it’s needed most at the first contact.

Many businesses have turned to live chat customer support to meet their growing customer needs. More specifically, companies are increasingly choosing to outsource live chat to increase business efficiency.

Live chat outsourcing offers an effective customer support solution that is flexible, scalable, and saves time and cost. Hiring a live chat agency provides specialized, high-quality support for customers so that your team can focus on product development and future growth.

So how can this work in creating customer experiences that help build business value?

Instant support and solutions

Consumers demand real-time answers. Millennials and Gen-Z significantly grew up with live chat and messaging services.

But if you have a small team, cannot build a support team, or devote time to recruitment and training, it can be overwhelming to manage every ticket that comes in.

Live chat outsourcing provides a solution that works efficiently for to deliver high-quality customer support that generates revenue and customer loyalty.

For example, fast-growth disruptive ecommerce brands like Manly Bands combine emails and live chat to deliver thoughtful and speedy customer service. With the help of Influx, Manly Bands were able to deliver 24/7 support and sales, and ​​​​​ 5-minute response times for their eCommerce, which their customers love, leading to many referrals that fuel its growth.

Online video-making platform Biteable provides a four-minute response time 24/7 to answer over 9,000+ conversations every month from its four million subscribers.

Converts visitors and increases sales

Speed equals leads.

Live chat is a powerful channel for converting website visitors into high-value customers, as they are already searching for specific services, products, and solutions. With outsourced live chat, Influx partners with clients to provide highly trained agents who guide customers through the buying process and answer questions to complete the purchase. 

Sales and marketing acceleration platform Drift discovers that live chat messages get 15x more engagement than email. Helpdesk Intercom discovers that 82% of website visitors are more likely to convert to customers if they have chatted with you first.

As a case in point for Influx, we have developed 27% of our leads from live chat.

Moves businesses forward effectively

44% of online customers say that having a live person answering their questions when considering a purchase or sign-up is among a website’s most crucial features.

But not every business can set up a dedicated customer support team. E-commerce sites, for example, might need extra customer support during seasonal spikes when there’s an influx of tickets but not during other periods in their sales cycle.

Live chat outsourcing with flexible plans allows businesses to scale accordingly to seasonal spikes as and when more agents are needed.

Therefore, outsourcing this function provides a layer of support for customers and channels your leads effectively, where agents qualify prospects quickly to shorten the sales cycle.

Raises your customer service team productivity

Live chat agents provide answers in your authentic brand voice across multiple channels effectively and efficiently.

For example, Influx agents resolved 3000+ support tickets within one month for Motor Trend On Demand with an 81% average response time reduction in the first three months.

As well as boosting overall productivity, outsourced customer support can additionally reduce overhead cost, human resources management, training, and recruitment.

Automation tools help to resolve and triage issues, while outsourcing live chat agents creates a human-to-human connection for customers.

Resolves problems instantly 24/7

The future of business is 24/7 with globalization and the rise of instant gratification demanded by millennials.

Live chat channels offer a source of instant rapport for customers, and businesses with live channels are solving 32% more tickets. One of Australia’s best-loved mattress retailers Koala, engaged Influx customer support agents to provide customer support late into the night, as its deliveries are made in the evenings when customers are home.

 

In conclusion, live chat is one of the best tools that many B2B and B2C companies use.

Outsourcing this function to specialized customer support companies provides that extra layer of support and service for customers and helps convert leads. By engineering an exceptional live chat experience, you can wow your customers exactly where they need it most.

Read our case studies on how live chat outsourcing can clear ticket backlogs and achieve inbox zero or have a chat with us.


About the author

Photo of Mui Yoon

Mui Yoon

Mui Yoon writes for Influx. A lifelong learner and passionate writer, she believes that the best stories come from curiosity and conversations with people.