Live Chat vs Phone Support: Which is better for your business?
If you’re running a business, you know that customer service is one of the key ingredients to success. However, with so many phone lines and websites to address inquiries. Businesses often struggle with where best to direct customers for support.
In this post, we’ll explore which channels are best for answering certain types of questions. And how live chat can be an even better option than phone support in some cases!
No matter what industry you’re in, customer support is a crucial part of your business. Whether customers are calling or chatting online, they want fast and accurate answers to their questions. You can provide this kind of customer service with both but which is better for your business?
To answer that question, we’ve put together this post on the benefits of both. So you can decide which strategy suits your company best.
Live Chat Support
Live chat is the process of calling customers with businesses instantly through a website or mobile application.
It is a great way to handle technical inquiries and make customers feel valued by offering them real-time help via instant messaging. You can also manage customer requests, answer product questions, and solve problems — all in real-time. Small business phone services are a great way to handle technical inquiries and make customers feel valued by offering them real-time help via instant messaging. You can also manage customer requests, answer product questions, and solve problems all in real-time.
Benefits Of Live Chat
- 24/7 customer support
- Improves efficiency
- Handles multiple customers at a time
- Time-saving
- Cost saving
- Instant response
- No repeated calls are gained from the customers
- Time-saving process for the customers avoiding the contact details of the business
- Time-saving for business that avoids handling waste calls.
- Easy monitoring
- Easy to integrate into the business website
- Provides security to the customer
What is Phone Support?
There’s nothing like a human voice on the other end of the line to turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal one. By providing Unified communication providers support as part of your business strategy. You not only provide customers with additional support, but you also give them another way to contact you.
Conversations between the customer service representative (or staff member) and the customer remain confidential.
However, if you receive a call that requires legal action, staff won’t know this until it’s too late.
Still not sure which support strategy is right for your business?
Benefits Of Phone Support
- Helps in resolving complex issues
- Call recordings
- Call monitoring
- Personal connections are maintained easily
- Immediate response to the customers
- Gives information in detail
- Easily accessible
- Boosts productivity
- Positive customer experiences
- Easy to use
The two top methods of customer support, live chat vs phone support both have their benefits.
Live Chat Vs Phone Support
Live chat is a form of real-time conversation between a website visitor and a website representative. Usually, it takes place in the form of an online chat box on a specific web page, for example, the “Contact us” page or the “Billing” page of your website or mobile application. The Chatbots can communicate with customers using text but sometimes include audio as well. It is generally available twenty-four hours a day to allow customers to contact you at any time and receive instant responses in real-time.
Phone support is a more traditional form of customer service that involves an agent providing personalized assistance over the phone. The agent can generally find customers using email or online contact forms, such as to register for your service or request an account upgrade. Customers can interact with the agent during scheduled times via telephone but most often via voicemail. Although it may be regarded as a more traditional option, live chat allows users to communicate in real time while using text and audio mediums to express their questions and concerns.
Every customer experience is unique and both have their advantages. But at the end of the day, it all depends on your business goals and objectives to decide which will benefit you more.
There are both pros and cons for every technology, similarly, both live chat and phone support when integrated with the business communication API help increase the productivity of any business as the chance of resolving customer issues increases by double. So, we suggest integrating both the communication tools that need to be implemented for your business for good results.
For Small Businesses
Small businesses need to be flexible in choosing whether they want live chat or phone support because they often don’t have the resources to hire a full-time customer service representative so, in a way, they are all volunteers. They have to rely on people they trust to answer questions and provide services.
For example, you may hire someone to answer the phone, but you must also be able to communicate with them via email or text message if that’s what they prefer. In this case, customers will be able to contact your business through the medium that is most convenient for them and that best suits your business model.
If your business is large enough or has enough resources available for a full-time customer service representative, then live chat is probably the best option because it allows customers to get in touch with you through real-time messaging capabilities and real-time reflective audio and video chatting from cloud video conferencing solutions.
On the other hand, phone support is an affordable option for small businesses but it might not always be feasible for large companies with multiple locations or even franchises because many of them have more than one phone number and they usually prefer to keep all their information confidential.
For Large Businesses
If you are a large company that’s taken advantage of the social media marketing trend to provide quality customer service. Business phone service is probably the best option because it allows you to keep your highly sensitive information secure. Customers can submit their questions via email and contact forms on your website. But they’ll also receive customer service when they call the number provided on your website or mobile application. Furthermore, the live chat option is only available during business hours in some cases.
However, you might feel discouraged by the fact that many of your customers will rarely contact you by phone. However, you need to keep in mind that it’s not always true and sometimes the best customer service is provided when customers contact you directly. Most people have a negative perception of phone support because they assume it’s impersonal and automated. But in fact, many companies provide quality customer service through the phone even though they might only answer a few calls each day.
The AI Business Phone Service option is a great way for smaller businesses to provide better customer service. And it’s especially useful when you have multiple online platforms from which to respond to customers. Sometimes the phone is the most efficient means of customer service. However, many customers prefer chatbots because they feel it’s more personal and that it allows them to ask questions in a way that’s not possible over the phone. It is also often more effective when carrying out service-related tasks, such as order processing or billing.
Conclusion
Chatbots are the best way to improve customer service online. It allows you to provide great service through your website and mobile applications. Even when you’re not available in real-time. Chatbots also give customers instant access to a live person if they need help or information.
24/7 live call centers are the best option for large companies that have secure information. That they don’t want to share with others. Live chat is good for less sensitive information and situations in which customers have any questions. Or concerns that they need to be answered immediately.
Published: January 20th, 2022
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