As technology evolves, AI live chat, and AI chatbots have become increasingly popular customer service tools. Despite the advantages of AI chatbots, live human chat support services remain superior in customer satisfaction. This article will delve into six benefits of using live chat support services instead of AI chatbots for your business.
The Difference Between Live Chat Support Services & AI Chatbots
Live chat support services and AI chatbots offer different ways for businesses to provide customer service but have core differences.
Live chat support services are usually handled by actual human beings who can provide customized responses to customer inquiries, address concerns, and answer questions.
In contrast, AI chatbots are driven by software powered by artificial intelligence that can be pre-programmed to reply to customer inquiries in a fixed way. Generally they offer help documents in response to questions or provide separate contact information for a customer to talk to a customer service rep.
#1 Personalization & Human Touch
In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses must provide exceptional customer service. Two of the most critical aspects of delivering excellent customer service are personalization and empathy. Personalizing your service helps build customer relationships and shows that you are understanding and attentive to their needs.
Live chat support services are an excellent means of achieving this objective. The live chat support agents can:
- Be a friendly (virtual) face to the company
- Rapidly comprehend customer needs and how to respond to them
- Listen intently to their concerns
- Provide appropriate responses and resources, solving customer problems when possible
- Show empathy and genuine customer care
- Foster a strong relationship between the business and the customer
- Provide a human tough
Humans naturally want to connect to humans. Live chat agents can build customer trust and loyalty by having meaningful conversations and using language that shows empathy. This human touch is invaluable when it comes to providing quality customer service.
#2 Ability to Handle Multiple Inquiries at Once
Businesses must provide timely responses to customer inquiries. Live chat support services offer companies the ability to handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, unlike AI chatbots, which are limited to taking one inquiry per customer at a time.
With live chat support services, businesses can provide personalized and tailored responses to multiple inquiries from customers at the same time–which helps::
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Save the company time in responding to customers
- Provide immediate assistance when they have multiple questions or concerns
- Address customer inquiries more efficiently
AI chatbots may need help to process and respond to multiple questions at once while human agents can handle multiple queries at once. This makes it difficult for businesses to handle multiple inquiries simultaneously and can leave the customers feeling frustrated. Live chat support services allow companies to allocate resources more efficiently and respond to multiple customer inquiries promptly and accurately.
#3 Increased Sales
Live chat support services are an invaluable tool for boosting sales. By facilitating live conversations, customers can ask questions and better understand the products or services a business provides. Answering the customers’ questions about a product or service helps to alleviate any doubts or hesitations that a customer may have about making a purchase.
Research has shown that 38% of customers have said they purchased due to an excellent live chat session.1 Live chats not only offer customers the opportunity to find out more about your products but also provide you with an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell, leading to higher conversion rates and, ultimately, more sales.
A chatbot or AI chat cannot discern when a question or a conversation is leading to an opportunity to sell your product or service. However, trained live agents can do this with ease and can turn your website into a revenue generating, business closing tool.
It is important to meet your customers where they are–and so many of your customers are on your website and curious about making a purchase.
#4 Improved Customer Satisfaction & Brand Image
The importance of customer satisfaction and brand image cannot be overstated. Businesses must provide quality customer service, as it impacts the overall customer experience. Customers with a positive experience with a company are more likely to return, recommend it to their friends and family, and stay loyal for the long haul. How a business interacts with its customers is essential to its reputation, so investing in effective customer support solutions is vital.
Customers don’t want to feel like they’re talking to a robot. They want to know someone is listening to them and willing to help solve their problem. Employing live chat support services can enhance customer satisfaction and foster a positive brand image. Human interaction allows for a personalized and tailored experience that customers appreciate.
Live chat support agents are trained to answer questions quickly, clearly, and accurately. Businesses can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing knowledgeable and helpful service, leading to a better brand image.
#5 Emotional Intelligence
When it comes to customer service, emotional intelligence is something that AI chatbots cannot provide. With an AI chatbot, customers may find an answer to their query (if the query is simple and not specific to their account), but they will not be able to receive any emotional support from the bot.
Live chat support staff can provide a personal connection with customers and offer emotional intelligence by understanding customer concerns and needs. Providing empathy for customers’ problems and needs is especially beneficial for businesses as emotional intelligence has been linked to improved customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Offering emotional intelligence can help build relationships between your business and customers, further increasing brand loyalty.
By providing customers with human interaction and understanding, live chat support staff can recognize and respond appropriately to customers’ emotions and needs. Identifying customers’ feelings and needs allows them to tailor their customer service approach to each customer and offer better customer service tailored to that person’s experience.
Ultimately, this results in higher customer satisfaction and a greater likelihood of repeat business.
#6 Real-Time Interaction
Live chat support services provide customers with an opportunity for instant communication, allowing them to receive an immediate response to their inquiries. In comparison, AI chatbots are limited in what they can answer and do not provide real-time interactions. The AI can only provide pre-prepared answers to standard questions or give you contact information for a customer service rep that will need to be contacted on a different channel.
When you employ a live chat support service, customers can interact directly with a customer service representative in real-time. Real-time interaction gives customers access to a knowledgeable individual who can create tailored responses and help them solve their unique problems quickly. One the other hand, AI is not able to provide custom responses or solutions since most answers are auto generated which can leave the customers feeling frustrated. By addressing customer inquiries rapidly and in real-time, customers are more likely to stay loyal to your business.
In addition, having a live person available to answer customer questions helps to build trust and loyalty with your customers. A live customer service representative can answer any questions that a customer may have–even if it isn’t a “standard” question.
Live chat can also save your customer support team time. If a customer gets stuck with an AI chat bot that cannot handle their out-of-the-box question the customer is left to either give up, or to call to find an answer. Then if no one answers the phone they’ll leave a voicemail which your team will have to review and respond to, maybe even turning into phone tag with the customer. What could have been solved in 5 minutes in chat then ends up take a day or two, plus hours of your team’s time to resolve.
The human touch provided by live customer answering services can help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty while saving your team time, increasing sales, and building brand image–a much better experience than AI can provide.
Abby Connect: The Answer to Human Connection
The world is moving faster than ever, and artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over many aspects of our lives. While AI chatbots are a great way to help manage very basic customer inquiries, your customers don’t get human connection.
At Abby Connect, we understand the importance of human connection for customer service. With Abby, you get a small, dedicated team of receptionists (available for both phone and chat services) who get to know your business and your customers. You can count on us to provide top-notch customer service and the empathy and understanding your customers deserve–all while saving you time and money. We hire and train our receptionists to provide the best experience for your website visitors.
When you partner with Abby Connect, you’re putting the human connection back into customer service. You get the expertise and efficiency of technology but with the added touch of real people who care about your customers and your business. By conserving time and money, we make it possible for you to give your customers the attention and support they deserve.
Sources:
- Saleh, K. (2017, October 11). The Importance of Live Chat Customer Support – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]. https://www.invespcro.com/blog/live-chat-customer-support/
