Live chat and chatbots are two useful contact methods that have taken over the world of digital customer support. As a result, both of these technologies are becoming increasingly popular. Yet, this raises an intriguing debate: should businesses use human-powered live chat or an artificial chatbot? What is the most effective channel? Should brands aim to mix the two or keep them separate? Here is a comprehensive chatbot vs live chat guide to assist you in making this critical decision.
What is the significance of live chat?
Users can contact sales and support staff via live chat to receive real-time assistance. It is the most favoured proactive channel since it provides real-time assistance. 70% of customers prefer live chat, and nearly two-thirds of customers using a chat platform are likelier to return to a website and make another transaction. It is an essential component of a successful customer service toolbox that provides the best level of client satisfaction compared to email and phone. There are numerous advantages to using live chat, and you can use them to enhance critical support metrics such as first response time and average resolution time.
The following are the primary reasons why live chat is becoming more popular:
- Live chat handles difficult topics better – Certain questions necessitate elaboration and debate. Conversing with a live agent can handle complex difficulties smoothly and effectively.
- Multitasking is possible with live chat – Live chat improves team efficiency by allowing agents to handle many conversations simultaneously. You can identify the chats and route them to the appropriate team for faster assistance.
What is the significance of chatbots?
Before we go into the importance of bots, can you explain what a chatbot is and how it works? Chatbots primarily aim to enhance the customer experience by automating sales and customer care. Regarding chatbot benefits and drawbacks, bots are always available to engage customers by answering simple questions and pre-qualifying leads by asking appropriate questions. Bots can interact with customers on websites and messaging apps like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. By researching the most frequent chatbot use cases, you may create a bot that meets your business objectives.
The primary aspects of AI-enabled bots are stated below to help improve customer experience:
- Bots are always active – With bots, you can engage your clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by swiftly addressing their Queries.
- Chatbots are easily scalable – When there is a sudden surge in volume, or a support team is unavailable, bots are easily scalable with no upper limit.
- Chatbots are less likely to make mistakes – Chatbots are supposed to improve the customer experience by replying quickly and accurately.
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How Do You Choose Between Live Chat and Chatbot?
Businesses commonly utilise both live chat and chatbots to assist and engage customers. Both tools can also be used in tandem. Let’s examine when it is appropriate to choose between chatbots and live chats and whether one is better for your organisation.
1. Time to Respond
Customers have very high expectations for real-time assistance. One of the most crucial aspects of customer excellence is response speed. For example, 59% of customers are more likely to purchase when brands respond to their questions in less than a minute. Customer satisfaction is critical to the success of your organisation. Customers quit your website for various reasons, including a slow response time.
2. Availability
Finding a way to deliver 24/7 customer support is not just excellent for the company; it is also becoming mandatory. You cannot afford to keep your consumers waiting. If they don’t believe you care about them, 68% will go to a competitor. Although, chatbots are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unlike live chat, employees must be online to talk with a customer. You never know when one of your consumers will try to contact you.
3. Scalability
Having scalable support when managing your discussions is a blessing because you never know when the traffic will increase. Companies that only use live chat help may face the following issues:
- Increasing the number of support agents on staff.
- Training new hires incurs more expense and time.
- Costs of infrastructure and salaries
You can address the issues mentioned above by implementing a chatbot. With bots, you can scale your dialogues and provide clients with speedy solutions. It boosts your company’s productivity without adding any additional costs or resources.
4. Accuracy
Although many firms deploy chatbots, live chat is the clear winner regarding accuracy. Understanding the context is the most critical component of providing accurate solutions. Chatbots, without a doubt, respond promptly to simple requests with predefined or predicted patterns. Nonetheless, they may be unable to think through and react to difficult questions where customers require dependable responses.
5. The Human Touch
The focus of any customer-centric organisation is to engage customers in real-time and provide excellent customer service. Bain & company claims the organisations that successfully engage with their customers were able to boost the customer spend by 20% to 40%. Live chat provides the ideal blend of real-time assistance and personal touch. Being conversational enables natural communication for immediate and personal communication.
6. Customer Contentment
Both live chat and chatbot technologies are oriented toward creating a distinctive customer experience in modern commercial communication. You can meet consumer expectations and boost your brand reputation using the proper technology between chatbot and live chat.
To provide a wonderful customer support experience, the best strategy is to combine the chatbot and live chat. Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of chatbots and live chat can help you decide which is best for your company.
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