Canned responses, also known as canned or predefined messages, are used by live chat agents to save time and increase productivity. Canned responses are a terrific way to increase engagement and customer loyalty, reduce shopping cart abandonment rate, and provide reliable customer support through predefined responses to the most common messages during live chat conversations.
Why Canned Responses Are Ideal for Live Chat
Canned responses work exceptionally well for live chat. Given that live chat is a direct connection to website visitors and customers, live chat agents can effortlessly manage multiple conversations at once. Canned responses can streamline the response time with conversation scripts such as common questions to ask, solutions to general queries, and addressing customer support issues.
Here are additional reasons why live chat functionality and workflow are optimized using canned responses:
- Generate leads by applying predefined messages at the end of chat conversations prompting customers to fill out form surveys to gain review referrals.
- Raise conversion rates by lowering the bounce rate in the checkout flow.
- Save time on both sides of the conversation, the visitor and live chat agent’s side.
- Allow agents to efficiently manage multiple live chat conversations simultaneously.
- Remove the risk of grammatical errors in chat responses.
- Personalize responses to customer’s questions and general messages.
Benefits of Applying Canned Responses in Live Chat
It’s fast and convenient for customers to get their questions answered via live chat, and it’s typically more efficient for businesses to field inquiries via live chat than via email or telephone.
Live chat is a popular solution for online businesses primarily based on 3 fundamental benefits:
1) Efficiency
2) Revenue generation
3) Best practices
1. Canned responses and efficiency
Live chat is the go-to communications channel for increased efficiency primarily because chat agents can manage four chats simultaneously – whereas in other mediums, customer service reps can typically only assist one customer at a time.
Pre-written messages are a key component of this efficiency. Building a well-planned library of canned response options can help categorize responses into groups that are relevant to specific conversations, creating an organized approach to agents picking from a list of canned responses options during a live chat conversation.
2. Canned responses and revenue generation
For eCommerce sites, live chat also represents an effective way to mitigate shopping cart abandonment, and thereby “recoup” revenue before it’s lost. Out of online shoppers, it’s estimated that 12% of those who abandon shopping carts do so because the checkout process is confusing. This is obviously an ideal point at which a live chat agent can intervene and assist the would-be customer in completing their purchase.
Moreover, studies show that people abandon their purchase because a discount code doesn’t work, lack of confidence in the site security and payment security with credit cards, or due to unexpected shipping costs. If even a fraction of these situations were handled properly by a live chat agent, eCommerce businesses would enjoy more than a 20% decrease in the amount of abandoned shopping carts.
Besides lowering cart abandonment, the customer experience can be enhanced and tailored with a canned response. For example, if a customer has already purchased one product or component of a software package, then they decide to engage in a live chat conversation with a support representative or chat agent. You can send a tailored canned response suggesting a similar or complementary product to what they currently are using. This is a great way to increase revenue generation through upselling by replying with a canned response to a customer’s purchase or product query.
3. Canned responses and live chat best practices
Canned responses should be used judiciously and should not be overused. Customers will sense when replies are awkward, robotic, and artificial. Canned responses should be used to sound human-like and natural. Avoid common tiresome, boring, or rude phrases when building your library of canned responses. As a helpful afterthought, you can brush up on your live chat etiquette here.
Depending on how you structure your canned responses, you could even leave openings for message personalization. At a minimum, you can include commands in your canned responses that will automatically insert the chat agent’s name (e.g., “Hello! My name is [Agent Name], how may I assist you?”) or the chatting visitor’s name (e.g., “Is there anything else I can help you with, [Visitor Name]?”).
Summing It Up
By applying canned responses through live chat software, you are providing reliable live chat support and customer support, resulting in higher customer satisfaction rates. The customer experience is personalized and each chat conversation is prioritized, especially during peak chat times, where predefined messages are used to optimize time and maximize efficiency. Agent optimization is created from canned responses, where agents can pick through a library of responses and select the best response for a given customer. Lead and revenue generation can be improved with the use of canned responses and removing the likelihood of cart abandonment.
