Companies need to provide top-notch services to ensure their clients remain content with them. However, it’s customer service that guarantees customers’ loyal behavior. Customer care ensures that client queries and issues are dealt with in a promising way. Hence, it should be robustly working and actively caring for all customers, whatsoever.
Considering this, companies adopt various customer care methods such as phone support, live chat, email support, etc. to cater to the needs of the clients. However, each method has its own significance and we’re here to look into two of these.
Phone support and live chat are different in the manner that one uses the phone and the other communicates via chat service through the internet. each carries some good and bad, which is what we’re here to see. So, without further ado, let’s begin:
Communication Efficacy
Your client must communicate seamlessly with you and you with them. Irrespective of the issue they’re facing, communication shouldn’t hinder the process of offering support services.
Several companies focus on this element, ensuring seamless communication. Windstream is one worthy name that ensures this facility. Customers can contact the company using the Windstream phone numberand connect with a representative that would cater to all of their queries and issues right away.
Coming back to the point, phone support provides seamless communication as one freely expresses what issue they’re facing or what they want to ask. On the other hand, live chat is like emailing; one would need to know the context before telling the chat representative.
That is why many companies prefer keeping phone support under focus rather than live chat because it keeps communication easy. However, a stat shows that almost 41[KH1] % of users prefer live chat for instant responses.
So, if quick responses are considered, we can say live chat wins the race since it’s quick and offers somewhat an equal level of communication, excluded the human voice touch. Companies can input general questions as queries that customers can use to start the communication.
Wait Time
Now, this is an important element to consider especially when one is facing an issue and needs support. The average wait time for a live chat to initiate is 46 seconds[KH2] . However, this may vary depending upon the type of support you’re contacting, the issue/ query you’re reaching out for, and the traffic existing on the site.
Often both phone and live chat support does face wait time issues. However, phone support is more likely to be available than a live chat because until a response is received, no entity will be leaving the chat. Phone support is one-to-one interaction, which is constant communication.
Considering this, we can say that customers would have to wait for the chat representative to be available for the chat longer than the phone support. However, once available, it’s faster than phone support evidently and provides specified results too.
Multitasking Ability
Representatives can chat with multiple customers using live chats. However, phone support is only limited to one customer at a time. But, the personalized experience from having a dedicated resource is what appeals to the clients and gives them a better interaction experience than a live chat.
In addition, there’s a high risk in managing everything simultaneously with a live chat. However, with multiple clients being dealt with, the support team can minimize wait time which gives it an edge on phone support.
On the other hand, phone support deals with a single client at a time, which makes things more seamless. However, even with the average support time limit prescribed for dealing with a single client, the wait time can increase, causing stagnancy and ultimately a deadlock in the process.
Quality of the Solution Offered
As highlighted earlier, phone support brings the human touch and one-to-one real-time interaction. Customers can call support, narrate the issue and get a solution for it. The representative will provide a solution or escalate a ticket, needing further assistance. Whatever’s done is conveyed instantly and the customer doesn’t have to wait long.
On the other hand, live chat entertains clients similarly. The only wait comes between responses. If either of the two entities fails to respond (disconnection, didn’t recognize a response was received), the chat would continue or end after some time.
The point here is although live chat is instant; it still lacks the human touch and the ability to convince the customer to go for any product or service. Considering this, live chat won’t be able to get as many sales as phone support services do because of the same reason.
Furthermore, phone support won’t be able to store information whereas chats can be referenced later.
Which One Should You Go For?
We’ve seen some elements that provide insight into the performance of both customer care methods. Here’s what we’re able to deduce from it:
- Phone support is great for one-to-one interaction, promotion, and talking to customers as humans do, in an understanding manner.
- Live chat is good for quick responses, entertaining multiple customers, and recording information while minimizing wait time as much as possible.
Closing Notes
Based on the analysis done above, we can say that live chat does take precedence over phone support in several ways. However, the human element makes it easier for phone support to entertain customers better, promote services, and entertain better. It all depends upon the type of support you’re offering because that will make it easier for you to embed the right kind of customer support for better results.
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[KH1]https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/live-chat-support/live-chat-statistics-blog/#:~:text=41%25%20of%20customers%20prefer%20live,prefer%20social%20media%20for%20support.&text=79%25%20of%20users%20prefer%20live%20chat%20support%20for%20its%20instant%20responses.&text=Live%20chat%20has%20the%20highest,support%20and%2044%25%20for%20phone.