Live chat updates: Offline chat, chat routing, Shorthand and more
Live chat, in my opinion, is one of the toughest channels a support agent has to handle. In fact, it’s a little bit like a double edged sword. On one hand, it can help agents go the extra mile and make the user’s service experience exceptional. Like Captain Mike and his trusty Lieutenant prove in our favorite story in the Customer Service Hall of Fame. But it can also turn on you if you’re not knowledgeable, intelligent or charming. If the questions the customers ask require you to do some thinking or leave your desk… the experience falls flat. There’s also the tiny problem of having to man the desk 24×7 to make sure that every deserving customer gets an answer.
But when 57% of most customers prefer live chat over other channels… you have to hope for the best and provide the best support you can. And Freshdesk is committed to helping you achieve that vision.
Over the last few months, we’ve been adding little featurettes to our live chat functionality to help you better support your customers, from better routing to support for mobile devices. In case you missed any of this, here’s a quick roundup.
a) Chat Routing
Tired of reassigning chats every time a customer wants to talk to you? No problem. You can now make this process more efficient by routing chats based on inputs from your visitors on the pre-chat form. For example, you could set things up so that the chat is sent to the Billing team if the customer chooses a “Billing related” option in the pre-chat form. If you have multiple widgets set up, you can also route chats based on the specific widget used by the customer to raise the issue.
b) Offline Chat
Chat is a great way for your customers to get instant answers. But what if you’re not at work? What if you have stepped away from your desk at that fortuitous moment when a customer pings you? Swoop in and save the day with our handy offline chat form. Within two minutes of inactivity, a form will pop up asking the customer to leave a message (that will get converted to a ticket). The best part is, if you come back while the customer is filling out the form, you can initiate the chat then and there.
c) Shorthands aka canned responses
We’re all major fans of text expanders here at Freshdesk – and we love the way you can type in four characters and see them instantly expand into an elaborate thank you message. We decided to spread some goodwill by giving Freshdesk the same treatment, and thus, came up with something called shorthands. Your team can access these canned responses (or shorthands) by typing ‘/’ inside the reply box and picking one they’d like to use from the list. The expanded text will get typed into your reply box automagically. All you have to do is hit ‘Send’. If you are an Admin, you can create new shorthands in the Canned Responses section under the Admin Tab. Here’s how you can setup Shorthand.
d) Customizable sound notification for agents
You asked. And we delivered. Freshdesk now lets you choose the trill to alert you when there’s a new chat in the system. Each agent gets to choose the ringtone they like best.
e) Chat widget on mobile
Let your users initiate chat conversations with you, even when their laptops are not at hand. Regardless of whether your website is mobile optimized or not, your customers will be able to see your chat widget now if they scroll to the bottom of the website. If you’ve mobile optimized your website, then your customers will be able to see your chat widget as a chathead to the bottom of the screen.
Live chat can seem like quite a daunting channel if you’re not too prepared for it. But with the right tools and an amazing team to have your back, it could very well end up being your customers’ favourite way to talk to you.
Note: We’ve replaced our in-built live chat feature with Freshchat integration—a modern way of messaging your customers and providing support.
