Is online chat the answer for customer service?
Apparently some companies are offering live chat as an option for online customer support while using offshore staff to eliminate the problems with accent. I heard from a company that wants to offer this option and asked for my thoughts on this.
Regarding online chat as a substitute for phone based support, yes, for many situations it is perfect, particularly when the customers are somewhat technically savvy – IT professionals, business people, young people, etc. I know a lot of newbies on the Net order online too but they still prefer a phone conversation as opposed to chat. (Related: Best practices for call centers)
Email support – the cheapest alternative
Another highly overlooked area is email support. Businesses have done a terrible job by not responding to emails for days or not responding at all (there are dozens of studies that have found that even large companies have failed in exploting email support). They are the cheapest mode of resolving most customer issues provided a company promises (and delivers) a more realistic timeframe for response ( e.g. half hour) and stops sending canned responses (I know I have received responses in which I could clearly see that the person at the other end never read my email completely nor did the research before responding – a common problem when the metric for evaluation is number of emails answered not number of issues resolved to the satisfaction of the customer). I am sure if customers were told by a company that they will receive a written (or telephone response, in case more information is needed by the customer service staff) to their email within 30 minutes (or whatever timeframe makes the most sense to your situation), many customers would choose that over waiting for their phone call or live chat to be answered.
And by the way, in principle, I am opposed to outsourcing of your customer support function.
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