[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In our fast-paced society, customers and prospects expect instant response. If they don’t get it, just ONE click of the mouse button will take them to your competitor. To stay ahead of your competitor and satisfy the expectations of your customers and prospects, you need to respond quickly.
Speed equals Sales
How often have you gone to a website and requested a quote, or callback and it either takes 3 days or it never happens? This is extremely frustrating and, as a prospect, you just don’t have the patience for that. Even worse, what does this experience say about the service level you can expect from the company, if you actually end up doing business together?
If we could just increase the response time to enquiries, we would go a long way in increasing customer service.
Often the questions to which customers want answers are not that complex and should be easy to deal with. Questions like ‘what are your delivery charges?’, ‘do you have stock?’ and simple price requests can easily be answered by a smart sales assistant or a capable receptionist.
There’s a saying in sales that if you can respond to an enquiry within 5 minutes you are 9 times more likely to get that deal.
The cost of increasing your speed
Unfortunately, increasing customer service usually entails increasing salaries and staff, which can be prohibitive for most companies. For many, the solution is, therefore, to look towards technology and outsourcing. If you can find a better way of doing something internally it would obviously be an easy decision to make. But if you could outsource it without losing quality, that would be an even better solution.
Outsourcing core functions is not always a good idea. But outsourcing functions that can take a load off your existing staff and allow them to focus on their core jobs certainly is.
Could outsourcing increase your speed and lower your cost?
All modern businesses have a website. No matter how good or bad you think your website is, it can still be used as a customer service and sales tool. By simply adding a live chat function to your website, you can turn your website into a very important l business tool.
If your business is large enough to have a receptionist, there is an opportunity to train that person to manage the live chat. However, if the receptionist is busy with other duties it may not be viable to have them do live chat too. If you have a bad live chat operator who is hardly online or very slow to answer, it could actually do brand damage.
We would strongly encourage you to try out a live chat function in your business right now, so that you can improve your responsiveness to online enquiries. There are several companies that offer this functionality, and some of them will even do it for you on a trial basis.
If you would like to know more about live chat for your business and are not sure how to get started, or who to speak to, please contact us and we will gladly assist you further.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
