Every business aims to improve its products, market them well, get brand visibility, and make profits. But good brands also focus on customer service. After using products, many people send their feedback or queries to the company and expect a response from them as soon as possible. While email and calls have been the dominant mode for such customer interactions for years, there’s nothing better than a live chat option today.

How does live chat work in customer service?
Live chat is possible with the help of a tool that allows customers to contact a business’s customer service executives. They can chat with them in real-time to get queries answered. Many brands have this chat option on their website so people can easily find it. It improves customer service and is a preferred channel for handling service issues.

Benefits of a customer service chat platform
There are many advantages of using live chat in customer service. Some of them are listed below:

Live chat is affordable
Live chat is cheaper than phone support by as much as 17 to 30 percent. One reason is that the entire customer service team can access the same software to address all incoming queries. A single member can respond to the questions at a time or multiple people, depending on the number of daily queries your brand receives. A live chat option usually costs as much as a decent email provider.

Helps increase sales
Research and surveys have proven that having a live chat platform for business can help increase sales. Those satisfied with their queries are more likely to go ahead and make a purchase. As a result, you can have 3x to 5x more conversions, recovering the cost of subscribing to the platform.

Improves customer loyalty
People trust brands that are responsive. So, if you reply to customer queries and help them with their issues, they may purchase your product or avail of your services again in the future, which is a sign of brand loyalty. Research says that people who use live chat options for customer service are also more likely to make a first-time transaction and become new customers.

Helps identify customer problems
Chatting one-to-one with customers helps figure out their pain points. You can identify if people are finding the prices too high, trying to locate your physical store, or have another query related to the transaction. Knowing these concerns will help you make better business decisions and re-strategize. It’s also a quick way to get a sneak peek into customer behavior, make your target audience accessible, and categorize them for analysis.

Besides enjoying the above benefits, using live chat platforms for business will help you earn good ratings and reviews in the market. Customers appreciate the support and talk about it on various platforms, which attracts more people to your brand.

Best customer service chat platforms
If you’re convinced about integrating a customer service chat platform into your business website, we have compiled a list of these. Understand the features and choose one as per your need:

Help Scout
Help Scout has many excellent live chat support features that make the customer’s journey with your brand convenient. When someone fills in a query in the chat, Help Scout takes it to an agent. If an agent isn’t available to respond, it gives the customers an option to mail the query and share their contact details. The tool also pops up help documentation and other helpful resources within the chat. As for its price, Help Scout starts at $20 per month.

LiveChat
This live chat platform is best for its ease of use and functionality. LiveChat has a help center, knowledge-based products, and a chat widget that can be customized to one’s needs. Installation is fairly simple and quick, thanks to intuitive and visual instructions. It can also be used with the WordPress plug-in. If the agent isn’t available online to answer a customer query, the chat goes to them by mail. The agent can then respond via mail to successfully address the query. LiveChat has a 14-day free trial, and their per-month price starts at $16.

Pure Chat
This chatbot is perfect for mobile teams. Push notifications from Pure Chat keep service executives in the loop of every query and enable them to respond as early as possible. Setup is simple, and you’ll have the live chatbot up and running in no time. To try out Pure Chat, you can sign up for the 30-day free trial that includes all Pro plan features. After the free trial, the tool costs $39 per month, paid annually.

With the growing need for chatbot options on business websites, demand for live chat customer service jobs has also increased. Most businesses have openings for this post or hire people who can multitask and manage the chatbot.