Believe it or not, a common opening line in support emails is "no one will probably read this, but..." This sentiment is magnified for companies that offer the unusual combination of free service and tech support. Combine this with previous bad experiences with online customer support and the opening line isn’t too surprising.
We consistently beat our target 24-hour response time on standard email support channels and we boast a round-the-clock VIP support channel that's resolving most of our Premium member's issues within a few hours. But we understand that a single email may not have all of the information needed to diagnose a user's problem. Several emails may be sent back and forth before the nature of the issue can be fully understood. Before you know it, 3 days have passed and the member is ready to throw their computer out the window.
We recently decided to offer chat support to cut the wait time and provide immediate support. It wasn’t as simple as adding an icon to our Support page. We needed a tool that was highly reliable (no dropped chats), very low chat latency (it doesn't take 10 seconds before the other person receives what you just typed) and easy to use for the user. But there were many things to also consider besides the obvious. We had to decide on cost, administration, security, back-end requirements, front-end requirements, protocol support, scalability, user convenience, operator convenience, monitoring, real-time statistics and analysis, multi-chat ability, images and so on. And it's a bigger challenge with many providers offering closely the same features.
We also had to hand select from our customer care team that fit this style of support. When answering support emails, you have time on your side - time to research the problem, time to consult with engineers and time to compose a neatly written response. With chat support, everything happens on the spot. It's important to have an answer within seconds, type complete sentences quickly and accurately, and staying away from using IM shortcuts. IMHO, IM shortcuts personally confuse me, LOL. But one of our most unanticipated challenges was training our Live Chat team how to gently let down our customers who ask them out on dates. Who knew that would be one of the most often asked questions?
We’ve found that an overwhelming 98% of those who use Live Chat are satisfied with their support simply because the resolution time is within minutes instead of hours. But is chat for everyone? Probably not. Personally, I prefer shooting out an email and waiting for an answer to read at my convenience. But it's good to offer a different kind of support channel for someone who may need an answer right now than right later.