Adding an option for live chat is a wise decision you can make for your eCommerce store, as this will help you in offering better support to your customers and also assist them in making better purchases. But how do you know that your eCommerce live chat is actually working for you?
How are you ensuring that anyone who lands on your website genuinely makes use of the live chat and it is not just another stagnant feature for your store?
This is where number crunching comes handy.
You could keep a tab on countless customer support metrics, but there are few essential ones that indicate if it’s all worth the effort or not.
You don't want to keep your potential customers waiting with a pile of unresolved tickets. You can avoid this mishap by setting a goal for the maximum number of unresolved tickets either per day, per week, or month. Remember to also identify common patterns between these tickets and why they remain unresolved.
You might feel that tracking the volume of tickets is a waste of time, but it provides you with insights on how much a potential buyer needs assistance. If you have an actively running store, you should track the volume by every hour.
Here is how this can help your store:
- If you witness rapid growth in the volume of tickets, it might be a sign that you need to increase your staff or create new templates with automated variables.
- It is not a good sign if the volume constantly increases; you need to search for ways to reduce it - for instance, adding more information in product descriptions.
- If you see a sudden rise in the volume, it could be due to any broken page or feature on the website. So you need to look for loopholes where the shopping experience you offer is becoming inconsistent.
This metric represents how long it takes for you to respond to any query from your customer. This counts for the complete conversation and not just the first message. The average response time should be the same as the first response.
Most of your customers won't be patient enough to wait for your subsequent response for long. You must track this metric in different periods, such as per week, month, or year. Ideally, your response time should not be more than a minute!
That’s why we built TextChat. We make sure we notify you on SMS of an incoming live chat, so that you can join in the conversation right away, even when you’re on-the-go. Try TextChat today.
How long does it take for your customer support team to resolve the queries? If the average resolution time is lengthy, then it can hinder the growth of your store. You can track this every week or month.
Take note of what questions shoppers reach out with repeatedly. That way you can either provide the information clearly on the storefront, or create automated responses for that part of the conversation, helping you save on the resolution time.
Customers love when their issues are resolved with a single reply. It is calculated with what percentage of your tickets are closed with the first reply.
Single-reply resolution rate= number of requests resolved with one reply in a single period/the total number of tickets in the same period.
But we do understand that some of the queries may take longer. That’s why in TextChat, we bring back the customer to the same live chat window where they initiated the conversation. This helps them recall the conversation they’ve had before and tie in the answers together.
CSAT or customer satisfaction is a standard metric. It outlines all of the responses to one or more simple questions. You can post a survey on your website or social media and ask your customers to rate them on a scale from 1-5 regarding satisfaction with the store.
This metric doesn't eye for any specific product or service - instead, it surrounds the overall health of your business. If your scores are low, it is not just indicative of bad support while someone is making a purchase, but also their shopping experience on the storefront and to some extent the purchase they have made.
If you wish to know what amount of your queries got resolved with automated responses, then you can distinguish your tickets that did not get any reply from a support representative.
Automated support resolution rate= Number of requests solved with only automation in the same period/total number of requests solved with automation.
In this digital era, most e-commerce stores handle tickets via chat and email. You need to track this metric if most of your service is dealt with on the phone as well, as some conversations tend to take actual conversations for resolution.
Social media is the best way to track the emotions of your customers. What is the frequency of social media mentions for your brand? You should track the social media mentions every day or week and create a good impression.
You can keep a tab on these social media mentions with social listening. This will help you identify what your customers have to say about your brand, your products and the support available to them in general.
NPS is a usual metric for measuring customer satisfaction. It is a survey used to ask your existing customers to rate on a scale from 1 to 5 how likely they are to recommend your business to any friend.
You can use this to determine your company's standard and look for any drops or increases in the average rating.
Customers do not need to raise the issues via chat or regular support channels. You can receive tickets via social media too. Don't run against the current and find a way to flow with it.
Avoid sharing sensitive data but track it every day, week, month, or year. If the number grows, it can also mean that your audience is interested in your products. But you still need to pay attention to every possible reason for any spike or fall.
It is important to praise your team members with bonuses and promotions. You could analyze every person's number of tickets closed per day to find which employee has done the best work per month. You can track this for a longer period, such as per month; as it helps you manage your resources in a better manner.
This metric is valuable as it helps you to know and assess the value of your customer support team. These tickets refer to sales generated through customer support - counting up to five days from when a visitor reached out to you with a query or a concern.
If you ask us, this is one of the most crucial metrics for an eCommerce business. And at TextChat, we have built live chat features that aid in leading a conversation towards an actual sale.
Creating templates for responses is indeed time-saving but is your team using it? To get the hold of this metric, you need to take the help of help desk software that offers pre-created responses. This essentially makes it easy for you and your team to tackle incoming questions using standardized replies.
There will be times when someone drops a query on your live chat and leaves without waiting for a response. In this case, you’re collecting their phone numbers or email addresses to reach out on; so make sure you track the number of notifications that are being sent out - this is as important as follow-ups to bring back online shoppers to your store.
Continuing on the point above, it’s not just about sending out a notification. If your shoppers are not clicking on the same and coming back to your store, you have lost a potential sale. If you see a lower open and click through rate on your notifications, it’s time to up your customer support efforts to not let visitors leave in the first go.
Tracking analytics and playing with numbers is not the exciting stuff for the business because it is time consuming and overwhelming at the same time. But here are 4 reasons that you must do it:
90% of American consumers believe customer support is a crucial factor in deciding if they should invest their money in the products or not. Potential customers don't prefer late or rude replies. So if they are not satisfied with your customer service, there is a chance that you won't see that customer ever again.
Impressing a new customer is challenging than maintaining an existing customer. It takes a 5% boost in customer retention to increase your profits by 25% to 95%. Even current customers won't repurchase if your customer service fails to satisfy them.
Do you update your staff with consistent training? Are there enough people in your team? Is there any need for help desk software so that your customer can register their queries without any issues.
When you track the needs of your customer staff in check, you will discover the issues with your overall store and conversions.
Customers expect more than just sales while purchasing a product from an e-commerce store. They also expect a memorable and flawless experience, including after-sales interaction such as ease of returns, refunds, and shipping updates.
It is your primary role to maintain the practical customer experience because it is not ethical to provide immediate support for a while and then not to continue the same practice. Consistency plays a huge role in convincing and retaining your customers.
You find loopholes when you track these critical metrics and find room for improvements along. If you find that your average first response time is more than 30 minutes, then you can take steps to decrease it, such as creating more templates or increasing the staff with the peak in tickets.
The role of an eCommerce live chat is not limited to just supporting and resolving the queries without knowing the results. Tracking such metrics and learning more about your consumer behavior will help you in turning a small feature into a sales machine for your online store.
Need an eCommerce live chat solution that can help you tackle support and nail sales at the same time?
