Measuring Success: Key Metrics to Track with Live Chat Software
Live Chat is a breath of fresh air for companies. Whether you are a big entrepreneur or someone who is just starting, you have tremendous advantages to be had if you invest in live chat software for your website, which incorporates key metrics for measuring the level of your performance.
In the past, it was hard to run a customer support department unless you had good finances. But with the mass prevalence of live chat software for customer service, even small entrepreneurs can now run fully functional customer support and strike a chord with their customer base. Therefore, they can make customer support more accessible, direct, and personal.
Apart from just interacting with customers, a quality live chat support software solution also provides you with the advantage of analyzing customer behavior using data (generated during chat interactions) and in-built metrics tracking functionality. However, not every live chat software for a website is equal, which means they do not come with all the metric-tracking features. So, let’s have a look at some of the key metrics, which you should look out for before investing in a chat tool.
Understanding Live Chat Metrics
Before dwelling in-depth into each metric, it is important to learn what they are. In essence, Live Chat metrics are data points that measure effectiveness, efficiency, and the overall quality of live chat service. For example, a data point like Average Handling Time (AHT) tells you exactly how much time is spent on an average chat interaction.
Live Chat metrics are detrimental to the quality of chat. If the value of metrics is good, for instance, if AHT is low, it means that your chats are finishing as per the previously allocated time. It also means that not many people are stuck in queue and the chat agents (or bots) are efficient in attending to customers’ requirements. Similarly, each chat metric has its specific purpose and indicates how your chat sessions are going – both good and bad.
4 Important Chat Metrics that Indicate Your Performance
Although there are many chat metrics present in a Live Chat Software solution, we consider the following 4 metrics to be the most crucial when it comes to indicating the success of a Live Chat process:
First Contact Resolution (FCR)
This is arguably the most important metric in a Live Chat process. Whether you are using live chat software free or a paid version, you simply have to focus on FCR to reap any type of benefits from your chat support endeavor.
The impact of FCR is very direct. If you are resolving an issue on first contact, your customers’ trust in your services will multiply. Similarly, if the FCR is low and your customers have to make multiple contacts before getting a resolution, they will most likely leave your service or stop buying your product. The best live chat software for small businesses like Busatools.
Information About Active and Missed Chats
There are many chats you will get every day. While some will be attended, others will be missed because of one reason or another. When you have complete information about how many chats are missed, you know about the health of your chat process. For instance, if the missed chats are high, it might point to a problem with the system.
Similarly, the active chat metric reveals how many chats are still ongoing and customers are being attended to. However, active chat parameters can be altered as per the process. Whether you want to consider a chat with a 5-minute old customer response, or a 1-minute old response as active is completely in your hands. Generally, for sales processes, active chat qualification length is relatively smaller when compared with in-depth technical processes.
Rate of Feedback
In an ideal world, you would want every attended chat to have customer feedback. By understanding customer opinions via their feedback, it becomes easier to create future strategies and make changes to your website that resonate well with customers’ requirements. So, if you have a high feedback rate, you have more data to base your future strategies upon.
Rate of Chat Abandonment
How would you know if your customers are disgruntled and don’t like your product/service or chat support offering? The answer: chat abandonment rate. Whether your customers are completely fed up with your product or believe that the chat has reached a dead end from where there is no resolution, they are likely to abandon the chat.
A high chat abandonment metric points to a flailing process, whereas a low chat abandonment rate shows that your customers are happy.
Final Thoughts
Chat support metrics determine whether your customers are happy or disgruntled by the support they have received. By using a fully equipped live chat support software like Busatools, you can easily figure out the health of your chat process and make changes accordingly.