Planning for Today and Tomorrow!

If you have checked out the various web site offering live chat you know by now that almost everything being done with live chat has to do with customer service. In a large part, the success of your online business is dependent on how well you deliver customer service. Customer service has become a multi-leveled system. In today's business world it means making your business available to meet the needs of your customers.

All your business needs to do to suffer a real setback is to fail to deliver customer service in a timely manner that meets your customer's needs and in a user-friendly manner. This article will take a closer look at identifying customer needs and how to avoid some of the pitfalls of poor customer service by adding live chat.
The two considerations when identifying customer needs are;

1. Knowing your customer base
2. Developing a company mission statement addressing customer service

Your Customer Base

Far too many businesses cut themselves off from a prime source of business growth by neglecting customer service. In today's business world, simply being available to answer a question is not enough. Your customer's are more and more consumer savvy. If your customers can not find the range of customer service options they need, they will turn to your competitors who offer such services.

Imagine having a brick and mortar store, you wouldn't have your customer service area off in a far corner. In fact, you would probably locate it in an area that required the customer to walk through your sales displays to get there. Modern in-store delivery of customer service is an integral part of the business setting and not a token second-class service. When the customer visiting customer service will find is a staff trained to answer questions, direct customers to products, make adjustments and returns, and assist in warranty services meets them.

In the online business world of today, customer service has changed. What today's online business needs to recognize is that almost every imaginable person to person activity conducted in the brick and mortar store is now an activity that can be done online via live chat.

If this were not enough your competition are capitalizing on your reluctance to stay up with the latest uses of technology. More and more firms are adding to their success by using live chat technology in innovative ways. Live chat mirrors what online customer service is becoming. Live chat services have added a completely new dimension. No longer can a business afford to hide behind the anonymity of the internet; you must be proactive; meeting your customers more than halfway.

Your Company's Mission Statement

How does your company achieve these customer service goals? It requires a well-designed, well-planned mission statement focusing only on customer service. This plan then becomes an integral part of your business. This means your management team making the time to sit down and plan the following areas:

1. Goals – What is it you expect as an outcome of using live chat?
   1. Reduce complains
   2. Highlight new products
   3. Increase sales
   4. Branding of your product
2. Methods – How are you going to meet your goals?
   1. Live chat budget
   2. Selecting a live chat system
   3. Identifying what your live chat system will do
   4. Integration into your site
3. Implementation

Hours of operation

1. 1. Training personnel
   2. Placement on your site
   3. Staffing,
2. Monitoring
   1. Assignment of staff responsibilities
   2. Revisiting mission statement for evaluation

Following these few simple steps can result in a new business experience. An experience that can be translated into increased profits, improved customer relations, added referrals and more. The only requirement to getting started is to do it.