Happy Team, Happy Customers

Guest Author: Heather Younger, Customer Fanatix Founder & CEO

Which comes first: the employee or the customer? This is a constant question that businesses of all sizes face as they struggle to balance employee and customer needs. There are plenty of arguments to be made in favor of putting the customer first every time. After all, without customers that are ready and willing to buy, it is impossible to support and maintain a business and the employees that serve that business. Supports of this mentality believe that businesses should focus 100% of efforts on delighting customers if they stand any chance of being successful.

However, we have all heard the “Employee first, customer second” philosophy on growing and maintaining a flourishing business. Supporters of this philosophy believe that companies should put employees first in all situations, and the rest will fall into place.

Why does employee engagement matter to my customers?

My personal experiences in employee engagement have shown me that an effective employee experience strategy directly affects the customer experience. When my clients want to transform their customer experience, they often list off well-known companies that are praised for excellent customer experiences and ask what they can do to achieve the same results.

When I get these types of questions, my answer often surprises clients: It’s very exciting that you’re prepared to move forward with a customer experience strategy, but let’s take a look at your employee experience strategy first.  (more…)

At SnapEngage, we’re constantly finding new ways to improve the user experience and drive customer engagement forward. With that, we’re proud to share with you a quick round-up of some of our latest product updates, as well as tips to make the most of each within your organization. Check ’em out!

New Minimized Chat View

We’ve recently applied a new minimized view of the chat for enhanced end-user experience. When the chat is minimized, visitors now see the agent’s avatar displayed along with a preview of the agent’s message(s). A message ticker count will also display beside the agent avatar. Learn more about minimized view improvements here.

Tip for Sucesss: This feature will soon be implemented automatically on all SnapEngage accounts, but you can still take advantage of this update now. Just head over to your Admin Dashboard’s “Design Studio” tab, and click “Save Changes” to implement the new minimized view on your account. Also, consider your agent photos carefully when choosing them. They provide an easy way to add a human element to the chat experience. Check out these tips to choose effective agent photos.  (more…)

Avoid these common pitfalls to deliver
top-notch SMS customer support

Text is one of the most popular forms of communication. When you think about it, there are many reasons why. It doesn’t require an internet connection like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. It doesn’t even require a smartphone, most any kind of cell phone has the ability to send and receive texts. Even when cell phone reception is weak, texts can still get through. And once they do get through, they’re usually opened within 3 minutes.

All of these reasons also make text an excellent channel for customer service. Businesses can reach a wider range of customers more quickly and efficiently, and they can offer clients the luxury of instant customer support via a preferred communication channel.

That being said, there are good ways and bad ways to use text for customer support. Time zone snafus, messaging clients who haven’t opted in, giving long-winded explanations via text and other no-no’s can all lead to frustrating customer experiences – rather than successful resolution of issues and inquiries.

Here are the top 7 mistakes to avoid when using SMS for customer support:
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Take your brand’s chat experience to
the next level with our Design Studio.

Contributors: Abby Schmautz, Kent Riggs

Have you had a chance to get your hands on our new Design Studio yet? (Or, are you sitting there thinking, what’s that? If so, we’d encourage you to check out this previous blog post to get up to speed before diving in here). 

As many of our clients are quickly discovering, the Design Studio (released in January) provides an array of opportunities to unify your entire customer experience and ensure that live chat plays a seamless role within that experience. It’s more important than ever for companies to create compelling brand experiences if they want to stay relevant in today’s landscape, which is why our team has worked tirelessly to bring you the Design Studio.

But, why is branding so important?

As industries become saturated with competition, each component of the user experience plays a key role in ensuring that companies stand out and get noticed. While first impression may start with a name or logo, the other elements of the user interaction (such as live chat!) all work together to continue shaping this initial impression. Branding is no longer limited to a single element of design such as a snazzy logo. It’s become a top-to-bottom experience. We’ve witnessed the emergence of two camps of brand identification — both identified by the “out-of-the-box” approach in name, but with very different meanings.

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Learn more about how our enhanced,
events-based live chat analytics
produce even more precise reporting.

SnapEngage clients may have noticed some recent updates to the Analytics section in the Admin Dashboard. In short, we’ve added some new reports and made improvements to give you more consistent, reliable and accurate data in your reports.

Here’s a breakdown of the new Analytics enhancements:

New data sources for response time reporting

Our new reporting method breaks out actual agent response times from wait and queue times to provide a more accurate representation of the true causes behind visitor wait times.

Prior to the recent updates, we were using time stamps on chat transcripts in the database to determine response times. We came to realize that there were some shortcomings with this approach. Agent response times, in particular, weren’t always telling the complete story. In effect, agents could be unnecessarily penalized for factors outside of their control, such as behind-the-scenes actions (i.e. routing, agent availability checks) and queued chats.

The new reporting method logs a series of events in the chat timeline that allows for more detailed and precise reporting. The updated agent response time report now also accounts for chat transfer times as well.

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