 Phone interactions 

capture the speaker's tone, inflection and emotion, which can

enhance communication and foster personal connections between agents and
customers. Handle difficult issues and questions. Agents can handle complex
inquiries that require critical thinking skills more than live chat.
What is phone support?
Phone support lets customers call a phone number to reach an organization's customer
service department. Callers may ask questions about products, accounts or technical
problems, and organizations train their service agents to quickly resolve these issues
over the phone.

As a tool that facilitates business and conversation, the phone has long been the
leading channel for B2B and B2C communication. In the digital era, though, it must
compete with other channels, such as live chat and social media.

CX leaders should understand phone support's strengths and weaknesses to find out if
it's the right channel for their organization.
 Learn

about the strengths and weaknesses of phone support.

Strengths

 Personal connection. Phone interactions capture the speaker's tone,

inflection and emotion, which can enhance communication and foster
personal connections between agents and customers.

 Handle difficult issues and questions. Agents can handle complex

inquiries that require critical thinking skills more than live chat.

 Metrics and data. CX leaders can measure data and metrics more

easily with phone calls because they offer one-to-one interactions. Live chat
agents, on the other hand, juggle multiple chats simultaneously, which may
require more advanced calculations to analyze.

 Quality and service improvement. The customer's voice and

emotion provide a richer input into quality and service improvement
analysis.
Weaknesses
  Cost. Agents on the phone only handle one customer at a time. This
setup can increase costs and decrease overall productivity. A call can also
cost up to two times as much as an electronic interaction.

 Time. Phone support often frustrates customers with long wait times

and lengthy interactive voice response menus.

 Documentation. Some organizations may not record every customer

conversation. Unless a contact center implements and routinely monitors
quality practices, phone support can fail to document important
conversations.
Opportunities

 Practices. Organizations can implement best practices, such as call

handling procedures and customer service trainings, to prioritize CX.

 Omnichannel CX. Many contact center tools

offer omnichannel support, which lets customers use their preferred channel
to contact an organization. This approach can enhance phone support
because it lets agents view a customer's interaction history across channels.
When phone agents can see a customer's past email and live chat
interactions, customers don't have to repeat themselves over the phone.
Threats

 Usage. If customers aren't happy with phone support and service,

they may complain.

 Competition. If organizations don't provide high quality phone

support, they may lose customers to competitors that do.
What is live chat?
Live chat support lets customers interact with a live agent or chatbot as they browse
an organization's website or mobile application. Customers that use live chat may
have questions about products, pricing or how to navigate the organization's website.

Live chat is a newer technology than phone support, but it has quickly risen through
the ranks. The rise of instant messaging took off in the 1990s when AOL Inc., Yahoo
and Microsoft all introduced their own messaging programs. These tools let users
send each other instant messages that contained text, video and photos. That era also
introduced chat speak to the social lexicon.

CX leaders should consider live chat's strengths and weaknesses to determine if it

makes sense for their organization.

Learn
about the strengths and weaknesses of live chat.
Strengths
  Accessibility. Organizations can use live chat to offer their customers
24/7 support for a lower cost than phone support.

 Agent productivity. Agents can handle more than one chat at a time,

which increases their overall productivity. 

 Automated responses and bots. Chatbot technology can scan

customer messages for keywords and submit automatic responses.

 Cost. Live chat agents and chatbots can answer customer inquiries at

a lower cost than human agents.

 Data analytics. Live chat lets agents chat with customers and helps
organizations understand customer needs. Many live chat tools offer web
analytics features and integrations that show organizations what customers
purchase, what products they view, where they get stuck and more.
Weaknesses

 Burnout. Although live chat agents can serve multiple customers

simultaneously, the increased volume of customers can cause stress and
burnout. In many contact centers, agents handle chat in addition to emails
and phone calls. Organizations should put procedures in place to properly
balance and monitor the agent workload.

 Limitations. Legal, compliance and regulatory restrictions can

sometimes prevent an agent from helping a customer, which frustrates both
parties. Organizations should let customers know the types of questions that
agents can handle through chat, and should document this information in
a service-level agreement (SLA).

 Time. Customers expect live chat agents to respond quickly to their

questions, and organizations should do their best to meet this expectation.
 However, because agents handle multiple chats simultaneously, customers
may experience delayed responses.

 Complicated issues. Live chat agents may struggle to resolve

complex customer issues. Service agents can typically handle complicated
issues more effectively over the phone than over live chat.
Opportunities

 Phone integration. Organizations can integrate their phone systems

into their chat tools. Many contact centers use click-to-call buttons within
chats that alert agents when customers would like to switch to another
channel.

 Sales. Live chat agents can reach out to their website's

visitors, recommend products and schedule in-person appointments to
facilitate sales and convert visitors into actual customers.
Threats

 Processes and procedures. Organizations must ensure they have

proper processes and procedures in place to run live chat successfully,
including scripts, documentation, workload balancing and relevant
technology.

 Skills. Live chat agents require proper training and continued skill

development, including writing, grammar, sentence structure and
multitasking skills.

What are the key components of a customer access

strategy?
Before you try to decide between live chat and phone support, consider the following customer access strategy

questions:

 Is it a desired contact channel for all customer segments?

  What types of contacts will this channel handle?

 Can you offer alternatives? If yes, how? Is it a pop-up? Click-to-call?

 What services do you offer during key hours? What's in your SLA?

 How will these contacts be routed? How will that affect your ability to meet service-level

objectives?

 Where should these contacts be routed? Which agents can handle them? Do you have

documented routing procedures?

 Will agents need specialized skills?

 What information is needed to complete requests through different channels? What legal or

regulatory requirements do you have?

 What key metrics will measure your success?

 What framework related to other departments and roles is needed to implement channels?

Key differences between live chat and phone support

Although live chat and phone support both let customers contact customer service
agents, they differ in many ways. Those differences include the following:

 Personalization. Phone support offers more personalized

interactions than live chat because all interactions are one-to-one and in real
time, whereas live chat agents juggle multiple conversations
simultaneously. Also, phone conversations reveal the speakers' tone and
inflection, which can help create a personal connection between customers
and agents.
  Cost. Live chat support typically costs organizations less than phone
support because agents and chatbots can handle multiple customers
simultaneously.

 Sales potential. Live chat agents can use proactive chat to initiate

conversations with potential customers as they browse an organization's
website. This approach lets live chat agents convert leads into new
customers, whereas customers typically initiate phone support interactions.
How to choose between live chat vs. phone support
Ideally, organizations should offer both phone support and live chat. Phone support
offers customers personalized CX and lets them more easily explain complex
problems, whereas live chat gives customers quick answers to simple questions and
guides them toward a purchase. When organizations pair these service channels
together, customers can choose which one they prefer.

In rare cases, organizations may want only one service channel. Phone support can
help organizations in the following situations:

 No website or app. Organizations without a web presence should

use phone support until they have a website or mobile app. Without a web
presence, organizations have no practical way to reach customers through
live chat.

 High volumes of complex questions. Phones let customers and

agents work through complicated problems more quickly than chat.
Therefore, organizations that commonly deal with complex customer
questions should offer phone support.

 Want more personalization. If an organization offers live chat, but

its customers often complain about the service, they may want to switch to
 or add phone support. Many customers want the personal touch that phone
support offers, regardless of their questions.

Live chat can help organizations in the following situations: 

 Strong web presence. To better connect with customers,

organizations should meet them where they already are. For example, most
organizations with a strong web presence serve online customers each day.
A live chat support option enables those customers to easily reach a support
agent through the channel they already use.

 High volumes of simple questions. Organizations that receive more

frequently asked or simple questions from customers may consider live
chat. Chatbots and live chat agents can answer simple customer questions
more quickly than phone support.

 Want to boost sales. Unlike phone support, live chat agents can

initiate conversations with customers as they browse the organization's
website. This approach can open the door for agents to make a sale.