It’s sometimes impossible to catch and respond to every chat in real-time.
While most chats are picked up by your agents, some can slip through the net. But with missed chat handling, you don’t have to let missed leads become lost leads.
Nobody’s available 100% of the time. So, WhosOn comes with missed chat handling as standard, to help you get back on track when a chat has gone unanswered.
Curious? Here we dive into the missed chat handling feature and answer the core questions surrounding it.
What is missed chat handling?
Missed chat handling is a WhosOn feature that allows you to follow up on and reply to unanswered chat requests, all from within the client.
This means that a missed chat doesn’t become a lost opportunity.
With missed chat handling functionality, you can make sure that every interested customer gets the answers and conversation they seek.
When are chats missed?
Some missed chats will simply be from online visitors that start a chat accidentally and close it because they don’t need support.
However, some customers may click away from the chat if they feel they have been waiting too long, resulting in a missed chat. This can happen during busy support periods, where live chat queue times are longer, or times when agent availability is low.
Other times, a missed chat is the product of forgetting to set offline rules. For example, your business is closed from 6pm. However, you forget to personalise your chat rules to surface an “offline” message. The customer then clicks your standard live chat button and types a message. This is also a missed chat: nobody is there to respond.
It’s these instances that, left unanswered, can hurt customer satisfaction.
Who can handle missed chats?
Any of your logged-in agents can see and respond to unanswered chat sessions. They’re displayed within the WhosOn client in a handy “Missed Chats” area.
This easy accessibility means that the next agent to become available can quickly handle a missed chat, without neglecting your active chat requests.
Plus, to aid with missed chat handling, your team will be able to see any data the customer provided. (Pre-chat survey answers, typed messages, or relevant information from their web session.) With this, they can respond to the unanswered customer effectively.
How does it work?
The WhosOn missed chat handling feature works by logging every chat request. This includes any unfortunate missed requests.
These unanswered chats, along with their supporting details, are displayed in the WhosOn client. There, they are ready and visible for your agents to pick up and respond to.
Importantly, missed chat handling is omnichannel. So, the agent responds via a direct email. (After all, the visitor is no longer hanging around onsite.)
The agent simply clicks the missed chat, types a reply from within WhosOn, and hits ‘send’. WhosOn then sends the message as an email – without the agent ever having to leave the app and launch a separate channel.
Once missed chats have been addressed, WhosOn records the response within the chat transcript. This ensures your records are up to date.
Why is missed chat handling useful?
Missed chat handling is a feature that allows you to catch customers that slipped through the net the first time around.
For many customers and leads, not getting an answer when they reach out to you can result in frustration. This is (obviously) damaging to your customer satisfaction.
By following through with missed chat handling, however, you can make amends and demonstrate that you care about every customer.
So, you improve your customer satisfaction and increase your chances of converting missed leads.
Give it a try
Missed chat handling is just one of the many useful features that WhosOn has to offer. Why not explore further with a 30-day free trial?
Useful links
- - Offline messages: a feature dive
- - Customer chat history: a feature dive
- - Live chat sentiment analysis: a feature dive
- - AI chat summaries: a feature dive
- - Co-browsing: a feature dive
- - Omnichannel calling: a feature dive