Author: Duncan Wright

When used appropriately, chat on a website is a great tool. But if implemented badly it can also be a real frustration.

Because of this I thought it would be worth giving some of my experiences with chat. Outlining the ways to implement it effectively, maximising benefits whilst minimising frustrations.

Not all Chat systems are equal.

There are a lot of chat systems out there from cheap and cheerful to fully integrated chat, customer service and ticketing systems. The first thing to consider is which one is right for you?

Our experience has been it two systems, Zen Desk and Livechat.  Whilst I am not aiming to create a full review here, I can say that our experiece with both LiveChat and Zendesk have been positive. They are both easy to integrate into a website (Both have wordpress plugins) and offer the features you need to make live chat work. Whilst LiveChat is the more expensive option ($16/month compared with $5/month for the Zendesk entry level), it is the one that most of our clients are using, and has great tools for managing the appearance and functionality of the chat box on the website. Other than the price, we would not hesitate to recommend LiveChat, and if your customers value access via chat on your website $16/month should be a cost effective option.

Chat should not be a messaging system

Ok, I will hold my hands up and say that this is a personal bugbear of mine. Chat should be a live interactive medium, and should only be used if you have the resources to man it. One of the things I like about LiveChat is that it can be set to only appear on your website when you are logged into the system and ready to accept chats. That way, when someone starts chatting on your site, there is a good chance that there will be someone there to answer their questions in real time. If you are not logged in the chat box disappears. In these cases they should have other options like email and enquiry forms to contact you.

Chat boxes should not be intrusive

Another way that I think that chat is misused relates to how obtrusive the chat box is on the site. As a website user, when you need it, it should be obvious and easy to access. But when you don’t, it should not get in the way. By all means include chat pop up box after a user has been on your site for a period of time. But if they dismiss it, don’t keep nagging them. It should be their decision if they need to chat. If they don’t, the chat should not get in the way of their browsing.

Be careful of multitasking during chats

One of the benefits of chat over phone calls is you can multitask. Whilst chatting you can deal with multiple enquiries at once, or work on other tasks whist engaging with customers.  When doing this however, be sure to prioritise the chat and don’t leave customers hanging for an answer to their questions. If you have to go of and find other information, or are going to take more than a few seconds to respond, then let them know.

Use chat bots effectively

Like much technology chat bots can be used or abused. If you are going to use one, I would suggest that you follow two simple rules:

1. Be transparent – If a user is talking to a bot, make sure they know it. Good chat bots are effectively an “intelligent drill down menu”. They ask users a series of questions to point them to the right bit of information. If they can deliver information the user is looking for, they can be a great way to give basic technical support.
2. Always offer the option to talk to a real person – Going back to my first point about the fact that chat should be a “live interactive medium”, always give the user an option to talk to a real person. Most people will go onto a chat system with a specific enquiry. If that can be answered by the bot then great. But when it can’t, you need to give them the opportunity to talk to a real person. Not doing this can easily lead to disappointment & frustration.

Follow these two rules and chat bots can be a really useful addition to the chat system.

3 Golden Rules for using Chat effectively

In summary, I will leave you with three golden rules for the effective use of chat:

1. It’s not a messaging system. If you are not there to chat, don’t offer it on your site
2. Leave the customer in control- Don’t nag web visitors, if they want to chat they will
3. Use chat bots intelligently. Focus on the customer experience when deciding to use them.

Follow these rule and chat can really enhance your customers experience, and your ability to engage with them.

There is a lot of talk about WFH – or working from home at the moment. And based on the level of resistance to returning to the office when “told” to do so, its certain that people want an alternative to the daily commute. But do they really want to be working from home, or is it more complicated?

I suspect that in reality what people really want is twofold. Firstly to work more flexibly, and secondly to avoid the daily commute. Given this, one obvious solution is to work from home. This certainly delivers these two objectives, but is it really the answer?

Throughout my career I have commuted, including one point where I was doing some extreme commuting between Northampton in the UK, and Aarhus in Denmark.  and I have worked from home! In my experience, neither scenario was ideal. In my current situation, I live and work in Glossop. My trip to work is 3 minutes by car, or more usually a 20 minute walk. To me, this is “Living the dream”, with the best of both worlds!

Working from home has its downsides

Whilst I don’t feel the need to go into the downside of commuting (Though I do know people who claim to enjoy it!) The reality of “working from home” does invite closer inspection!

Whilst everyone is different, in my experience, working from home has three big downsides:

1. Isolation – working in the office environment, you are surrounded by other people, whilst this makes it easy to interact on work matters, it also allows more general interaction. Those so called “Water cooler moments”, where you can chat to others whilst taking a break from work. Whilst zoom and other video meeting systems can go a long way to replacing face to face meetings required to “do your job” they do not replace more informal conversations so important in building rapport, and enhancing the working environment. In reality, working from home can be very isolating!
2. The working environment – When working from home, I found the separation of work and home life a challenge! I was lucky enough to have the space to have a dedicated home office, and I would “commute” to that room every day. When I was in the home office I was was “at work”. Anywhere else I was “at home”. This allowed me to separate my work and home life. For many home workers however, this is not the scenario. The “office” is a laptop in the kitchen or dining room table, maybe I am getting old, but for me this is OK for the occasional bit of work that needs doing now, but not an environment that promotes sustained productivity. It can also make it more difficult to create an ergonomically correct environment. Living with a physiotherapist, I know how important this is to health and wellbeing!
3. Distractions – Again, I was lucky in this aspect. when I was working at home, other occupants were out at work. But trying to maintain focus, when others are in the house going about their day can be a challenge, especially if you add children into the mix.

All in all, I find working from home on a regular basis a challenge!

The middle ground – The new way of “going to the office”

So if you are not wanting to work 100% from home, and not wanting to commute, what is the alterative. The alternative is finding a new place to work, somewhere where you can engage with others and get those “Water cooler moments”, and that are set up to provide an environment conducive to productive work, and a professional place to meet people should you need to, free from the distractions that can be all too common in the home environment. Somewhere that you can access as and when needed. Historically this place would belong to the company you work for, but it doesn’t need to. Increasingly these facilities are found in business centres, shared offices and co-working spaces. Whilst these are widely used by the likes of Start-ups and freelancers, they provide the perfect working environment for all those more traditional jobs that are now being done “from home”.

To conclude – A prediction

I think when all this washes out, the idea of everyone commuting to a central location to work in a corporate office will be seen as old hat. Central offices will be smaller & more flexible. A place to meet clients and for teams to get together when zoom just doesn’t cut it. I think these offices will be smaller and more importantly cheaper.

By not investing in big central corporate offices, this should free up resources to allow workers to access more flexible facilities close to where they live. Whilst they may not be appropriate all the time – even for me working from home occasionally is a great option – they would add useful flexibility to the mix.

In closing, I think its is worth highlighting the fact that this scenario works for part of the workforce, if you are in a job where you are working with “things”, whether manufacturing or distributing them then the traditional, central model may be here to stay. But for everyone else a more de-centralised model may be the future.

As for the city centre infrastructure (Cafes, bars shops and the like) that are now struggling as people avoid the commute. In reality, their customers still exist and still want these services. They have just moved. I am sure that the smart business will follow them!

I am quite an opinionated person, and in my youth, I may have been accused of having an “I am right and everyone else is wrong” attitude to life. 50 odd years down the track, I have finally realised that this is a pretty ineffective approach as in reality, I am rarely right, but at the same time neither is anyone else!  Accepting that there is no right way to approach a problem has made life much easier and made me, I believe, more effective in most things I do.

Understanding the team

I have done a few psychometric tests in my time and used other tools to try to understand how to work more effectively. But the one that has stuck in my mind is Meredith Belbin’s study on team dynamics. In short, it categorises people into one of 9 roles within a team and suggests that to be effective, a team should contain all 9. I am now of the opinion that whilst useful, the idea that people fit into neat pigeon holes does not play out in reality. That said, the idea that having a mix of approaches when tackling a task does have significant merit.

Recognising the value of different

In managing a team, whether formally or informally when approaching a task. The real skill is not in knowing how to succeed on your own, it’s more about teasing out the ideas of the team, and focussing these into a strategy and plan that will complete the task.

Coming back to my original point about no one being 100% right about anything. In a team, different people will approach the task in different ways, the skill of a team manager is to identify which elements add value, and to combine these into a whole solution, whilst at the same time uniting the team behind a common approach.

The folly of focussing on your own approach.

Why, if this is the best way to approach an issue, is so much energy expended by leaders trying to convince everyone to do it their way? Persuading people to do it your way may seem like a fulfilling way to approach a problem, but as the saying goes “No man is an island”.  Understanding this and accepting other ideas may be as valid, or, perish the thought, BETTER, than yours, is a good place to start.