Imagine using a clear structure of rules and procedures in your everyday interactions. Imagine you have to speak by predefined set of laws, use specific sentence structure or even be limited to predefined answers to common questions. That would be a hell! You will concentrate mostly on the given alternatives of the answers, the rules and the limitations you have in your speech; not even considering the tone of the question, the intent of the comment or the goal of the person you speak with.
That is similar to a situations when you have to speak on a language that you are not very familiar with and you try to use the words you know, just to finish the started sentence and answer back.
If you are one of those companies which work "by the strict rules", this is how your online operators probably feel! They are limited in their speech and almost certainly not motivated and trained enough to get out of those frames (without breaking the rules).
I will sacrifice this paragraph being afraid that it would sound very philosophically, just to further motivate my view: All our lives have an actual value shaped by our established relationships with other people. In any point of seeking other tangible goals, the caring relations and the memorable experiences with people are the ones that bring in the delight and contentment. Whatever each one of us is engaged in, and whatever our working tasks include, at the end, we are just human, searching for pleasurable experience, comfort and warmness.
And why are we forgetting that fact while serving customers? Why are we risking our sales numbers and creating a "strictly formal" distance among the company and the customers?
If you concur with the stated above, some practical advices follow for getting closer to customers while going out of the borders:
Before the conversation:
Be creative in putting a unique "Click here for life chat" message; e.g. "Ask Anny" (closer and warmer attitude); a kids' website can put "Ask Mr.Know it All" and similar;
If you notice that the customer meets some predefined rules for initiating a chat, don't just say "Hi, may I help you?", but be precise with the proposal "If you have any problems finding the prices, I'm here to help";
Use the fact that the way to most people's mind, respect and attention is the laughter, totaling with the highly intelligent, logical and up-to-the-moment comments, quotes and sayings. Accordingly, besides the regular predefined answers, you can put some famous quotes, jokes and sayings. They can be used in any situation and create a warmer and closer relationship with the online customer;
During the conversation:
Don't limit your speech to the formal language that most customer service reps use. It is grammatically precise and elevated above the colloquial or everyday. It usually uses noun phrases e.g. "Her continual disagreement ...", sentences often start with gerunds e.g. "Having received the e-mail ...", increased use of the passive tense e.g. "The holiday was booked by ..." and multi-syllable words e.g. disinterested, convenient, cautionary.
Feel free to use as much as proper informal language. It is usually relating or belonging to a style appropriate to conversation rather than formal writing and uses phrasal verbs e.g. get into, let go of, come into; single syllable words e.g. get, have, and idiomatic expressions e.g. let the cat out of the bag, kick the bucket; and it uses more humans as the subjects of sentences.
Adapt your writing style to theirs. Use some of the words they used to pose the question or answer in the same tone. That way you build rapport with them.
Read carefully what they have written and than answer!
