Blocking a visitor from Live Chat should be your last option, but sometimes it is necessary.
Usually, you can find lots of information online on how to improve customer service by using live chat software. But when is it necessary to block visitors that are abusive?
Learn to tell apart a challenging customer and an abusive one
A challenging customer is still a customer. First, do all that you can to resolve an issue, reassure your visitor and provide great customer service.
While using a live chat software the agents have opportunities to learn general customer behavior patterns faster, as they can handle multiple customers at once. There are two patterns that are quite similar for challenging and abusive customers.
While every abusive customer is also a challenging one, not every challenging customer is an abusive one. It is important to understand this fine difference, as resolving an issue for a challenging customer can convert them to the most loyal customer. After all, providing a safe environment for customers to tell you about any problems with your products or services is the best way to learn and evolve as a business.
On the other hand, here are some common behavioral patterns of abusive customers:
- They are repeatedly rude to you live chat agents regardless of what advice is being given.
- They make unreasonable demands on a regular basis (free services, a refund several months after purchase).
- They make threats (damaging brand reputation online – forums, social media, friends, review sites etc).
First, try and resolve these issues. If a visitor threatens to damage your brand reputation online you want to show them why they shouldn’t – because you’re a great company. Blocking them will almost definitely make them follow through on this threat.
Why is it important to finally block abusive visitors?
This type of visitor behavior can have a negative impact on your customer support team. It can also consume too much valuable time and energy that they can invest in customers who are willing to listen and want customer service support. The value of live chat customer support is powered by the benefits of helping customers. Abusive customers have a negative impact on this value.
In the business world, everything comes at some cost. To keep your customers happy, you will not only need to have good live chat software, but also efficient and skilled live chat agents who are able to resolve issues in pleasant ways. If you devote these resources and assets to bad customers who are impossible to please after lots of time trying then you will experience big losses over time.
This is why we have compiled a list of three situations when blocking a visitor is not only the best option but also an important one.
1. During times of big influx of customer requests
Every once in a while, anyone can encounter common issues regarding various products or services. In that case, many customers will be using website live chat to get their issues resolved. Opportunities such as this one present a time when live chat agents can shine and take the issue on their hand to ensure a great customer experience.
An abusive customer who is making unreasonable requests at this hour is best dealt with by blocking after trying to resolve their issues and then informing them about their refund rights. In this way, support agents can stay positive and energized while sticking to their good and well-trained manners, so they can help the customers who want help.
2. When under cyber attack
This example may seem tedious but it can cost you valuable time.
DDoS and other similar types of cyber-attacks are capable of severely limiting your online resources. At this time, it is important to use resources and assets as wisely as possible. These attacks may cause lags, inaccessible services, and other malfunctions.
Blocking an abusive visitor from live chat can save your business from much-needed resources at this time and they can be used for other visitors and customers. If you experience events of this kind, you can expect customers contacting your live chat agents to complain about the current state of your online services.
If they can’t be reasoned with, it is always better to block them and save limited resources for the customers who can be helped. In this line of work every second counts.
3. When the abusive pattern is obvious and continuous
Live chat softwares come with a feature that allows you to store previous conversations between a customer and live chat agent. This data is very valuable for future live chat agents training and identifying trends, issues, and problems that arise with your products and services.
But this transcript of chat history can be used to identify the obvious abusive patterns of the same individual. If it is very clear that the same person has asked for help several times and they were abusive on each and every occasion, then it is important to deny them from this service with a reasonable explanation.
Learning how to deal with challenging visitors is very important. But, learning how to identify the abusive visitors in various situations is equally more important.
Remember, at first even abusive customers deserve your agents time and effort like every other site visitor. Stay calm and try and reason with them. They may be unhappy about your services, but you need to show them that you care and you will listen. That being said, if they can’t be reasoned with and there are other customers who need your attention, maybe it’s time to block them from live chat.
But remember, blocking a visitor from live chat is the very last option.
Thanks to Jason Grills for sharing advice and opinions in this post. Jason is a technical writer with ProProfs. He enjoys writing about emerging customer support products, trends in customer support industry and the financial impacts of using such tools. In his spare time, Jason likes traveling extensively to learn about new cultures and traditions.