Leading Furniture Stores Improve Customer Service with Live Chat

Online furniture stores are implementing live chat to improve their customer service in the digital age. More consumers are tech-savvy and demanding therefore they need a service that can meet or exceed their expectations.

In this article, we take a look at how a few furniture stores are achieving this.

Bensons for Beds

Joining us in 2016, Bensons for Beds added website live chat within their sales team to answer any questions, help consumers complete their purchases or follow up on an order. 

The website live chat service is available throughout the website regardless of whether the individual is on the homepage, a product page or using the companies finance calculator. The communication channel is easily noticeable due to Bensons for Beds website content being centralised and the chat button positioned to the left of the page. This ensures that the button does not overlap with anything, providing the consumer with a smoother user experience.

When the chat button is clicked, the visitor is presented with a pop-up style window that contains a pre-chat form. The design has been kept simple but effective with the use of Bensons’ brand colours and logo. They include a line of text to explain their service, helping to encourage the visitor to enter their first name and phone number.

Upon entering these details the enquirer is taken into the dialogue area. The window has been made wider to allow more of the conversation to be viewed and a bigger space for the consumer to compose their message.

This window also conforms to Benson’s corporate branding, keeping it consistent throughout the chat journey, letting the customer know that they are speaking directly with an advisor from the retailer. The pop-up style window allows the visitor to continue the chat regardless of whether they navigate to another website during that time (they may be comparing products and prices with a competitor).

To finish the website live chat the visitor is presented with a simple window thanking them for their enquiry. It’s a nice polite way of informing the consumer that their custom is appreciated, which can help create return business.

Harveys

Harveys joined us a few years before Bensons for Beds. They are actually owned by the same group as Bensons; Steinhoff Retail. Therefore their implementation is very similar with the positioning of the button and the chat journey.

The corporate branding has been reflected within their chat, with the button using shaping that has been used in other elements of the website such as the search bar, buttons and product filters. Their logo is also present in their prechat form and dialogue window.

Being under the same parent company, means that both retailers can have one central contact centre that handles their chat enquiries. Each chat experience has been assigned a group of operators, so that the enquiry is directed through to the right team member. Overseeing the website live chat channel, it is easy to identify which site the enquiry has come from without looking at each individual chat, as the page can be displayed alongside the visitor information in the chat list, allowing supervisors to manage the solution more efficiently.

Upon implementation, Harveys Head of Digital commented that "Click4Assistance offers our customers a fantastic service allowing our brand to have a real time relationship with our customers online. I am extremely excited by this partnership as we aim to be at the forefront of live chat software developments and customer experience online."

The partnership has continued and expanded several years later, just like our implementations with other online retailers for over the last 15 years. For more information on how we can help you improve your sales and customer service, contact our team on 01268 524628 or email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk.