What is a chatbox?

Chatbox refers to the interface that allows users to interact with a chat application. It typically appears as a small window or pop-up on a website and includes a text input field for the user to type in their message and a button to initiate the chat with an AI chatbot or a live agent. Chatboxes are often used for customer service, technical support, or sales inquiries. They can also include features such as quick selection options, file sharing, and the ability for the representative to initiate the chat.

What’s the difference between chatboxes, live chats, and chatbots?

The terms chatbox, live chat, and chatbots are frequently used synonymously when discussing website chat functionality. However, it is important to note that these terms are used at different points in a chat experience.

The chatbox refers to the interface that is displayed to the user upon clicking the chat icon or bubble. This interface is often customized with the company's branding and may include pre-populated quick-selection prompts.

Once a user engages with the chatbox by selecting a prompt or typing a message, they are connected with a human agent for a live chat session. This real-time communication between the user and the agent is referred as live chat.

A chatbot, on the other hand, is an artificial intelligence program that uses natural language processing to understand and respond to user requests. So, if a business is implementing chatbots, then the user will interact with a chatbot once the chat is initiated. If the query remains unresolved by the chatbot, then it’s transferred to a live agent.  Chatbot software provides better service for repeated queries by quickly searching through integrated software, transactional databases, or internal knowledge bases.

Chatbox Best Practices

Chatboxes are a great way to provide fast and efficient customer service on a website, but it's important to keep in mind the best practices to make sure the experience is smooth for both the customer and the agent. Here are some of the best practices to help you get the most out of your chatbox.

1. Keep it simple and user-friendly: The chatbox should be easy to find and use, with clear instructions on how to start a chat.

2. Provide quick response times: Customers expect fast and efficient service, so it's important to have a team in place to respond to chats in a timely manner.

3. Personalize the experience: Use the customer's name and tailor the conversation to their specific needs and concerns.

4. Use automated responses: Automated responses can help handle frequently asked questions and reduce the workload of human representatives.

5. Use proactive chat invitations: Proactively inviting customers to chat can increase engagement and help build trust.

6. Use chatbot to improve customer service: Chatbots can provide fast and efficient service, 24/7 availability, and can handle a large volume of chats simultaneously.

7. Use chat transcripts: Save chat transcripts for future reference and use them to improve customer service.

8. Use analytics: Track and analyze chat data to identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about staffing and training.

9. Provide a clear call to action: Use the chatbox to guide customers towards the next step, whether it's making a purchase, scheduling an appointment, or getting more information.

10. Follow up with customers after the chat: Send a follow-up email or survey to gather feedback on the chat experience and use it to improve future interactions.

Benefits of a chatbox

Chatboxes are a great way for businesses to improve customer engagement, save time and scale customer support. Here are some of the major benefits of a chatbox.

1. 24/7 availability: Chatboxes allow customers to access support at any time, which can be especially useful for businesses that operate outside of traditional office hours.

2. Cost-effective: Chatboxes can be less expensive than staffing a call center, especially for small businesses.

3. Increased customer engagement: Chatboxes provide a convenient and immediate way for customers to interact with a business, which can increase customer engagement and satisfaction.

4. Improved efficiency: Chatboxes can handle multiple chats at once, which can improve efficiency and reduce wait times for customers.

5. Personalization: Chatboxes can be customized to match a business's branding and tone of voice, which can make the customer experience more personal.

6. Automation: Chatboxes can be integrated with AI-powered chatbots that can handle simple queries and tasks, which can reduce the workload for human agents.

7. Data collection: Chatboxes can collect data on customer interactions, which can be used to improve service and personalize the customer experience.

8. Increased accessibility: Chatboxes can be integrated with messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which can increase accessibility for customers.

9. Multilingual support: Chatboxes can be configured to support multiple languages, making it easier for businesses to reach global audiences.

10. Measurable: Chatboxes can be used to track customer interactions, resolution rate, and customer satisfaction, which can provide valuable insights for businesses.

Chatbox use cases

Chatbox for customer support

Having a chat box as part of your customer support improves the trust in your organization. Being in the era of instant gratification, more and more customers prefer chatting online with a customer support agent to instantly resolve their issues than reaching them over the phone or email. Customer Service Suite is a modern online chat box and is asynchronous in nature, which makes it easy for customers and agents to have meaningful conversations by giving the support agents insights into the history of past conversations.

Here are some key benefits chat boxes can bring to your customer support:

Chat with customers round the clock

Offering online chat support helps in improving the customer lifetime value, because instant support reduces the need for your customers to explore other options than your organization. Online chat tools like Customer Service Suite helps you engage with customers even during offline hours and gives them an ETA on when your support agents can get back to them. Also, you can:

Incorporate bots to answer frequently asked questions and resolve support requests
Self-service

The scope of chatboxes go beyond live support. It is also about offering self-service options, where you enable your customers to resolve their issues themselves. Self-service typically includes the list of FAQs, the necessary knowledge base that customers can use to help themselves, videos, articles, and so on.

Canned responses

One of the key advantages of online chat is that your support agents can have multiple conversations simultaneously. To speed up the response from your support agents, modern chatboxes give you the option to create canned responses, i.e., the ability to reply with a predefined set of response templates.  

Position your chat box effectively to improve customer experience

To make the most of your chatbox, you need to make sure that it’s placed at the right touch points on your website and support portals. Some of the pages you might want to consider adding the online chat box are:

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