Freshchat Guide: How to Set Up Customer Messaging and Live Chat

Freshchat has revolutionized customer messaging and live chat, offering businesses powerful tools to enhance customer engagement and provide exceptional service. This platform integrates seamlessly with popular channels like Facebook Messenger, allowing companies to meet their customers where they are most comfortable. With its robust API and customizable chatbots, Freshchat empowers businesses to streamline customer service operations and boost overall satisfaction.

This guide will walk you through setting up Freshchat for your business. You’ll learn how to get started with the platform, configure customer messaging features, and implement live chat functionality. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to leverage Freshchat’s capabilities to improve your customer service and drive meaningful interactions with your audience.

Getting Started with Freshchat

Setting up Freshchat for your business is a straightforward process that can significantly enhance customer engagement and support. This powerful platform offers a range of features to streamline communication with your audience. Let’s explore the essential steps to get started with Freshchat.

Creating an Account

To begin using Freshchat, the first step is to create an account. Visit the Freshworks website and sign up for a Freshchat account using a valid email address. Once you’ve completed the registration process, you’ll receive an activation email. Click on the activation link provided in the email to set up your password and activate your account. Alternatively, you can choose to activate your account using your Google credentials for added convenience.

After activating your account, you’ll have access to a 14-day free trial, allowing you to explore Freshchat’s features without any commitment. This trial period provides an excellent opportunity to familiarize yourself with the platform and determine if it meets your business needs.

Navigating the Dashboard

Upon logging into your Freshchat account, you’ll be greeted by the dashboard, which serves as the central hub for managing your customer messaging and live chat operations. The dashboard provides a comprehensive overview of your support activities across various channels, including chat, email, and phone (if you have the Freshcaller add-on).

The Unified Dashboard offers different types of live dashboards to suit your specific needs:

1. Overview: This dashboard provides a holistic view of your overall performance across all channels, allowing you to monitor key metrics at a glance.
2. Agent Availability: Here, you can view your team’s availability across different channels, enabling efficient resource allocation and customer support optimization.
3. Chat Performance: This dashboard offers real-time insights into ongoing chat activities, helping you track agent performance and customer satisfaction levels.
4. Phone (requires Freshcaller add-on): If you have integrated phone support, this dashboard provides a complete overview of your call center activities, including queue status and team performance.

To access these dashboards, click on the Support Dashboard icon in the left panel of your Freshchat account. You can easily switch between different dashboards using the hamburger icon in the Overview section.

Setting Up Your First Channel

One of the key features of Freshchat is its ability to integrate with popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, allowing you to meet customers where they are most comfortable. To set up your first channel, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Freshchat account as an admin.
2. Navigate to Admin Settings and select Channels.
3. You’ll be directed to the Web Widget page, where you can set up chat functionality for your website.

To enable chat with website visitors, you’ll need to embed the Freshchat widget on your site. Copy the provided JavaScript code snippet and paste it before the tag on every page of your website where you want the chat widget to appear. This simple process initializes the Web Messenger widget, allowing you to engage with both logged-in and anonymous users who visit your site.

For businesses with multiple brands or websites, Freshchat offers the flexibility to separate chat conversations and users across different sites while still using the same account and team. This can be achieved by declaring a site ID as part of the configuration, ensuring that users across different sites with unique site IDs are treated as separate entities.

By following these initial steps, you’ll have successfully set up your Freshchat account and configured your first channel. As you become more familiar with the platform, you can explore additional features such as chatbots, customer engagement tools, and API integrations to further enhance your customer service capabilities.

Configuring Customer Messaging

Configuring customer messaging in Freshchat is a crucial step to enhance customer engagement and streamline support operations. This section will explore how to customize chat widgets, set up automated messages, and create canned responses to optimize your customer service experience.

Customizing Chat Widgets

Freshchat allows businesses to create and deploy multiple chat widgets, enabling personalized support experiences across different pages of their website. This flexibility is particularly useful for companies with multiple brands or those seeking to offer unique support experiences on various pages, such as product listings or order tracking.

To begin customizing your chat widget, navigate to the Admin Settings > Channels > Web Chat section. Here, you can modify the appearance, content, and preferences of your widget. The appearance menu allows you to fine-tune the look and feel of your widget, including branding elements such as logo, welcome message, and color scheme. You can also adjust the widget’s position and behavior, choosing between always visible, hidden, or visible only during business hours.

The content menu lets you configure the main elements of the widget, including topics and FAQ categories. Topics represent conversation contexts that can be routed to different teams or chatbots, while FAQ categories display self-service articles within the widget. You can add up to 100 topics or FAQ categories to a single widget, arranging them according to your preferences.

Setting Up Automated Messages

Automated messages play a vital role in enhancing customer engagement and improving response times. Freshchat’s Advanced Automation feature allows you to create various types of workflows, including auto-responses. These automated messages can be triggered based on specific conditions, such as when a customer is waiting for a response.

For example, you can set up an automated message that says, “Thank you for your patience, one of our agents will get back to you shortly.” This helps manage customer expectations and provides reassurance while they wait for a human agent to respond.

Moreover, Freshchat’s AI-powered chatbots can provide proactive support and guide customers toward self-service options like knowledge bases. These chatbots can handle common queries, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex issues. Even in situations where chatbots can’t fully resolve an issue, they can facilitate intelligent and contextual handovers to human agents, saving significant time and improving overall efficiency.

Creating Canned Responses

Canned responses are predefined reply templates that agents can use to quickly address common customer queries. These templates are particularly useful when your support team receives numerous tickets with similar issues, helping to lower response times and improve agent productivity.

To create a canned response in Freshchat, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Freshchat account as an admin.
2. Navigate to Settings > Canned Responses > Create canned response.
3. Give your canned response a title, such as “How to change a password.”
4. Type your reply, including any necessary emojis or images.
5. Add a shortcode for easy access, like ‘pswd’ or ‘password.’
6. Select a folder under the personal or shared category.

It’s important to note that while canned responses can significantly improve efficiency, they should be used judiciously. To ensure your responses don’t sound robotic, follow these guidelines:

1. Keep the tone conversational and natural.
2. Set clear expectations, especially when follow-up is required.
3. Use canned responses as a starting point, but personalize them when necessary.
4. Regularly review and update your canned responses based on customer feedback and changing needs.

By effectively configuring customer messaging through customized chat widgets, automated messages, and well-crafted canned responses, you can significantly enhance your customer service capabilities in Freshchat. These features work together to provide a seamless, efficient, and personalized support experience for your customers.

Implementing Live Chat Features

Implementing live chat features in Freshchat goes beyond instant messaging, allowing businesses to engage customers proactively and provide comprehensive support. This powerful platform offers advanced capabilities such as ticket management, chat personalization, and real-time analytics to enhance customer interactions.

Training Your Support Team

Effective training is crucial to ensure that customer service agents can leverage Freshchat’s features to their full potential. By focusing on key areas such as communication skills, product knowledge, and problem-solving techniques, businesses can equip their teams to handle inquiries and complaints with empathy and professionalism.

To optimize live chat interactions, support teams should be trained in:

1. Clear communication: Agents should be able to convey information concisely and effectively through text-based conversations.
2. Product knowledge: A deep understanding of the company’s offerings enables agents to provide accurate and helpful responses.
3. Crisis management: Equipping agents with strategies to handle difficult situations can help de-escalate conflicts and maintain customer satisfaction.
4. Customer advocacy: Encouraging agents to act as brand advocates can foster positive relationships with customers.

By investing in comprehensive training programs, businesses can create consistently great customer experiences and transform their support team into brand ambassadors.

Managing Chat Queues

Efficient queue management is essential for handling high volumes of customer inquiries. Freshchat allows businesses to configure wait queues for each chat channel, ensuring that customers are attended to promptly even when agents are busy.

To optimize chat queue management:

1. Set up automated messages to keep customers informed about their position in the queue and estimated wait times.
2. Implement chatbots to handle initial inquiries, filtering and directing customers to the most appropriate resources or human agents.
3. Configure fallback actions for situations where wait times exceed acceptable thresholds, such as offering callback options or redirecting to alternative support channels.

By leveraging these features, businesses can maintain customer satisfaction even during peak periods and ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly.

Using Chat Analytics

Freshchat’s robust analytics capabilities provide valuable insights into chat performance, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve their customer service operations.

Key analytics features include:

1. Conversation overview reports: These reports offer detailed KPIs for chat conversations, including volume, performance, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) analysis.
2. Agent performance metrics: Analyze individual agent performance to identify top performers and areas for improvement.
3. Natural Language Performance (NLP) reports: Evaluate the effectiveness of chatbot responses and identify opportunities to enhance the knowledge base.
4. Custom reports: Create tailored reports to focus on specific metrics relevant to your business goals.

By leveraging these analytics tools, businesses can gain a comprehensive understanding of their chat support effectiveness and make informed decisions to optimize their customer service strategy.

Implementing live chat features in Freshchat empowers businesses to provide exceptional customer support, streamline operations, and drive meaningful engagement. By focusing on team training, efficient queue management, and data-driven insights, companies can harness the full potential of this powerful platform to enhance their customer service capabilities and foster long-term customer relationships.

Conclusion

Freshchat has a significant impact on customer messaging and live chat, offering businesses powerful tools to boost customer engagement and provide top-notch service. By following this guide, companies can set up Freshchat effectively, customize their chat widgets, and implement automated messages and canned responses to streamline their support operations. The platform’s ability to integrate with popular channels like Facebook Messenger allows businesses to meet customers where they’re most comfortable, leading to improved satisfaction and loyalty.

To make the most of Freshchat, it’s crucial to invest time in training your support team, managing chat queues efficiently, and using chat analytics to gain insights. These steps help create a seamless, efficient, and personalized support experience for customers. With its robust features and customization options, Freshchat empowers businesses to enhance their customer service capabilities and build lasting relationships with their audience. In the end, implementing Freshchat can be a game-changer for companies looking to level up their customer support and engagement strategies.

FAQs

How can I set up Freshchat for my team?
To get started with Freshchat, you’ll need to activate your account and set the necessary roles and permissions. Next, invite your team members to join and organize them using agent groups. Additionally, consider implementing a Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) for both your web and mobile SDKs to gauge customer satisfaction through your messaging channels.

What are some effective strategies for interacting with customers via LiveChat?
When using LiveChat to engage with customers, it’s crucial to maintain a conversational tone, ask for additional information when needed, and show empathy. Always avoid saying “I don’t know”; instead, admit faults when necessary and learn to follow up. Ensure you don’t make customers wait too long as maintaining continuity in the conversation is key.

What are the main differences between Zendesk Chat and Freshchat?
Freshchat generally offers a better experience than Zendesk Chat, particularly in areas like chatbots, agent experience, automation, campaigns, live chat functionalities, multilingual support, and analytics. Freshchat also provides superior customer support to assist with any queries you might have.

How should LiveChat be used to enhance customer engagement?
To effectively use LiveChat for customer engagement, personalize your messages and be specific, as live chat is a one-to-one communication tool. Include a call-to-action or pose a question based on your objective, whether it’s to prompt a customer to take action on the page or to initiate a live chat conversation.