Is It Worth the Extra Cost to Use US-Based Live Chat Agents?

When you look at your business expenses a common goal is to want them to be as small as possible. Less cost = more profit right?

While reducing expense as much as possible is logical, it doesn’t work in all aspects of the business. One such aspect being with your live chat service, and live chat agents in particular. 

When implementing live chat on your website, you get what you pay for. And that’s why we always advocate for U.S. based live chat agents. Yes, even if it’s more expensive than outsourcing to an overseas company.

Understanding live chat and live chat agents

In order to understand why we advise business owners to settle for U.S. based live chat agents despite the higher price, we’ll have to understand the importance of live chat first.

What is live chat?

Live chat is a way of communicating with your customers online via a live chat platform. While its greatest strength lies in customer service, live chat can be used at any stage of your sales and marketing funnel.

What is a live chat agent?

Live chat agents are the (real) people that your customers interact with when using your live chat system. Because of the sensitive nature of your (and every other) business, it’s important that your live chat agents be well trained to properly respond to your customers’ questions and guide them to the best solution.

3 reasons using U.S based live chat agents is worth the extra cost

Now that you know the importance of live chat and the role live chat agents play, let’s look at the reasons why it’s best for you to use U.S. based live chat agents. 

1. Know your customers better

If you are to grow a successful business, you need to be able to understand your customers well. Not only that, but you need to be able to communicate with them in a way they understand.

This is the main reason you need to prioritize U.S. based live chat agents.

While overseas-based agents are well versed in English, there are certain terms and cultural references that can easily get lost in translation. Minor as these may be, they can lead to confusion and, ultimately, a loss of business. 

2. Understand your business climate better

Running a good business demands that you not only understand your customers but also understand the local business environment. This is important as it allows you to adapt when necessary and offer relevant advice to your customers. It also helps you empathize with them. When it comes to customer support, empathy is an important element to ensuring greater customer satisfaction rates.  

3. Familiar with local regulations

Another important reason to use U.S. based live chat agents is that they are more familiar with any laws or regulations governing your business or products. This ensures a smooth flow of communication whereas, with overseas live chat agents, there will be breaks in communication as they may have to research before responding. Worse still, they may mislead customers, leading to your business losing credibility.‍

Smith.ai Live Web Chat Free Trial‍

It's time to try live chat on your website. Just one new client captured via chat can pay for a year (or more) of Smith.ai's live web chat service. We provide fully staffed live website chat with professional U.S.-based agents. Outsourced live chat is best for small businesses like law firms, ecommerce businesses, IT consultants, financial planners, property managers, realtors, and marketing agencies (to name just a few!).

Our U.S.-based agents are highly skilled and can answer common questions about your business, qualify new leads, schedule appointments, take payments, and more. You stay in the loop when chat transcripts are sent to you after each conversation and logged in your CRM. There's no setup fee, services are month-to-month with no annual contract, and plans start at just $100/month. Learn more and get started with a 10-chat / 30-day free trial!