Live Chat Goes Social

Allison Howen
by Allison Howen 10 Nov, 2015

TouchCommerce is helping businesses offer social customer service with the launch of its new solution dubbed TouchSocial.

TouchSocial enables brands to respond to consumers on social networks with the purpose of increasing customer satisfaction and conversion. To leverage the solution, social media agents can answer a customer comment on social with a response that includes an invitation link. Once the consumer clicks on the link, a personalized chat or self-service engagement begins on the brand's website. What's more, the link includes the specific information about the customer comment so that the brand's agent can continue the conversation without interruption.

"Consumers trust the opinions of their social network much more than messages coming directly from the brand," said Bernard Louvat, president and CEO of TouchCommerce. "With the launch of TouchSocial, our clients have a unique opportunity to turn a social conversation into a personalized engagement experience that harnesses the power of social media to extend the reach of the brand. Truly personalized, real-time interactions can deeply enhance customer satisfaction, attract new buyers and boost revenues." 

With more consumers turning to social to give feedback and ask questions, it is important that brands are responsive in this channel. TouchSocial leverages the TouchCommerce Invitation API and generates special URLs that are embedded in social posts. This allows brands to offer real-time assistance to customers directly on social networks while also shifting the conversation to a private interaction on the brand's website. Moving the conversation to the brand's website not only alleviates public displays of customer grievances, but also enables brands to have more personal interactions with customers, which leads to more positive sentiment, reviews and recommendations.

On the back-end, the TouchCommerce RighTouch platform uses product information, prior browsing behavior (when available) and the company's Web-based user interface to present personalized content to consumers, either through the live chat session or an automated engagement tool like a product guide. If routed to a live expert, the chat agent has access to all of the customer's information so he or she can provide the shopper with rich content like videos, coupons, guides and surveys, as well as details about local retail locations and more.