UK ISP TalkTalk Puts More Effort into Providing Support via Online Chat

Budget Internet and phone provider TalkTalk has teamed up with LivePerson in order to “move” from traditional telephone-based customer service to a “more advanced online engagement technology“. Apparently this means “quadrupling” the number of customer service enquiries it handles via online chat agents.

TalkTalk claims to have surveyed their customer behaviour and concluded that subscribers “increasingly prefer to self-serve online“, although no doubt there’s probably also an element of cost savings involved.

The solution, it would seem, is for TalkTalk to spend the next 12 months boosting their online chat services and thus lowering calls to the existing telephone support lines.

Sholto Mee, Head of Customer Services for TalkTalk, said:

“Our customers don’t always want to have to pick up the phone or send an email when they need help online. They want fast help, in real-time, while they are on-site. We believe that digital customer service is the future, and we want our customers to be at the forefront of that revolution.

As the traditional ways of interacting with customers, like telephone hotlines, become obsolete, it’s vital that we invest in new technologies like LivePerson’s LiveEngage to maintain high levels of customer service in the brave new digital world.”

According to TalkTalk, the number of telephone calls into their contact centre have already halved over the last three years, with customer engagement via their online ‘My Account’ service increasing “dramatically” over the same period. Mind you Ofcom has also forced the ISP to correct a number of customer service failings over the past few years, which might have played a part.

Funnily enough TalkTalk’s website already offers an online chat service, although when we checked a moment ago it stated: “Chat Offline – Sorry, no available agents“. We’re assuming they’ll soon have more agents in order to deliver what they describe in today’s update as “the human touch“. Queue gushing PR video.. HERE.