Top benefits of live chat vs. other online communication

When Olark was founded, way back in 2009, most businesses offered one of two basic online communication options: email and web forms. There have been a lot of changes since then! Today, businesses communicate with customers not just via live chat, but also via online messaging, social media, and more.

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Customer Service Trends in the Netherlands

The following article comes from Olark contributor Tessa Metselaar at Bynder.

Customer care in the Netherlands is at a crossroads.

As Rene Djuricek, Owner of Netherlands-based Meesterslijpers says, "The days of customers using only email and telephone to contact businesses are over. Customers want to contact a business the same way they contact their friends and family."

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Making Live Chat Human: Optimization vs. Sentiment Analysis

In Artificial Intelligence, a lot of people extol the ability to automate repetitive tasks.

I’m more interested in how AI can enhance human decision making. At RapportBoost.AI, where I’m Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist, we leverage Artificial Intelligence to help online brands communicate more effectively with their customers via live chat.

In this post I’m going to talk about three different AI technologies available to companies to enhance their live chat implementation.

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Emerging Trends in UK Customer Service [Interviews]

What does it take to provide the best customer service in the UK? 10 UK-based SMBs offer their thoughts.

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What being a Mom has taught me about customer service

Hi! I’m Barbara. I’ve been chatting at Olark for over four years now, and I’ve been in various forms of customer service for almost 20.

In addition to that I’m a wife, a mom and a human with my own interesting life. Just kidding - my family and work make up most of (and the best parts of) my interesting life.

When I first started working at Olark I wanted to chat. All work day, all chat. My boss wasn't sure that was such a good idea.

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Service Standards: The challenge of making them human

The Customer Service team at Olark recently published our first set of service standards, and we’re pretty excited about it!

Here we have some of the Olark Customer Service team, frolicking happily on a recent team retreat, including Dennis (holding the paper pad above his head), Emily to his left, Brian to her left, Alicia across from Brian, Rhi getting ready to make notes happen, Sarah listening attentively, and Brooke sporting our retreat hoody from Estes Park.
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How we migrated 500K+ customer cases to Help Scout

When you have a case history in excess of half a million, the thought of switching help desk software can be more than a little daunting. But in June of this year, the Customer Service team at Olark decided to take the plunge.

As we undertook this behemoth of a help desk migration, we made a note of some of the things we did to make it go smoothly.

Today, we’re sharing our top tips with you!

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Customer Service Trends in Germany

The following article comes from Olark contributor Caroline Klein at Bynder, a digital asset management platform.

German companies are under pressure to adapt their customer service to changing customer needs and expectations. They need to understand the influence of digitization on customer service and review new channels and technologies to understand how German customer care can be improved.

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How to handle customer complaints effectively

An essential part of onboarding new customer support operators is teaching them the right way to talk to customers who aren't happy. Today Alex Ivanovs, of Stack Diary and business/startup columnist for Huffington Post, shares some of his tips for handling customer complaints.

Difficult customers are part of the business process. Nobody likes dealing with them, but often we have to. It's best to be prepared for these situations - like when a customer is typing in ALL CAPS - as some customers might take it a little bit too far.

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UK Customer Service Trends

This following article comes from Olark contributor Jack Saville at Bynder Digital Asset Management. Today Jack's sharing current emerging trends for UK customer services, a topic which should prove particularly helpful for those who already have a customer base in the UK or are looking to expand.

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