Help when help is needed: Keep your charity accessible this Christmas with Live Chat Software

It’s Christmas! Which means that charities, like yours, are inundated with requests of all sorts, from well wishing enquirers, to businesses wanting to donate in the spirit of Christmas, and from those who need aid.

It’s easy during the holiday period, to sign off and leave the office in favour of spending quality time with family and friends but it’s not that simple as a charity. This is the time of the year when people in need require your services the most. It’s not only hard for some people emotionally at Christmas, for some, winter brings physical challenges. Knowing this, it’s hard to keep your doors open 24 hours a day, Sunday to Sunday, throughout the holiday period. This is why keeping your communication channels open, and your knowledge bank accessible digitally, is so crucial. Keeping warm could be life or death for someone, and knowing where to go or who to turn to could be answered easily without your direct intervention immediately.

FAQ’s make information independent

The first point of contact for any charity at this time of the year should be an updated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section. This will help ease the pressure off of the telephone lines and provide a quick and easy way to get immediate answers for the person in need of them. This is also a reference point, should someone need that information in future, it’s available from a mobile device, literally in the palm of their hand. Using technology, you can close the gap a little between those in need and getting help in a discreet, independent way.

It’s not just all talk; it’s about the chat!

The second point of primary contact should be live chat. Live chat software allows staff and volunteers to help your website visitors in a private, one-on-one method, making those who have enquiries feel more comfortable and more at ease. Because Click4Assistance’s live chat software is secured to the highest level of encryption, visitors can feel more confident that their conversations are safe, secure, and private. This can make your charity much more productive, as customer service agents can speak with three people at a time, and reduce the strain on your phone lines.

Video chat is also a great way to communicate with those who are sign-language oriented or those who have difficulty speaking over the phone. This also adds more credibility to your charity and develops more trust between your customer service agents and your visitors, both those giving and those receiving.

Also, with Click4Assistance’s software, you have the ability to route the live chat immediately to the right person. For instance, if you have a page about donating toys to less-fortunate children, someone initiating a live chat from that page can be directed to the person assigned to manage communication for that specific project. This saves a lot of time and hassle for both your team and the Good Samaritan making the enquiry.

Time to get social with your live chat software

Social media has exploded globally and is the second place, after Google, where most people search for things. It’s also one of the main methods of communication, since instant messaging is a core feature of nearly all social networks. Like live chat, social media messaging is direct, one-on-one, private and trusted. Social media is also widely accessible, which makes it massively convenient for everyone to use, from nearly any device. As a result of its rise to global domination, charities have been using social media as a means of communication and marketing. If you want to exist, you essentially need to be on social media, and also be active on social media. The great thing about this is that Click4Assistance live chat software integrates seamlessly with social media, including Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. This means that all your direct messaging communication can be managed in one place.

The Graveyard Shifts: that’s what automation is for

What about when you’re offline or out of office? What if your charity doesn’t have volunteers or staff members who are willing or available to work outside of your official hours? Enter stage left, the smartContact enquiry form. What makes this form a little different from your standard contact form is you can tailor this to capture the information you might need to provide an answer as you reply when you are available. This reduces the back and forth, and increases your efficiency and productivity ten-fold.

You can also take your charity to the next level of automation by using our AI ChatBot, who can answer questions for you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Isn’t it great to have someone who works for you all the time, doesn’t need sleep, and doesn’t get tired of speaking to multiple people at the same time? The AI ChatBot can provide the first level of communication as well, acting as a buffer to gather initial information which it will then use to direct the live chat to the right person, and also engaging a user as soon as they initiate a conversation, increasing visitor satisfaction rates.

By using alternative methods of communication, you save both time and money, which is necessary as a charity. Reaching the right people the first time around, being able to communicate more easily with those who have communication difficulties, employing the highest level of encryption to keep conversations private and secure, and engaging an enquirer immediately with an AI ChatBot, keep your charity’s customer service in high review. But most of all, keeping your charity accessible to those who need it, any time and from any device, is crucial.

Make your charity more effective, efficient, productive and cost effective with the UK’s premier GDPR compliant live chat software solution, Click4Assistance, by giving us a call on 08451235871 or sending an email theteam@click4assistance.co.uk. One of our team experts will be with you right away.