No need to phone, have a chat

Telecom's livechat links with its website.

You can chat online with your mates, and now Telecom can connect you with its sales staff through its new online messaging system.

Telecom said sales conversion rates were seven times higher on live chat during its first two weeks of operation last month than calls to its call centres.

The online chats are with staff in the company's Auckland head office, but Telecom has not ruled out having queries dealt with by overseas agents.

Telecom's head of channel planning and operations, Russell Stephens, said setting up the chat option was part of the company's plan to turn its call centres into contact centres.

This has meant opening up more self-service options through its website and phone lines, including the ability to check bills over the phone.

It has boosted what Stephens calls assisted service - including chat - and has half a dozen more developments in the pipeline in the next 12 months.

RightNow, which provides the chat software, is also used by Air NZ to chat with customers buying tickets online for its business class seats.

Like Air NZ, Telecom will initially have chat available on parts of its website where consumers are considering purchases of items such as Tivo, mobile phones, mobile plans, broadband and landline services.

Telecom's lead manager of digital channels, Jonathan Morris, said chat was aimed at helping reduce "purchase friction" - anything that gets in the way of the customer making a purchase.

It means people browsing the website no longer have to get on the phone to have questions asked.

Morris said chat was unemotional and dispassionate compared to a call to a call centre.

"It's a very convenient way to get engagement with customers and answer questions they might have."

It also opened the opportunity to have chats answered by customer service staff at home or overseas.

Stephens said the change in focus from call centre to a contact centre reduced the geographic constraints for staff dealing with queries.

"It's about where the skill is as opposed to where the telephony points you," he said. "It could be anywhere the right skills are."

While a single chat session may last longer than a traditional call to a call centre, Telecom staff handling the chat sessions - 14 trained staff at one of the company's head office call centres - can run more than one session at a time.

Stephens said budget airlines in Europe often had one staff member handling nine chats simultaneously.

The service now accounts for only 1 per cent of interactions using all methods of contacting the company, but Stephens said Telecom was hoping to lift this 5 per cent of the 10 million interactions the company has with consumers each month.