Over the past year, we’ve seen a significant increase in users preferring chat interfaces / applications over texting, emailing, and of course, the dreaded phone call. We’ve seen key players like Facebook and Lyft create their own messaging features within their native mobile apps to great success.

According to Gartner, “by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human.”

So how can you leverage this trend to your advantage? To start, try integratingchat features into your sales or customer support services. There are many third-party applications out there – we really like LiveChat. It’s easy to set up and allows for a hybrid human / bot experience.

Tips for using chat:

  • Embrace humanistic language and interactions
  • If using a chatbot, reduce the learning curve by providing guided calls to action and use context to anticipate the user’s needs
  • Remember what makes chat so effective: simple, easy, and fast
  • Always make it easy for users to give feedback

For a full overview on chat interfaces and best practices, check out our “Chat as Interface” presentation here: https://iterationgroup.attach.io/Hkcjn3rn.