8 messaging templates to make customer service a breeze

Customer messaging probably takes way less time and fewer resources than you’d think. 

You don’t need to spend all day hanging around a DM in hopes of solving your customer support woes, and you don’t need complicated, expensive tools with new features to make it happen, either.

Here’s why and how to turn live chat messaging into your customer service ace-in-the-hole, plus eight free customer service templates for handling common customer support issues over live chat.

Why live chat boosts your customer support and customer experience

Using a live chat messaging platform on your website means you don’t have to juggle multiple third-party applications to connect with your customers. 

True, WhatsApp, Facebook, and WeChat are among the most popular messaging apps that let you connect with specific customers. 

However, the most popular apps won’t necessarily be popular with your target audience. 

This is why it’s so important to conduct customer research before you add any new feature or strategy to your online business. Whether you’re gearing up to launch a business for the first time or well into your stride, no rule is more golden than knowing your audience.

For instance, Facebook is quite popular in North America, WeChat is popular in China, and WhatsApp is a hit throughout the world. 

Ergo, using Facebook may not provide a positive experience if most of your customers are in South America. And WeChat may not be ideal if most of your customers reside in North America. 

And none of these options trump providing live chat messaging directly on your website. 

Why? Because when you have live chat on your website, loyal customers, brand new customers, and even prospective customers all over the world can connect with your support team, regardless of their preferred app. 

They can get great customer service upfront without having to worry about leaving a phone number and waiting for a follow-up call.

Plus, on the more self-serving side, live chat messaging can salvage your productivity and help you avoid burnout . 

Research by Rescue Time found that knowledge workers have an average of only two hours and 48 minutes of productive time each day. 

That’s not a ton of time, and if you’re a solopreneur without a customer service team (yet) who’s answering questions every five minutes, it’s rocky to maintain even that much.

Fortunately, live messaging’s asynchronicity means you can block off time for deep work without having to check your inbox constantly or compromising the quality of your customer support. 

Customers can also ask more detailed questions through live chat messaging than on other platforms. It’s a private channel between your business and customer, which allows you to build stronger customer relationships and great customer service.

Needless to say, it takes more than just one follow-up reply to nurture happy customers.  

Research found that only 20% of companies can answer a customer service question on the first reply. 

With a live chat messaging tool, you can send additional questions regardless of if you’re speaking to your customer live or responding to a message a few hours old. 

What’s more, messaging promotes customer satisfaction by giving clients more control of their communications since they can see previous messages they’ve sent to your business. 

This explicit conversation tracking is not only good customer service practice, but it also makes a customer feel heard and validated.

We’ve all been in the position where a company didn’t acknowledge our support request with an email response, or our messages “weren’t received”.

In fact, SuperOffice found that an alarming 62% of businesses don’t respond to customer support emails and support requests with a return support email.

And another 90.5% of businesses don’t even acknowledge when they receive a customer’s email, either. 

A perfect recipe for angry customers, no?

There’s some silver lining here, though. 

This missed mark gives creators and their customer service teams (even if it’s a team of one) the opportunity to set themselves apart by offering a transparent messaging platform, where customers can see their communication history with your business. 

There are no forgotten emails or missed connections (or angry customers) when everyone is on the same page every time.

Besides that, messaging also (obviously) gives you the chance to address your customer needs in real-time, or at least during business hours.

And these days, a timely response to a support request is huge, especially considering a whopping 90% of customers rate an immediate response as important or very important when asking a customer service question.

All this to say, with live chat, the expectation isn’t to wait a few business days to address your customer complaints or tend to support requests. Instead, the customer expectation -- and your ability to meet that expectation -- is more immediate.

This does some beautiful things for your customer experience (CX), and, in turn, has some even more beautiful consequences for your bottom line.

So much so that 65% of American shoppers found that a positive experience with a business was more influential than great advertising. 

On top of that, 75% of consumers have said they want more human interaction from brands. 

Plus, 73% of shoppers say CX is important in their purchasing decisions.

And yet, despite that, half of all consumers said businesses fall short of their CX expectations. 

So, the opportunity is definitely there, and it’s an opportunity your competitors aren’t seizing nearly enough.

As for how to seize it for yourself, the easiest way to use messaging for CX is by being available to answer product questions.

As an example, Nisolo’s messaging tool allows a customer to ask a question about one of their products before they commit to a purchase.

This is important because customers often conduct research before buying a new product. They tend to use a mix of word-of-mouth recommendations, customer reviews, and product reviews, the latter two of which are usually found on Google, before making a decision. 

So, personally answering additional questions is a simple yet powerful way to help them make a decision and influence their perception of your brand. 

Besides that, you can upsell or cross-sell through messaging, too. 

Let’s consider a hypothetical example: 

Say you’re selling a course on micro-influencers through Podia, and a customer has a question about it.

After answering their questions and getting to know their specific needs, you can recommend they purchase a different product instead.

For upselling, you might recommend they purchase a course and coaching bundle, or a longer course with exclusive material, like in this conversation below. 

For cross-selling, you can recommend supplementary mini-courses, a mastermind group , or a membership community program. 

Although suggesting new products may not seem like a way to improve CX, it can. 

Suggestions can make the buying process much more efficient and quick. It can also help customers find the product that will best solve their problem -- a great way to exercise your knowledge base and turn customers into repeat loyal customers.

Lastly, you can use live chat messaging to find out how to give your customers a better user experience on your website. 

If they’ve asked additional questions about where to find certain information or how to do something on your site, use this customer feedback to influence future website changes. 

As an example, nail care brand Zoya includes a small button on their website where visitors can share feedback.

The customer feedback they get from their users can point to areas for improvement to make their website more enjoyable -- or, at least, less frustrating -- to use.

All in all, live chat messaging lets you streamline your customer service effort, avoid tech trouble, respond to support requests promptly, provide great customer service, and improve your customer experience.

A ton of benefits, no?

OK. So, now that you’re (hopefully) sold on the benefits of using live chat messaging . . . how are you supposed to do it? Adding more third-party applications or widgets to your storefront isn’t exactly top of your wishlist.

With Podia, there’s no need, and you can get started in the time it takes to make a new brew of coffee. 

Let me show you how.

How to use live chat messaging on Podia

To start, log in to your Podia dashboard and click on the “Messaging” tab. You’ll be taken to your messaging dashboard, which looks like this. 

From there, head to the bottom left-hand side and click the “Start conversation” button.

Once you do, this will bring up a search bar where you can search for a specific customer to message. 

After you find your customer’s name, click on their name to see their messaging history. 

Besides reviewing past messages, you can also send your customers new messages from here.

You can click on the “Conversations” dropdown menu in the top left-hand bar and view active, archived, and blocked conversations, too. 

The last thing to do in your dashboard is set your availability . 

“Online” means that you’re active and online. 

“Automatic” means that your status will be set to your current status -- online if you’re logged in to your dashboard and away if you’re not. 

“Away” means you’re not online and actively answering messages, even if you are logged in. If you don’t set your availability, it will be automatically set to away. 

“Disabled” means that customers cannot message you or start new conversations. 

And that’s it. Easy-peasy, right?

Now, let’s make it even easier and close out with eight live chat messaging templates for common customer support interactions.

8 free templates for excellent customer support in live chat

Type #1: Helping a customer find information 

Type #2: Website feedback

Type #3: Product idea input

Type #4: Product testing

Type #5: Upselling

Type #6: Cross-selling

Type #7: Negative comment

Type #8: Asking for a discount

If you offer discounts, you could send:

If you don’t offer discounts, you could send:

Message your way to more sales and more happy customers

Live chat messaging may seem like just another new feature or customer support tool. It’s anything but. 

Customer messaging holds great potential for creators looking to give their clients a better customer experience with their business. 

To that end, you can use messaging to: 

• Reach customers across the world with a positive experience

• Provide customer support in real-time or during set business hours 

• Use messaging to answer support requests more thoroughly

• Offer specific customers a more transparent way to communicate with your company

• Answer product and additional questions

• Seek customer feedback about your future and new products

• Upsell and cross-sell your other products

• Get ideas on how to improve your product 

You can unlock messaging’s power for your business by signing up for your free Podia account and setting up messaging in mere minutes. 

And if you have any questions on how to get started, feel free to send us a live chat message through Podia’s homepage messaging tool -- we’re always happy to help.