Sky Betting and Gaming, a subsidiary of BSkyB, has launched a
live chat facility on its websites to improve customer support.
Powered by
Talisma Chat, customers to the Sky Bet, Sky Poker, Sky Vegas
and Sky Bingo websites can now receive live, 24-hour assistance by
clicking on a "start a chat" button.
The service has already increased the number of interactions
with customers by 20%, despite a 30% reduction in incoming
e-mails.
Sky Betting and Gaming went live with Talisma Chat on 5 April,
on the day of the Grand National, and held 770 live chat sessions
with visitors to skybet.com.
Following this successful pilot, Sky Betting and Gaming rolled
out the customer interaction technology across all website products
on 5 May, and its 40-strong customer service team can now provide
instant responses to customer queries.
Collaboration features allow Sky Betting and Gaming agents to
push web pages to customers in a live session.
For example, they could be given the latest results of a
football match, or they could co-browse product websites to help
them find exactly what they are looking for, such as the latest
odds on Big Brother, or details of televised poker tournaments.
Peter Nolan, customer operations director of Sky Betting and
Gaming, said, "All our products are live and we must be able to
help our customers at their exact point of need, which is why
online chat is ideal".
Nolan said, "Whilst we have significantly reduced the number of
incoming e-mails, the ease of use and live nature of Talisma Chat
has encouraged our customers to become really proactive about
contacting us.
"We are already averaging 300 chat sessions per day just weeks
after going live."
In addition to assisting front-line staff, Talisma Chat is
enabling Sky Betting and Gaming's management team to continuously
review its service levels, by providing access to service level
dashboards, timers, historical and real-time reports, and chat
transcripts, to identify opportunities for improvement and monitor
agent performance.