Few people know that they can be rewarded to work as live chat agents for The Chat Shop. If you love sharing your knowledge and interacting with others online, then you will enjoy being a live chat agent for this company.
A day in the life of a live chat agent is filled with interesting and complex issues you solve for different clients. You drive conversations and turn frustrated customers to enthusiastic ones with the click of a mouse.
The Chat Shop
The Chat Shop is a company with its headquarters in London. It was founded in 2012 by two young men Jonny and Joe, who had the vision to start a company using an underutilized service.
They enable clients to generate more sales and improve customer service by providing live chat services. Their two main services include live chat outsourcing services and live chat consulting services.
They provide live chat agents to companies that want to outsource this service. The live chat services they provide to companies include:
- Live chat outsourcing for sales
- Live chat outsourcing for support
- Out of hours live chat outsourcing
- Dedicated live chat outsourcing
- Analytics analysis
- Strategy development
Their specific services include:
- Lead generation
- Sales enablement
- PPC conversions
- Customer experience
- Personalization
- Email marketing
- Cart abandonment
- Form completion
- Lead qualification
- Customer engagement
- Customer service
They also offer consultation to companies who need to start live chat services through their various consulting programs based on the learnings they have gained from their daily live chat experiences.
The Chat Shop’s recipe for success is three-fold:
- A rigorous application process where they take only the best 1% of all applicants to become live chat agents. They mostly hire native English speakers from the UK and US although they also hire applicants from other locations if they meet their standards.
After hiring, their live chat agents go through over 100 hours of paid training.
- Ongoing development – this is technology-driven and each live chat agent has a personal development plan with weekly measurement metrics.
- Outstanding results – they have an industry-leading 27-second average response time and a 99% customer satisfaction rate. They also boast of a high lead generation rate.
The live chat agent job
As a live chat agent for The Chat Shop, you work as part of a global team representing their customers. There is no boredom in this job as each chat is unique. Spanning from selling properties to discussing holiday destinations and providing customer support, your day is a roller coaster of events.
Requirements to work as a live chat agent
You need the following skills to work as a live chat agent for The Chat Shop:
- Native-level English skills
- Organized and attentive to details
- Ability to focus, multi-task and work under high-pressure environments
- Positive personality and an inquisitive mind
- Able to type over 65 words per minute with a 97% accuracy. Note that your typing speed is tested before getting the job.
Other requirements
- Availability of 20 to 40 hours per week
- Have a distraction-free workspace
- Have a reliable Internet connection
- Have a dual monitor setup
The application process to be a live chat agent for The Chat Shop
To be a live chat agent for the Chat Shop, you go through a rigorous application process. They accept only 1% of applicants to be live chat agents.
You apply online and provide
- A copy of your resume
- A screenshot of your typing test results
- A screenshot of your internet speed results
You will then answer several questions regarding your interest in the job, your attributes as a professional, your location, your availability and your skill set, among others.
Your availability when applying for the position of a live chat agent is critical because they require you to attend 100 hours of interactive training once hired.
The training requires full attention, and it is impossible to do it while attending to other duties. The good news is that you get paid for this training.
Once you pass the application stage, their recruitment team arranges a chat interview, a phone interview, and an assessment test for you. It is not until they offer you a job that they do a reference check. Your referees should be ready as you go through the above interviews in case they need to contact them.
Payment for live chat agent jobs
According to Glassdoor, The Chat Shop pays its live chat agents an average starting salary of $10 per hour. When you add in additional compensation and bonuses, a live chat agent working for The Chat Shop can make over $22,000 in annual salary.
Wrapping it up
If you are a fast typist, love solving people’s problems and can make a client feel like they are talking to a real human being and not a machine, then you should definitely give The Chat Shop a try.
You will enjoy solving people’s problems and making them feel much better even if they didn’t get what they wanted. Your warmth, personality, and that human connection are what they need to make their clients open up to you as if you have been friends for many years. Go for it, start your career as a live chat agent for The Chat Shop here.
