What Are Chat Logs?

Online chat has become an important part of business communication in recent years. Chat logs enhance online chat with a persistent record of information exchanged and decisions reached.

In a sales and customer service context, chat sessions are invaluable. They offer customers the option of real-time feedback without the need for a phone conversation. For internal business communications, companies have come to rely on chat as a comfortable middle-ground between the immediacy of a phone call and the relatively static nature of email correspondence.

How Chat Logs Work

The real-time nature of chat sessions is undoubtedly convenient, but chat on its own has one significant drawback: the information isn’t stored and sorted for later use.

Chat logs:

• Maintain a persistent record of chat conversations

• Allow teams to review the entirety of important conversations without having been present

• Can be searched and analyzed. Some chat log implementations even allow team members to manually tag and categorize important decisions in real-time, making it a trivial matter to find those reference points later on.

Who Should Use Chat Logs?

Any company that relies on chat to reach internal decisions or to nurture relationships with customers and clients can benefit from the persistent and searchable record afforded by quality chat log functionality.

Benefits & Advantages of Chat Logs

• Referring back to critical conversations for future reference: Chat on its own is unreliable as an archive. Chat logs fix this limitation.

• Easier onboarding of new staff: Chat logs also allow new staff to observe, via text, key decision points even if they predate their arrival.

• More efficient remote team management: This functionality allows traveling staff to participate in online chat from any location and device. Moreover, even if they’re unable to participate in real time, they can review chat log data to revisit critical conversations at a later date.