Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Definition

Live support is also known as live help or live chat. According to Webopedia, live support is a web service that allows businesses to communicate, or chat, in real time with visitors to their web site. Live support is used to give immediate response, customer support and information to website visitors and customers. Exact features and functions of live support are application specific, however you can generally expect a live chat application to provide real time visitor monitoring, custom chat windows, invisible traffic analysis, web site integration and secure administration controls. [1] Live supports are now more customizable and efficient.

 

Benefits

Live chat support offers many benefits. One benefit that users enjoy is the ability to take more than one chat at a time. Unlike phone calls, operators can only talk to one person a time. In this way, productivity is highly practiced. With regards to the cost of maintenance, users only need to maintain their websites as opposed to the maintenance of phones which is more costly. According to industry estimates, e-support can cost a company as little as 25 cents per interaction compared to as much as $25 for a telephone inquiry.[2] An example of online chat being more efficient medium than telephone is 1-800-Flowers reports that chat agents can handle four concurrent customers within about six minutes while telephone inquiries average three minutes per call, thus half as efficient.[3]

 

From the Managing Web-Based Customer Experiences - Dr. Jon Anton, Director of Benchmark Research at Purdue University`s Center for Customer-Driven Quality said "Internet chat has to be the most under-recognized and under-utilized communication method available to man. Chat agents can handle 2 to 3 customers simultaneously. Companies can use domestic and/or offshore agents. For these reasons, chat is typically delivered at one third the cost of a phone call and First Time Resolution (FTR or FCR) rates are significantly higher than email and at least equal to those obtained over the phone."[4] In terms of cost in hiring people, saving employee costs is also a benefit of using live chat supports. With all these, business or website owners can definitely minimize costs.

So why not use IM instead of live support? The answer is live chat software is a better customer support than YM, ICQ or AIM because customers do not need to download and install the software. It saves customer’s time and is more convenient. Here are some sites from important people for the benefits of live support:

As Tod Famous, product manager for Cisco`s customer contact business unit said "one fundamental requirement for e-commerce text chat is that when the user clicks, they`re talking to an agent really fast. The more steps you put in, the more likely they are to basically abandon [your site] and go somewhere else.”

Jim Rapp, vice president of marketing for E-commerce Support Centers, Inc. said "It just takes away a whole irritant factor. They don`t have to experience the pain and agony of trying to follow directions over the phone. It speeds up the process and gives our reps an opportunity to expose people to more places on the Web site."

 

Illustration

Stephanie Losi, a consumer and contributor of the Live Interaction Apps article said that live chat seemed pretty similar to the function of freely available programs like ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and most CRM software isn`t free: LivePerson`s software suite starts at a base price of US$2,000, plus $350 per seat per month; Cisco`s WebLine text chat and callback software costs about $2500 per seat. It would really cost a lot to pay for live supports years before, but now you can get a CRM software for as low as $... a month or do not pay anything at all with free trials. Take advantage of free trials like live support provider Crmsoft, Crmsoft offers a 60-day trial wherein users will have enough time to sort and know more about the product without paying a single dime.

 

 

Importance

There has been a prediction that 67 million US online customers will use chat for service in 2007.[5] As years pass more and more business will use live support and take advantage of its features. And as years pass live support will no longer be a marketing tool or add-on, it will be essential in all websites. As Dr. Anton said “the ability to greet customers `at the door` and provide live customer support and service is no longer an added feature. There is no doubt in anyone`s mind that chat room technology is already considered a necessity for doing business online, and as the technology improves and the cost comes down, there is simply no reason to be without it!"[6] There is nothing like live interaction!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

CIO Today. Live Interaction Apps: Are They Worth It? Stephanie Losi. January 8, 2001.
http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/6521.html

Crmsoft:Total Communication Solution. Crmsoft.com 2006
http://www.crmsoft.com

Internet.com. Jupitermedia Corporation. 2006. http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/live_support.html

Kinesis. Online Intimacy: Developing the Potential of Live chat. 2001
http://www.kinesis-cem.com/Insights/online_intimacy.html

MyWorldChat. VOIP Trend. Raissa Publishing. 2005.
http://myworldchat.com/netwise/trends.html

Techtarget. E-support. 2000-2006
http://searchcrm.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid11_gci8195 89,00.html

Great article!

You mentioned that most CRM isn`t free and I wanted to mention SugarCRM as a free, open source option. They have a plug in to integrate with Shine Live Help, which makes live help an even greater benefit for us.