Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have been considering adding live chat to some of our web pages to help our visitors find what they are looking for faster.  I understand this can also help decrease potential customer loss.  So far I have only found the following two companies that offer this service:

http://www.liveperson.com
http://www.velaro.com

Has anyone used these or any others succesfully?

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Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

I used live person for a long while, including when it was free ;)

I also used humanclick?  and at least one open source type program, too.

Personally, I did not find it to increase sales.  Instead I found lots of people wanting to play with it to see how it works!

What I do find is that making sure your contact info is everywhere is helpful.  I put mine on the top, bottom and side of each page.   I do not use a graphic image for my contact info, which many people seem to do (because of harvestors) but dont` realize how bad that is for customer service. 

Instead for less than $75 bucks, I had a programmer create me a contact form, that so far, after 2 years, is working AOK with just one situation of spammes and he took care of that (he changed the code a bit).  I have a different email for it than anything else and if need be or when I feel like it ;)  I change the email address for the form on the website.  Just to be one step ahead of the harvestors.

Thank you for the input!  I wondered if it would become a toy.

I think we have done a good job dealing with your points at our site and I totally agree with what you are saying.  We thought this might be useful where a customer wants something beyond the norm.  We have a few pages where we cover these types of issues but we thought it might be nice to have a chat option available on those pages only.  Some times when you get into the technical points of explaining our product it can be falsely over whelming.  We are afraid we are losing them in the technical information even though any user can do it.  We thought if we could catch them for a quick chat we could ease their concerns and close more sales in this area.  This is why we are looking at these services.

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Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

I`ve used crafty syntax  for a client for customer support. When live, you can chat (and it can record the chat so you can have a record of what was "said"). When not live it allows people to send a message (like email).

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

I`ve just started using ChatStat  The basic services is free, runs off your desktop and you only pay for the features you need.  Their customer service is top notch too.  They actually went to my site after the code was installed and chatted with me to make sure I didn`t have any questions.

Chatstat is very cool and there is also chat with me now.
Take a look at both of these. Not to sure if they will increase sales, but they are free and in that case they make cents!!!


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Gylon Jackson
Never let a how get in the way of a great WHAT!   
gylonjackson.com
amiridesign.com
dontbarkbite.com
amiridesign.com
17best.com

Disclosure one: I work for Velaro.  Disclosure two: I`m not a sales guy.  Obviously I prefer our company to Live Person. It`s the best place I`ve worked in the technology industry, the owners love what they do, they take a lot of pride in customer satisfaction and helping small businesses.  We`re a successful start-up ourselves.  If  I can be of any assitance, feel free to drop me a line:  chad AT velaro DOT com, or call me and I`ll answer any questions: 800-983-5276 ext 41.  Good luck with your search. 

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www.velaro.com

We are using liveperson and We provide Live chat  for websites helpdesk providing 24x7 live chat live help support services ane email management services.