To Live Chat or Not to Live Chat

Eric Blackwell · 02-19-2006, 04:57 AM

I have been entertaining the notion of live chat on our website. There are a couple of services who offer this for relatively little money. Has anyone used live chat services and what has been the response?

Please respond only if you have tried it. What I am looking for here is empirical evidence to support either doing it or not doing it.

Also, if you have, what hours have been effective???

Thanks!

Cheers! (in advance

)

Eric

HouseboyMike · 10:28 AM

I only have a little bit of info. on this, since I installed chat less than 2 weeks ago. I went with www.velaro.com for the customizable chat window and the test drive was better than a competitors'.
I didn't expect chat requests, but I've been surprised to receive 6 requests since I activated it a week ago. For perpective, I have about 70 unique visitors daily. 5 of the 6 requests came between 10:00a.m. and 1:00p.m. all weekdays.
What I like about the service is that it signals you when somebody is on your site and, most important, you can open a chat window on their screen and offer your assistance with the push of a button! Free 2 week trial, and no I'm not a paid affiliate ;-} I just remembered the name of the competitor, boldchat. I just didn't like the window and couldn't make it smaller.
btw, I'm still working on a graphic logo for the chat window, so the button on my site usually says I'm Offline. The chat requests came despite the offline message.

Eric Blackwell · 02-21-2006, 10:36 AM

Thanks.

BTW- I grew up in Manteca, CA...Good to talk to someone from that neck of the woods. I have lived in the Louisville KY area for 10 years or so.

My site gets much more traffic than that (110 agents and all)... I was wondering it anybody actually climbed on the thing and talked with you. Sounds like they do....interesting.--For me the question would be how to manage that in the most efective way possible.

Houseboy--i'd like to PM you about some of the competitor products you've looked at if that's OK.

Any other folks out there with experience with puting live chat on their site?

Cheers...

Eric

HouseboyMike · 02-23-2006, 11:12 PM

Eric,
To check out ten top chat programs go to http://live-chat-support-software-re...ow-review.html. The 3rd program looks good for 110 agents. Wish I'd found this site earlier.
Manteca? This world is sooo small. You wouldn't recognise the place now. Movie theater, shopping centers, even has a starbucks! Newer homes going for half a mil.

Eric Blackwell · 02-24-2006, 01:55 AM

Mike;

Thanks for the great info. I am going to try one that is not listed here called 121 Limited. (One to One). They actually employ an operator for me and the I just get the email... I will let you know how it goes. I am simply to busy with the website and being the tech guy with 110 agents to deal with having to make sure someone is the operator (or dealing with it myself-which is how it usually ends up). I don;t want to creat more complexity in the site, but since I am not asking for email addresses up front (vow-style) we get our leads off of requested showings and so forth. I can't help but think this will add more leads for folks with questions.

Either way, if I don't like what i'm seeing, I will grab one off of the list and try it out.

Manteca was a great place to grow up. (Went to elementary and middle school there)...Is Lincoln Elementary still around? We moved up past Lockeford when I was in High School,but we used to cruise Pacific Avenue on Friday nights....
Everything except the smell of the sugar factory in that place was cool...I can only imagine the number of houses that now replace the agriculture....Hard to farm when you can plant 500k houses...grin

Eric

Jnazareno · 03-11-2006, 07:45 PM

So are things working out for you guys (live chat)?
let us know please

AaronSOLD · 03-12-2006, 12:56 PM

What I would love to see a way to connect a chat session on my web site with my Palm Treo for always-on-the-go availability. That way I can respond to chat requests with users even while not at my PC. I'd want to be able to turn this program off frequently though... for appointments and whatnot

Anyone have any ideas on this? Anyone else think this is a cool idea?

Eric Blackwell · 03-12-2006, 01:32 PM

Update from Eric on Live Chat...

It is early on still, but this stuff looks encouraging... Mike uses a company that provides the software where he answers the live chat himself. I am currently testing a different solution.

It is answered by a third party provider from 9am to midnight M-F and 9-5 on weekends. To date, I have had a couple of people come in and chat on it and they have done a pretty good job of responding...

The cool part about the way I did it is that as soon as the chat is over, an email transcript is sent directly to my phone so that I can deal with it (since I have 110 agents in this office, I handle things a bit differently, but you can get it sent directly to you...) This allows for quick response without sitting by the computer all day or other such overhead. Costs on this solution were surprisingly affordable...

I will be trying it out on a Search Engine Marketing client in the mortgage business and will report back to you with how things are going...Our goal their is to further drive the response rate up since this is a PPC campaign and every click count$$$...

(Yes, I am starting an SEO solution for them shortly.....Diet Mt. Dew here I come...

)

If you are interested in more details PM me...I have NO stake in the third party provider I am using and don't want to SPAM. Simply happy to share with those who are interested. (It's not like you can't go to my site and see what I am up to...)

Overall, I am pretty pleased with the outcome, but like I said at the top...it is still early.

Cheers;

Eric Blackwell · 03-12-2006, 01:40 PM

Additional note for Jnazareno....

I have got to think that the Bay Area folks in Ca. would be even more into this than my clientele in Louisville KY...

This ain't Technological Mecca (so to speak)...

(Louisville is FUN though...

I will follow up with info on the mortgage campaign since it is national in scope and I will be able to see whether acceptance is spotty or not from the public...

Cheers.

Eric

HouseboyMike · 03-17-2006, 11:07 AM

Are things working out? I'd have to say no. I receive a chat request per 100 unique visits, but I miss most of the chat requests, so I think Eric's provider has a better solution. I'm gonna make the switch.

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