June 10, 2010

Review: Best Live Chat Software

Best Live Chat Software chat services allow operators to interact with online customers and respond to their questions quickly, helping you convert web queries into customers and site traffic into transactions.

Online consumers are some of the most impatient and demanding around. They expect answers from your online support group right away when they’re only as quick as their computer's Internet connection and processor speed.

Some Features:

Easy Setup & Operation

Look for a live chat service that is simple to set up and maintain.

Customer Convenience

Little conveniences make all the difference to a customer, like knowing their question is receiving attention even before the live chat operator sends the response (typing indicator) or the offer to email a transcript of the live chat session to the customer afterward.

Big conveniences make a difference too, like your customers' ability to receive documents, images or the right webpage from your live chat operator. Look for features like these to delight customers.

Operator/Manager Convenience

Make live chat simple, not a chore for your operators. Features that add to operator convenience include: prewritten chat greetings you can edit, visual and sound alerts, a built-in spellchecker, ability to run several chat sessions at the same time and the ability to transfer live chats to other operators.

Built-in, customizable chat buttons and images can reinforce your company's branding efforts and remote administration means you can make changes on the fly from any computer. Management will be delighted with the automatic online/offline status and messaging system to avoid losing a single customer.

Monitoring and Tracking Abilities

With the right tools, you can collect rich information about online visitors, including the website they came from, what pages they visit on your site and the browser they use. You can see if the visitor has been on your website before, look up past chats and customer information then launch a live chat. Some chat services offer a built-in "Who Is" browser lookup if you want to learn more about a specific customer.

Marketing Features

Top features to look for include live keywords to help you understand your customers' goals, and the ability to send your customer a survey after chat is complete. On your website, you can add a floating invitation to chat, or place advertisements in your live chat window.

Safety Features

If you deal with sensitive data online (such as customer financial information), look for a live chat service that offers SSL secure data transfer abilities so customers can chat about sensitive issues with confidence.

The ability to block an IP address comes in handy when a customer becomes belligerent or aggressive. To avoid further confrontation (and wasted chat operator time), block that customer's computer from accessing your live chat server.

Customer Support

Look for live chat support software that is willing to help you in ways you find most convenient: live chat support, email and/or a toll-free telephone number. With live chat support services, you have all the tools and resources you need to turn a first-time customer into a lifetime customer.

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