Live help on a website

[sammy]

Hi, i was wondering what is peoples views on sites that have a live help button where you can basically chat to them about the company over their website???

Is it worth spending money on a chatr solution or would it be better off in providing a phone number to speak to a REAL person???

Also if you did not see a postal address on a website would you be put off???

I am interested in people opinions about live chat Versus a normal telephone number, as well as your impressions of sites that do not display FULL contact details

What do you think??? :)

[kyber]

Hi, interesting questions.

When putting together plans for launching web sites for B&Q, MVC, etc. (when I worked for the then larger Kingfisher) we spent a lot of time looking into this. Okay a few years have gone by but not as much has changed as you might think. Of course, it depends heavily on the sort of products/services you are offering and the type of customers you have.

Bottom line was that people like having someone to talk to. Live call back was seen as very popular and is widely used by banking/insurance organisations. This is despite the growth of texting, email and instant messaging. It still limited your customer base to have just live text chat.

Text chat is not that common. Typing is slower than a phone call and you can convert people more easily by voice. It is also easier to get staff with a good telephone manner than good text chat skills. (Try to find a training course to develop staff for the latter.)

Live chat (audio or video) is problematic and unreliable and tends to cause more problems than you would want. The growth of broadband has made this a possibility for the future but how many customers do you know with decent microphones?

I would say SPEAK TO A REAL PERSON.

You have to have a full address these days if you are selling to Joe Public. It does put people off if they can not see this. Look up direct selling regs.

Stuart

[Ozzy]

I have both on my website, a big 0800 number and the live chat facility. The live chat facility only costs about 200 US dollars a year so nothing really.
The 0800 number gets shed loads of calls, where the liev chat gets about 1 person using it a week - but I give the customer the choice. Choice is, I would recommend, the best option as the cost of offering both is hardly anything.

As for not having any contact information on a website, I would never buy from a website that didn't make public its full contact details.

[sammy]

Thanks for the replies!

I can that customers want a choice and will take this into consdideration

It is good to know there are knowledgable people on these boards

Keep up th good work as you are helping many people!!!

[Toon]

Yep, give them a choice. I have a free chat facility on my site (boldchat) and the link to it is right next to my telephone number. If I'm working late I don't mind chatting to someone at 10pm but I certaintly wouldn't want to talk to them on the phone :-)

[Greg]

http://www.usuite.co.uk offer online software for this, called uLiveHelp. Prices are in NZ dollars (1 dollar is aroud 38p), about £17 per month.

[Ryuumeiko]

From a customer PoV:

I found live help helpful when buying something (clothing) from Asia recently. I also would prefer it over a telephone call, and would rather e-mail than phone, and rather live chat than e-mail. The reason? I have a speech problem, and I'm much more comfortable with IM software than a 'phone.

While I think full contact details should be shown, I also think the more methods of contacting the better! (Same as I prefer an email address to a contact form - I like using my own email client thank you very much!)

[RockLinks]

Yeah ive used bold chat but it kept going weird on me

[creative-keyrings]

Hi There,

I use a chat program on my website but my friend reccomends this one he uses it on www.easz.co.uk its a one off payment of £50.00 and has all the features of other leading software.

http://livehelp.stardevelop.com/

Livehelp is excellent you can monitor who is on your website, which page their viewing etc.

I hope this helps,

Callum Slade.

[broadband-engine]

Hi

One thing to remember is to activate the live chat during business hours, I have found on some sites that Live Chat is continually off and this puts me off using their services. Just something to consider.

[maddyminx]

Hi,

I think I'll just throw a spanner into the works then!

Seriously though, from a consumer point of view, I think to have both options is good.

Im a phone person and would prefer to deal with something that way - and as Kyber mentions it really depends on the products/services you're dealing in.

Live chat is all good and well but from a personal point of view I like to clarify details with a human rather than over the internet.

Maddy
x

[Rob Holmes]

After a bit of testing of various products we've just started using Helpcentre live.

It's free unless you want to pay £15 one off fee for a small Windows application that sits on your desktop so you don't have to keep a window open the whole time.

Heres a link to their features page..

http://www.helpcenterlive.com/features.php

Rob

[gary]

I've used live help as a customer before and found it very useful, especially to clarify minor questions when it may be a hassle to pick up the phone. On the other hand, so often it's not on it's hardly worth having.

I have also tried it on our site a couple of times, with so few responses it really wasn't worth it. It also requires someone at a computer all the time, which isn't the case here. I also found a lot of people clicked on it to see what it was, and as soon as someone answered them they quickly ran away! I could see it being really useful at the checkout stage though.

This doesn't negate the need for a phone service though - a lot of people like to call up just make sure the company is ok, or to confirm something before they complete their order. Problem is, many orders are placed late at night, when you may not have someone available to take calls, so an option to chat online might be good there too.

[Whistle Ink]

Hi,

Live Help certainly has a role to play more in customer support than in terms of sellings. I have used live help on things like Ebay and once on a website selling envelopes where they gave me a quote through the chat. Usually most websites I go on say that the chat person is offline!

But nothing beats talking to the customer over the phone. Both of you are alert to the sitution and not moving around between replies to make a cuppa!

All businesses should have a postal address. (My website doesn't at the moment!!)