Live Chat facilities - Useful?

[Brian]

Hi There,

We have nearly finished putting together our new website. One thing we are considering is a live chat facility. I was wondering whether anyone on here uses such a thing and what peoples experience of them are.

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

Hi Brian,

I've actually seen both sides of this. I've used it myself both as a website owner and a website user. It's certainly something I see that can add value in the right circumstances.

For example my hosting company has a live chat facility and it's great to be able to talk to them to get real time answers to simple little questions rather than sending an email and waiting a while for a reply.

You do get chat software that allows you to pop up a box when some hits your site. I would say to avoid this sort of thing. By all means publicise the fact that you have live chat but I think it works better when the user instigates it.

I think the best idea would be to test it and see if it works. There are some free and some fairly low cost software options out there.

Lets us know how you get on if you decide to go with it

 

[Sally]

I started out with a shoutbox (technical nightmare but handy for the odd quick comment). They are a security risk but to test the water I found it very useful.

We have quite a lot of members that read the forum but have never posted on it. Yesterday we had a full chatroom installed and all sorts of people came in to chat, a couple even saying they were never brave enough to post on the forum but found chat easier to get involved in.

The downside is if you have a chatroom and everytime users go in they hear the echo, I have found this on a couple of sites and it does put you off the whole site.

Can't offer anything beyond that as min is so new but so far everyone is loving it. Oh mine is a dating site so that may make a difference.

 

[gamecockfan]

How exactly is the shoutbox a security risk? That would put me off that path to say the least!

 

[Brian]

Thanks for your comments folks. Never heard of the shoutbox but will bear this in mind. Think we might go with the live chat for a period of time to test it. I'll be sure to put a link to the site when it's back up.

Brian IFA

 

[ChrisM]

I tested live chat but found that unless you had it open and someone available to answer immediately with full knowledge of your business and all products then you are not getting the full benefit (B2B). If you are not available and it advises that Live Chat is not on at that moment then (to me) it can appear a small business and no-one is there at that time (even though there are people there).

I decided to use a call back button which gives the person a free call back from the company and it is instant. Also if you miss the call back request your are sent and immediate message which you can use as a flag to respond. This has been much better in regards to usage by potential clients.

 

[Sally]

After I had the shoutbox put in I was told by a few people that it is so easily hackable that a 4 year old can do it and as I store private info in the database that was a big worry for me, hence moving to the chatrooms.

I used the live chat facility on my server providers website this week and must say I was thoroughly impressed, after a couple of hours of looking for the info I had a reply in 30 seconds and could get on with my work.