17 replies to this topic

[market seeker]

I received an email today from a site with templates I was looking at. In the email they sent to me it had a program that would let you track where your customers are on your web site at any given time. With this software you're supposed to be able to open a window and talk to the customer while they're on your site. I suppose something like asking "Can I help you" as they walk in the door. Pretty cool but too expensive for me at this point. Im thinking about reselling it but this isnt the affiliate address as you can see. https://friendlyhelp.com/freetrial.asp

[Jill]

There's a free tool like that...I think it's called Live Person, or something like that. I've never used it, but many people swear by it.

Jill

[DanThies]

I've been seeing more of the live chat lately. Some sites are popping up a live chat window if you stick around for more than a few seconds, or if you hit any of the "money pages."

[meta]

I've been seeing more of the live chat lately. Some sites are popping up a live chat window if you stick around for more than a few seconds, or if you hit any of the "money pages."

Gosh, that might be unsettling if you are a visitor and not expecting it. If I were shopping, I'd prefer "speak to a live person" button.

[Jill]

I really hate when that happens. It's fine if it's available for someone who wants it, but bugging you when you're surfing is just too creepy.

I have a client I've been working with, and she has one of those. Someone pops up every time I visit the site to review it. At first I was polite and told them I was just reviewing it for the site owner, but after it kept happening each time I'd visit, I just started closing it and being rude!

I did tell the client as part of my report that I didn't think it was a good idea to chat with everyone. Not sure if she will listen to me on that one or not. She's nearly done redoing the site, so we'll see!

Jill

[Herbert]

I had a system like this on my site some months ago, and it was a button where each visitor could click and ask for my help/comments. so far ok.
but the point is that u hav to stay at ur computer all the time, or u hav a secretary for that: always looking to the screen and watching for the contact window, if someone is on ur site...lol
so, of course i dont want that job as a watchdog, and i uninstalled the tool.
additionally the server changed/was N/A somtimes etc, so the availability wasnt given at that system.
I think Jill is right what she write here..and I will never install a system like that again.
btw: nobody clicked during that test-time of the system to get answer from me...

[Bernard]

I've never visited a site that proactively engaged me in a live chat, but I would certainly not appreciate it should it happen. I'll initiate contact if I want to talk to someone.

[Scottie]

Whoo!

I dislike being approached in stores, must less on my computer. How invasive!

OTOH, I do like the sites where I can talk to someone if I choose. Palm Computing comes to mind- I thought their support was great when I was looking for further integration with Palm/Outlook and I liked being able to talk to someone vs dig through FAQ'a and non-relevant search results.

Live support doesn't have to be 24/7- most software has an "offline" feature where you can let users know when someone will be available again.

I think it is a great idea, as long as you don't initiate contact on your own- I'd be very nervous about visiting that site again, wondering what else they knew about me/why they were watching my actions.

[copywriter]

I used HumanClick when I had this feature on my site. You could either had a pop up open on your site to invite visitors to chat, they could click a button to chat, or it would display a message saying live chat was closed for the moment.

You could also make it so that it "appeared" you were offline when you really were online.

It was a cool little thing, but too distracting for me. You could literally watch people enter and roam around your site in real-time. I'd get all caught up in seeing who was doing what and not get my work done!

I really didn't have *that* many people contact me with it. Maybe a dozen total over a 6-month period of time. Mostly it was my friends who wanted to ask me a "quick" question. <_<

Don't know if it's still free or not, but you can check at

Human Click

[DanThies]

Yeah, I agree on all counts. That live chat popping up by itself is a bit annoying.

It was especially annoying the first time I encountered it. The chat popped open on every page as as I was going over the site, trying to do a keyword report for them. I told the live rep what I was doing, and that I didn't need any enterprise groupware, but he was powerless to stop it.

I ended up just spidering their site to pull out the keywords from the text. Hope they didn't have any of 'em in images. What a beating, I told my client about it, and they have "fixed" that feature since, so you have to click a button. Surprise, leads and sales went up immediately.

[dragonlady7]

I would *definitely* find that too creepy. Too, too creepy. I know that I can be tracked around a site, but it's creepy to be reminded about it.
Popups of any kind should be kept to a minimum. Always let the user click to launch them. Really.
I like the idea that you could push a button and a window would pop up on someone's computer within the company and they'd answer you. Pretty cool. But, I don't know if many users would understand that enough to try using it.

[sanity]

Perhaps it's because I'm over the other side of the world but I find most live chat's closed when I'm on the site. It you can't man it for reasonable number of hours don't have one.

[markymark]

I agree with Sanity - I find that they are mostly shut when I'm surfing as well. Which is pretty poor really as I'm on the other side of the world from Sanity and am often surfing during US business hours.

I don't mind the live chat opening when I go to a site, but I would prefer it if the person at the other end actually knew something about the product or service they were offering. The only time I've ever really found it useful was on RackSpace's UK site when the person I was chatting with really knew their stuff. But that is VERY rare.

[omahonydonnelly]

As someone living in a different time zone than the USA and working all hours of the day and night, I like it when a site offers Live Chat as a support option -- if it works!!!

I wouldn't like it if the Live Chat approached me. I think other less experienced users would be really freaked out. My sister-in-law is afraid to go online in case she might buy something without knowing it, imagine what she'd think!

[Scottie]

My sister-in-law is afraid to go online in case she might buy something without knowing it, imagine what she'd think!

LMAO!

My mother is the same way.