Live chat

[cloudlix]

We have been installed livechat for sales, and it works bery good. Sales grows. We have and livechat for support, and i can say that is helps, and our custommers are happy for that. 

 

[cubixcloud]

Live chat is just something else to manage and account for fiscally. If you think you'll capture more customers with live chat then go for it. If not, folks shouldn't decide on a company because they have live chat or not, it should be other attributes. But oh how the hosting industry as changed from when I first started.

If you are quick about answering tickets then who cares about live chat IMO. You want to diversify your communication mediums but not to the point to where you cannot keep up. Our website and ticketing system are on two separate servers. So, if the site is down customers can still open tickets from the panel or email. Our larger customers simply have another way to reach us should they need.

 

[SrsX]

So, a few questions:

Do you guys think offering live chat on a hosting company site is worth it?  Are the conversions enough to justify paying a few people to man it?

Is there any live chat system that connects to either XMPP or IRC, so that we do not have to use proprietary software just to run the live chat, or is this something else I get to belt out in a weekend?

XMPP connection sounds like a nice weekend project. I'll give it a shot, see what I can come up with.

 

[DamienSB]

We don't do help over live chat because it makes it extremely difficult to track issues that we're having. How do you guys that do tech support over live chat know when you have the same issue over and over again?

If we handle anything over live chat we open a support ticket under their account and tag it with key words of their problem. We can have our software link chat logs with tickets/client accounts so it is somewhat easy to track. Sometimes we will note their ticket or account with more information as well.

 

[Sefket]

I think offering live chat within a hosting company is an absolute must. Your customers like the feeling of having someone there 24x7 if their facing technical problems.

I have to agree with Jade. Live chat makes customers feel comfortable knowing that there are staff online at all times especially if something goes wrong with your website (of course it depends on how bad the issue is as a ticket may be needed instead as the issue may have to be investigated). Customers panic when something happens to their website and don't have the patience to create a ticket.. Of course they can call in too but some companies don't use a phone or am I incorrect here?

Sales/Billing is also great on live chat if you have billing issues or have pre-sales questions.