Why Use a Live Chat Support Service?

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.

Fortunately, live chat support software makes it possible for your operators to answer questions, interact and solve problems at unprecedented speeds. It also gives you vital information about how consumers got to your site, how long they've been there and where they committed to buy or decided to bail, giving you new insight into what’s working with your website and what’s not.

Even though it’s flexible enough to fit any support service, whether technical, sales or information-based, choosing the one that fits your needs can be time-consuming.

Within this site, you'll find articles on live chat topics and comprehensive reviews to help you make an informed decision on which live chat customer support service is right for your business.

At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.™

What to Look For in Live Chat Service

We've highlighted attributes that we consider to be most important when purchasing live chat support software.

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.

All these features give you the opportunity to serve your customer better (and to get your customer's attention).

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 services 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.