I love pizza more than nearly every other food.  So, when I’m forced to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s knowing the pizza is terrible, I still wind up eating it every time.  Why?  Because even bad pizza is better than no pizza.

My philosophy is that live chat is like that – even mediocre live chat support is better than no support.  Poor chat support can be attributed to an apathetic rep, language barriers, slow typing… but isn’t that still better than no support at all?

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re often asked this, or some variant of this question. While we certainly have our own opinions about it, I decided to seek the advice of an expert. I turned to Chris Moschella, President of A Live Answer and here are the results of our conversation:

Steve: I’m sure your answer to the question above (Can you really move sales chat offshore) would be, “it depends.” So, what does it depend on?

Chris: The most important factor is the level of American culture involved in your product or service; some things can be taught, some can’t. Heavily commoditized items like cellular phones and long distance service could be easily off-shored from just about any country. However, products that require some knowledge of current events or in-country sensitivities like weight loss products or specialized brands, on the other hand, might be a challenge.

Read the rest of this entry »

This 11-word question has a 1-word answer – data.

Management-types have a strange affinity for numbers. Raw data makes them smile, spreadsheets can warm their hearts, and graphs make them downright giddy. It is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well, the way to management’s top-of-mind is through data.

Sort of.

In today’s world, we all have access to piles of statistics about our websites. We know about time-on-page, bounce rates, and conversions by keyword. We know about geo-IP, referring URLs and other sophisticated visitor monitoring information. Emailing daily reams of data to management with may seem like a good idea, but 

is likely to get you nowhere fast. Yes, management likes data. But what really gets them excited is data-driven analysis.

Read the rest of this entry »