Thanks to products like the iPhone, Blackberry, and Google’s G1 Android-based phone, SMS communications and mobile email continue to be primary functions of a mobile device, rather than secondary functions. I’ve had an iPhone, Blackberry, and Palm Treo and, while call quality was a factor in my purchases, the main value these phones offered was easy access to other forms of communication. So it may seem like a natural progression for business-oriented live chat software to be compatible with mobile phones.

I disagree. I don’t think conducting live chat on a mobile device will help businesses with sales and customer support. In fact, I think it can harm them. Here’s why:

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We’ve just completed the most recent and comprehensive primary research study on the effectiveness of live chat ever conducted. Why did we do it? Well, we already know that live chat can drive sales and reduce support costs – many of our customers have shared data with us showing the impact our technology has had on their businesses. But many internet retailers we speak with who don’t have live chat are skeptical about it.

We thought we would take a two pronged approach to delivering the highest quality information about the fact that live chat really works.

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I’m currently reading The Origin of Brands by Al and Laura Ries. I’m only on page 95, but already I’ve noticed that the Ries family continues in the same way they began with The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding:

• The father/daughter team isn’t afraid to take a contrarian position – they pretty much claim that ‘technology convergence’ is a wide-eyed dream without a prayer of living up to expectations.
• They explore the ridiculous outcomes inherent in the blind pursuit of such dreams. They discuss interactive gas pumps, interactive pianos, interactive clothing, interactive paper, and even, interactive toilets.
• Inside their fully warranted railings against such marketing-stupidity, are gems of knowledge.

One example is the simplistic, yet powerful idea that “[t]he primary objective of a branding program is always the mind of the prospect. The mind comes first, the market follows where the mind leads.”

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When we talk to prospects, its sometimes difficult to understand why they would want to host their own live chat solution. There are two trade offs that should be measured: solution sophistication and control.

Vendors who provide implementations you can install yourself will be tempted to reduce the sophistication of the product they offer you OR you will be faced with a maintenance contract to make sure you pay for the support you will need. Finding the razor’s edge will be tricky. Full-featured installable solutions are simply more expensive. With a hosted solution, one simply focuses on what level of sophistication of the solution you wish to implement on your site.

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A decent chunk of our marketing expenditure goes to paid click advertising and the vast majority of that spend is through Google’s AdWords system.  While many conversion types are possible on our website, the only one that matters with Google is a successful paid customer conversion. This is, in fact, the only conversion we track using the AdWords ‘conversion tracking’ feature. Over the past year or so we have systematically attempted to drop our cost per conversion by implementing and testing a variety of methodologies. We have relied most heavily on the advice from Perry Marshall and his AdWords course. Just a few of the things we’ve done include:

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Live chat implementation isn’t entirely foolproof.  As Matt mentioned, offering mediocre live chat is better than not offering live chat at all.  But if you can avoid the following live chat no-nos, you’ll be on your way to better chats, better leads, better support and better sales.

1. Hiding the chat button. It may seem logical to put your chat button on your website’s “Contact Us” page, but if your visitors don’t realize you offer live chat, will they know to look there?  Probably not.  The key is to place the chat button in a consistent place on your website (like the header) and make it easy for visitors to find.
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