August 27th, 2009
Almost all providers include a gallery of images for use on your website when you decide to offer live chat. Many of these images are quite nice. The one to the left is from our gallery and I like it a lot.
We have over 25 button styles, 4 text options, 8 color options, and 2 background choices which means there are over 1,600 combinations. Wow, that’s a bunch of buttons. But, here’s the thing; none of these might be right for your website. Luckily, most systems like BoldChat and BoldCCM enable you to customize the button. Here are 4 situations that definitely warrant a custom chat button:
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August 19th, 2009
Live chat helps convert browsers into repeat online buyers, according to an article published today in eMarketer, a leading technology research website.
Using proprietary research from Bold Software, eMarketer found live chat “very helpful” for e-commerce sites. In fact, live chat was the preferred customer service option for questions about order status, promotions, shipping or cheaper services, the article said.
Live chat is valuable for “inducing shoppers to make a purchase and getting those purchasers to return to the site,” eMarketer noted.
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August 7th, 2009
With our recent research report on the effectiveness of live chat, we paid special attention to the survey respondent’s feedback from about proactive chat. We learned that consumers with the highest likelihood to make an online purchase are also the most likely to accept a proactive chat invitation. But as Bold Software’s Director of Sales, I find that when I talk to business decision makers at B2C companies, they widely believe that proactive chat will scare away customers.
So, the most valuable consumers respond, very few offer negative feedback about proactive chat, and yet businesses still think consumers will run away screaming.
Are these perceptions from businesses left over from brick/mortar retail? Was there research earlier in live chat’s lifespan that indicated a negative response from proactive chat? Considering proactive chat is far less Orwellian than robust analytics, what is it that people were ever afraid of?
The more I try to understand the fear about proactive chat, the sillier the questions get. It makes me wonder if this whole negative perception is based on assumptions rather than actual data.
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