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:

Situation #1: To make the chat button stand out: When you want to draw attention to the fact that you are ready to engage your website visitors in a live discussion, you don’t want to hide your chat button.  In fact, you may want to do what the Orlando Magic does on its season ticket page and make the chat button the most prominent image there.

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Situation #2: To make the chat button blend in: ReStockIt.com wants to make it easy for customers to engage them at any point on their site.  As such, they make access to live chat a simple text link, place it high on their page, and place it on every page. It’s hard not for us to like this idea because it’s what we do on BoldChat.com.

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Situation #3: To maintain a consistent brand experience: When you manage a powerful and respected brand, you want live chat to be an extension of that brand.  Live chat can create a deep connection with customers and prospects so it’s important to encapsulate that connection with a consistent look and feel.  Corel clearly understands this as their chat button is exceptionally loyal to the visual tenants of their brand.

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Situation #4: To specify hours of chat availability: Even if your agents aren’t available, a customized chat button can act as an advertisement, encouraging visitors to return when chat is back online.  Cosmetics company e.l.f. offers live consultations with professional make-up artists during the hours of 10-5.  Their chat button is prominently displayed and informative.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Branding, Live Chat, Uncategorized, eCommerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.