Tell Us If You've Seen It Cheaper button

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I am interested in adding a live chat gizmo but am not at the PC a lot of the time.
I assume there are no easy ways of getting notification that someone wants to chat while I am in a different room from the PC.

I have an IP phone which can notify me when an email is received although email won'tbe quick enough as it could take several minutes before I am notified. The IP phone also supports Instant Messaging (Supports the XMPP messenger (Jabber)) what ever that is so wondered if this could be used in some way.

I suspect the answer will be no.

[leehack]

The answer is yes, when you leave the system to go to another room, turn the volume up, it will play a sound to notify you. In the first actinic shop I setup, we had a similar setup whereby a large horse neighing sound played on the computer when an email or notification came in.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

when you leave the system to go to another room, turn the volume up

Meanwhile an unsuspecting relative jumps 3 foot in the air.

I need a way getting the sound to play at both the PC (upstairs office) and in another room (downstairs), but it would need to be just the live chat notification and no other sounds and ideally not require me to remember to keep turning a speaker on and off everytime I leave a room.

[Cheapprices4u]

bluetooth headset?
wireless mic/headphone setup?

then you are free to wander within resason depending on distance from PC your talking

[leehack]

I want to be at work but i don't want to be there. You can't man these things unless it is part of your job and you are sitting there doing other work. Gotta do it properly or not at all IMO.

[grantglendinnin]

Thanks for the assistance Lee. Spoke to a girl called Sandra from the company you suggested earlier and have been set up with a free trial and have been offered the setup for $99. Whether that's per month, quarter or year, I don't know - if it increases sales then it'll definitely become a regular subscription.

Cheers,
Grant

[guccij]

If you wanted a UK based company, then Parker Software have Whos On. We have used them for years. We found the live chat extremely useful and conversions were around 75%. Now though we are too busy so just use the invisible web tracking part of it. This too is useful as it is set up to give an alert as soon as someone enters the cart, and then again when they hit checkout. Means we are on top of incoming orders right up until despatch deadline.

[leehack]

If on a free trial you can't go wrong, as Jules alludes to, the back office tracking is the real eye opener and the other 80% of usefulness I was referring to. They usually do you a graphic to match your site theme also, make sure you get that. Have it on the right hand side before the fold IMO.

[Darren B]

This one has some good stuff for page tracking, http://www.craftysyntax.com/ tells you exactly what pages the customers has visited and were they came from, also tracks visitors that dont use the live chat, so you can see what pages they leave your site.

[martinkay]

If you wanted a UK based company, then Parker Software have Whos On. We have used them for years. We found the live chat extremely useful and conversions were around 75%. Now though we are too busy so just use the invisible web tracking part of it. This too is useful as it is set up to give an alert as soon as someone enters the cart, and then again when they hit checkout. Means we are on top of incoming orders right up until despatch deadline.

I've been using Whoson for a couple of years now and I find it ideal. The live web stats and visitor alerts are more valuable than the live chat I find. You can react to what people are looking for really quickly and adjust the site if necessary. Most people don't use it, maybe one or two chats a month, more often approaching Christmas. The presence of the Live Chat button just adds a bit of kudos to the site, particularly as my competitors don't have it. The site answers pretty much any questions anyway, but the chat users are the ones in a hurry who just want a quick answer. I do have some come through after 5pm but since my office is in the house and the "chat available" only shows when I'm active or have recently been active at the computer it's not much of a hardship to answer. I've never had anyone asking for a price match, but TBH I can't really be doing with the "can you cut me a deal" sort of customer anyway, preferring to excel on service rather than price.

[Darren B]

If you wanted a UK based company, then Parker Software have Whos On. We have used them for years.

Unfortunately whos on can only be installed on windows servers, so you have to use their hosted service, its shame as it looks like a very good solution

[Tonyo]

This is the one I am using.
http://www.providesupport.com
It comes with a desktop app and a web app for remote assistance.
Since I installed it, I have converted about 90% enquiries into a sale and it only costs $99 / year.
Test it for 10 days. You can send and receive files with it so it's great for sending product images to back up the sale enquiry.

regards Tony

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

If you only require one operator www.onlinechatcenters.com offer a free live chat program which looks reasonably good for those on a low budget, although I am sure there are disadvantages compared to the more expensive offerings.

[Darren B]

I am trialing a simple open source solution here http://www.casupply.co.uk/index.html from these guys http://openwebim.org/

depends on what you want really, if this proves to be an advantage then we will be moving to a paid for solution with page tracking

[Darren B]

This is the one I am using.
http://www.providesupport.com
It comes with a desktop app and a web app for remote assistance.
Since I installed it, I have converted about 90% enquiries into a sale and it only costs $99 / year.
Test it for 10 days. You can send and receive files with it so it's great for sending product images to back up the sale enquiry.

regards Tony

Hmm im not a fan of externally hosted services. Maybe its just me but i dont trust someone else with my info