Anyone experience with Live chat services

rctoyhouse · #1 (**permalink**) 03-18-2007, 11:22 PM

I'm looking at a few live chat service providers. Does anyone have experience or recommendation?

Currently looking at
volusion, liveperson.com, chatrelations.com, boldchat.com

We just need a simple solution for our retail website. We average about 200-300 unique visitors per day.

jestep · #2 (**permalink**) 03-19-2007, 10:57 AM

We use http://www.phplivechat.com/.

We tried just about everything else, but this was way cheaper, easy to use, and we are able to host it ourselves. They also have a hosted version if you don't want to host it yourself. There is also a windows app available, so you dont have to keep a browser open all the time.

topout · #3 (**permalink**) 03-25-2007, 09:56 AM

Liveperson has a very nice solution particularly if you have multiple customer support agents.
Does each sale generate a lot of revenue? At 200-300 visitors per day figure out by how much you have to increase your conversion rate to pay for the additional costs.

Volusion · #4 (**permalink**) 10-12-2007, 07:11 PM

Our Livechat software allows for more than one user and is much cheaper than LivePerson ($29.95 per month per operator).

cw1865 · #5 (**permalink**) 11-01-2007, 01:21 PM

I have actually tried chat services for volusion, liveperson.com, and boldchat. Honestly I had no problem with any of them when I tried them, but ultimately I wound up abandoning live chat because I just didn't have the patience to monitor it and I have no intention of simply putting a 'body' in front of a terminal all day (and do nothing else).

If live chat could somehow be linked to a blackberry or a sidekick, now that would be a nice X-Mas present.....

joncase · #6 (**permalink**) 11-01-2007, 02:10 PM

We were working on a live chat feature for a client that would be very basic. If the client found it useful, we would then upgrade if need be to a more robust one. We went with the one that Coffee Cup offers for a one time purchase price of about $35.00. Easy set up and you can host it yourself. Search for Coffee Cup Live Chat.

However, like Craig, after discussing with the client that they have to be at their terminal most of the day, or visitors will get frustrated if Chat is not on most of the time, they decided to forgo that feature. I think only if you have a fulltime employee that you can dedicate to live chat, it deserves a lot of thought before you implement it.

Jon

kgun · #7 (**permalink**) 11-01-2007, 03:06 PM

FlashChat

php Free Chat is a free, simple to install, fast, customizable and multi languages chat that uses a simple filesystem for message and nickname storage. It uses AJAX to smoothly refresh (no flicker) and display the chat zone and the nickname zone.

cw1865 · #8 (**permalink**) 11-01-2007, 11:14 PM

I had tried flash chat too, I didn't care for its functionality. Is it still the same?

skincareguy · #9 (**permalink**) 12-27-2007, 07:54 PM

volusion is my choice for live chat. can be easily integrated in almost any cart and the basic chat function is free (though there is a link back to volusion). for paid live chat services, i like liveperson.

good luck!

msinfo · #10 (**permalink**) 01-20-2008, 12:52 PM

Liveperson may not be as cheap but it's MUCH more professional from my experience. The chat window load and response times are pretty fast as well.

ben_hk · #11 (**permalink**) 01-21-2008, 02:55 PM

chatstat.com is free for basic features and easy to use, i just installed yet yesterday , so far its working great.

Volusion · #12 (**permalink**) 01-22-2008, 04:38 PM

Joe, have you used our $29.95 a month service that is similar to LivePerson, or are you just comparing it to our free LiveChat software?