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Web Chat Software for Ecommerce

Posted on October 15, 2009

One of the keys to running a successful online business is making the most of every visitor to your company’s website by providing them with an attractive and professional site, reasonable prices, clear navigation, and an easy way to contact a staff member for more information.  Providing a contact form, email address, or telephone number is good, but web chat software applications are another great option for connecting with your website’s visitors. 

Web chat software applications allow visitors to instant message a member of staff with inquiries related to just about anything, including products, shipping, and special offers, enabling you to have a conversation with a potential customer before they leave your online store to check out your competition.  Plus, some web chat software applications can provide you with other useful features, such as demographic data, conversion tracking, and surveys, giving  you an edge on some of your competition.  We found 5 great web chat software applications for ecommerce, including free and premium options, to help you provide your clients with superior customer service!

velaro

In addition to Click-to-Chat, Velaro Live Chat for Small Business offers a ton of great features, including Click-to-Call, Real-Time Visitor Monitoring, Surveys, Web Traffic Analytics, Co-Browsing, Out-of-box Third Party Integration, and Conversion Tracking.  Velaro’s Real-Time Visitor Monitoring will provide you with loads of useful information about your site’s visitors, such as demographic data, browser information, the search engine they used to find your site, and the keywords they searched to get to you.  Plus, Velaro’s Co-Browsing feature enables your agents to share a web session with a visitor to your site, allowing your staff members to help visitors complete forms and order items.

ZAZA

ZaZaChat Live Chat is very easy to install (just copy a small block of HTML code and paste it into your site’s code), and it provides lots of cool features, such as Proactive Live Help Invitations, SSL Support, Multiple Simultaneous Chat Sessions, and Chat Session Transfer.  ZaZaChat’s Proactive Live Help Invitations allows your agents to ask your visitors if they need any help finding something on your site, and the Multiple Simultaneous Chat Sessions feature enables your agents to help multiple customers at the same time.  Plus, ZazaChat’s Chat Session Transfer feature makes it easy for one operator to transfer a chat to another operator in instances where a visitor needs to speak to a manager or a more experienced agent.

provide support

Provide Support Live Chat includes a lot of valuable features, such as Customization and Branding, Multilingual Support, Auto-Changing Chat Icon, and Unlimited Web Sites Licence.  Provide Support Live Chat’s Customization and Branding feature allows you to upload your own chat button for your website and customize the chat  profiles with your company’s logo and a photo of the operator.  When you’re online, Provide Support Live Chat’s Auto-Changing Chat Icon feature will automatically change the chat button on your website to indicate that an operator is available and ready to help, and the Unlimited Web Sites Licence feature means you can put chat buttons on as many pages and websites as you please.

zopim

Zopim Live Chat embeds a chatbar on your website, allowing your site’s visitors to speak with an operator simply by clicking the chatbar.  Zopim Live Chat is free, and it offers loads of great features, including Reply via IM, Secured Chat, Provide Customer Service On-the-go, and Multi-Agent Chat.  Zopim Live Chat’s Reply via IM feature allows you to respond to visitor inquiries using your favourite instant messaging system, such as GTalk, Yahoo, AIM, or MSN, so you don’t have to log into Zopim’s dashboard to answer customer questions.  Plus, the Multi-Agent Chat feature allows operators to add other agents to a conversation with a visitor, making it a great feature for training new staff members or answering complicated questions.

citricle

Citricle Live Support is easy to integrate into your website (just add a couple of strings of code to the page you want it on) and it offers tons of great features, such as Real-time Website Monitoring, Chat Transcripts, Strong 256-bit SSL Security, and Google Maps Integration.  Citricle Live Support’s Chat Transcripts feature allows you to keep copies of conversations between operators and visitors, so you can refer to the chat transcript to sort out customer questions or train new staff members.  The Real-time Website Monitoring feature gives you detailed information about visitors to your site, including their referrer URL, search keyword, location, operating system, and browser, as well as the page they are currently viewing on your website.  This is a great feature for business owners who want more insight into their site’s visitors!

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5 Comments

  1. Roger

    October 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Don’t forget Who’s On. We use this with a load of clients, adn they are about to do a deal with Magento, so keep an eye on it.

    Costs about £60 a quarter, you can take a look at http://www.whoson.com/

  2. limqingru

    November 15, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    Thanks for selecting Zopim for the review, Cat! We look forward to making Zopim a better live chat product for SMB :)

    An additional note: SMB can do more just chat when they reply to customers via their IM. They can use different commands to do different things, (i.e. send template answers, end conversation) making it easier for them to reply to customers even on the go.

    Check out the overview video here: http://bit.ly/homepage_youtubevid and the IM video here: http://bit.ly/replyviaIM_youtubevid

  3. MAGIX Coupon Code

    August 11, 2010 at 8:16 am

    Hmmmm. I’m about to make a website for my little online store and I think all your tips are really great. I should really make a good site that is good looking and has the services that the costumers would want to have. Thanks a lot!

  4. Sean Pellegrino

    January 3, 2011 at 9:50 am

    Another popular programs out there are livezilla and live person.

    Yes live chat software does work and they prevent on-the-fence buyers from going to another website and sway them over to your side. But the thing is, they have to be aware of the live chat button! I’ve seen a lot of websites with bad button design and placement. This must also be tested and optimized for you to get maximum benefits out of live chat service.

    Sean from http://onlinelivechat.org

  5. Online Live Chat

    January 3, 2011 at 9:55 am

    Oh and another thing…. some web chat software companies offer a full-service solution

    i.e. they manage everything for you and the software is hosted on their servers. You just have to insert a number of lines of code and you’re all done.

    While some offer you the option to self-host the software. this might be cheaper if you go on this route but make sure you have a reliable web host like evohosting.co.uk ;)

    -Sean