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1. Use a Hosted and Reliable Live Support Vendor. Choosing a cheap or an open sourcecode solution will eventually get you into trouble for lack of support and/or bugs.Choose a vendor with a proven track record, reliable support and a big client base.Most such vendors will he happy to offer you a week's trial and help in setting upthe chat system on your website. Paying a small monthly fee is worth the features,support and reliability you get that you will need to use chat effectively.
2. Place the live chat button at a prominent location on the web page. Be consistentwith where you place the live chat button on your website. This ensures thatreturning and new visitors can locate it as easily as they can locate the navigationon every page of your website. Additionally, you may want to place a live chatbutton or text at key "conversion" hotspots such as your call to action or sign uppage of your website. This will not only improve visitor confidence, but alsoincrease your siteÂ's conversions.
3. Customize the chat window with the theme of your website. Matching the chatwindow and chat button to your site's theme can ensure that a visitor does notterminate a chat on grounds of suspicion of adware or an unwanted popup. Vendorssuch as LivePerson and Velaro help you to blend the live chat seamlessly into yourwebsite's theme.
4. Prepare the profile of your visitors before training your agents. ItÂ's importantto understand your visitors demographic information , what time they come in andwhat the best way to talk to them is. There is no hard and fast rule for every chatthat comes in, and an agent must be trained to understan d the individual needs ofevery visitor rather than relying on canned messages.
5. Man the website 24/7 with live support agents. Nothing can be more destructivefor your website than having live chat OFFLINE on your website. Use live chatsupport only if you have adequate resources to man your website 24/7, or at least atthe time when you get 80% of the traffic. By placing live chat on a website, abusiness shows commitment to the visitor that they are available 24/7 for help. Justask yourself how you would feel when you are looking for support and the live chatwindow forwards you to a contact form! If you do not have resources to setup agentsinhouse, there are cost effective chat call centers such as Livesalesman.com inIndia who provide agents 24/7 specifically trained for chat and customized to yourspecific business needs.
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About the Author:
This article is written by the editor of Livechatdir.com, a part of Math2MathInfosys, specializing in e-business development and search engine marketingsolutions. For more information, please visit http://www.livechatdir.com
