Instant Person-to-Person Sales Support
Web Commerce Today, Issue 20, March 15, 1999
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One way to increase sales at your site is to provide for instant person-to-person sales support. Here are some ways you can do this using chat or telephone, whether you are a small shop or a large business.Online Chat
Many people have used chat rooms and understand how it works. There are several online one-on-one chat systems that can provide real-time conversations with shoppers. One of these is LiveAssistance (http://www.liveassistance.com) from International Business Systems. IBS began LiveAssistance as an offshoot of the company's call center operations.
Since LiveAssistance is staffed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, there is always someone available to interact with your customer. This will increase trust, even if the LiveAssistance operator doesn't know all the answers. You get an immediate transcript of the chat via e-mail so you can monitor how questions are answered, and -- if the customer gives a phone number or e-mail address -- follow up on leads. In addition, the system offers back end features such as reporting, call monitoring, routing to the next operator, and the ability to push a page to someone when explaining a particular feature or product. The chat screen is also customizable by the merchant.
Live Assistance is available in three modes:
- Service . This is the easiest to set up within just a few minutes. You are billed on a per call basis, from $2.50 to $3.50 per call (depending on the type of information the operator will be supplying). There is no set-up fee and no minimum; you pay only for actual usage.
- Center . The merchant can have one or more people at his site be on call instead of the LiveAssistance operators. The pricing is $200 per seat per month.
- Combination . Here the merchant has his own employees on call during business hours, and after hours or on the weekends, calls are routed to LiveAssistance operators.
If you'd like to combine LiveAssistance with a telephone call center operation, IBS can facilitate you for a $200 set-up charge and a minimum of $200 to $300 per month at about $2.50 to $3.00 per call. For more information contact LiveAssistance at (877) 874-5483.
Instant Phone Back
Another approach to providing instant customer service is InstantCall (http://www.instantcall.com/) from USA Global Link. The merchant's site contains a "Call Me" button that takes the shopper to a screen asking for her name, phone number, and e-mail address. Since some people have only one phone line, they might have to get off the Internet in order to receive a call, so InstantCall allows them indicate whether to phone back NOW!, in 1 minute, in 5 minutes, etc.
You can demo this service for free if you like.
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Costs are: $145 set-up fee, 15 cents per minute in the US, plus 75 cents per call request. There is a $25/month minimum, but after the first 1,000 minutes per month, the per minute rate drops to 10 cents.) The parent company, USA Global Link is a call back service that uses the same technology to compete with foreign telephone services, so its global phone rates are extremely competitive.
Larger Companies
Larger companies may want to consider services which can be hosted on their own server. For example, @Once Service Center from Business Evolution, Inc. (http://www.businessevolution.com) of Princeton, NJ, offers Web-based customer assistance through four channels: live messaging, e-mail, chat, and call back. Acuity Corporation's WebCenter Express and WebCenter Enterprise (http://www.acuity.com/products/top_products.html) use software originally developed by iChat to offer real-time chat for e-commerce environments.