Do you consider live chat an asset?

Live chat is a great asset, communication is one of the most important thing for pretty much anything and that includes business. Having a responsive live chat on your site is a huge + from client perspective. To me benefits of it is too good to pass on for pity reasons.
 
whmcsguru said:
My 0.02 here:

Live chat clients tend to be more 'gimme gimme gimme' oriented.
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But prospective clients will use live chat to get deals that are not on your website. If i can give them a deal then i will. If they want me to throw in a domain for free then as long as it is a std domain tld then i will as this will most likely be covered by the first months hosting fee, but as the domain is part of a hosting bundle then it will be locked, so it cant be moved away. If they then decide to leave they have to pay the full cost of the domain before it can be unlocked and if they dont or wont pay then the domain registrants details are changed over to my business.
 
Live chat can be a huge asset but it can also be a huge liability. It depends how you've implemented it and the nature of your business.

If most of your support requests can be handled easily then live chat is perfect, if they require much more time I don't think you can beat tickets.

I used to host some websites with HostGator, when they removed the ability to submit a ticket forcing you to use delayed live chat I canceled my account after 7 years. In my opinion in the hosting industry support tickets can't be beaten.
 
Its 100% yes for us as 99% of our customer prefer our livechat for support/sales related question its quick and easy to sort.. most important they know we are available 24x7 for assistance. :)
 
Its great for sales chats when people have a lot of questions. I am not a huge fan of it for technical support though since it can complicate an issue even more if the issue is ongoing. Meaning that if it takes time to resolve the issue, live chat is not good for this since there may be multiple people working on it and information may get lost. So its best to keep all information and what has been done to fix the issue in one ticket.
 
live chat for support leaves you wide open to all sorts of legal issues if you mess with a clients account.

i.e. you get a live chat from a client to say they have an issue and need your help, so you go into their account and change some settings or remove a file as instructed via live chat. An hr later you get a ticket from the client asking what has happened to their website as a file is missing and some settings have changed. so you explain about the live chat and find out the client never chatted with you ( it turns out to be a friend of the client), you have no recourse and the client can take action against you for messing with their account.
support should always be done via their client area as this way they have to login, so you are protected if anything goes wrong
 
I say yes, it's a benefit for your customers it also will help you increase conversion rate by talking with your potential customers in real-time and you've a chance to convince them with your service/product.
 
Yes, personally, I think having a live chat is an asset.

If enquiries were needed when browsing through the website, live chat will be there to guide you on the information you need before you make any purchase.

Unless, you would need technical assistance, asking through a live chat will not solve it but they will either ask you to send in through the ticket system or they create it for you. For me, I think this procedure is right, through the ticket system, hosting company can actually keep track of what customer's had asked to actually improve themselves.
 
As someone else mentioned on here...

Live chat is a "dual edged sword" where it great sometimes but sometimes also hit the fans...

For instance...

1. If it not manned 24/7 or close to that then it will seems like support is "always offline" to the potential customers.

2. May convey the wrong ideas of support. Like "instantaneous" responses/solutions and etc.

3. A liability issue since they don't has to be logged in to use it.

and so on.

I see it as unless you have a strong "army" to man it as well as tickets then having it could be useful for sales.

But why not just speed up tickets? If you can give general responses in under 15 minutes (like how to do something) then why worry about YET another system?
 
i you can hire someone and be online 24 hours definitely it would help your business but if you are not able to provide a 24/7 support in that case a live chat option on you website would harm your business
 
I don't think people get as spooked about unmanned livechat as you might expect, so long as it is manned a reasonable amount of time. I'm able to "hold down the fort" on our livechat about 11 hours per day. The other 13 hours it simply allows customers and prospective customers to leave a question, and I email them back as soon as I see it. If I were to fail to email them back, that should be a red flag for them.

One underrated thing about livechat, in may implementations at least, is that it's often hosted by a third party these days. In an absolute worst-case scenario, a client who is unable to reach support via traditional means can often still reach us via livechat.

Finally, 24/7 livechat is obviously the MOST ideal situation. When that is not possible I think we've reached the point in 2017 where clients would prefer *some* livechat over *no* livechat.
 
I would have to agree with the above. I recently added Live Support to my website and I am generally on it 3+ hours a day religiously but then after that, if I have spare time, I'll just open up the desktop app and have it running in the background. I definitely thinks it draws more security to your services but at the same time with it being unmanned a lot, I can see it being an issue.
 
The live chat is an excellent tool for client conversion. Since I started using it I noticed an increase in client conversion. Sometimes clients just want to check in and see if someone is there on the "other side" and it is totally enough for them to order.
Customers don't like it when your website seems unmanaged.
Most questions are quite basic anyways.
I would not recommend outsourcing though.
 
I've been working in a couple of IT companies and every of them consider Live chat being an important option for every business.

I can give you 2 of my personal experiences:

1) I've been working at a position of Live chat agent for medium-seized american company with a revenue of more than $2m yearly. I can tell you that about 5-10% of clients (it's a good conversation rate) came to us through the live chat, even considering it was not 24/7, but 9/5.. But of course the representative in live chat should be a good expert with high motivation, because according to stereotypes and my own experience, the most employers don't wanna to pay extra, so simply hire unqualified Indians for such positions for less money.

2) After working at a position of live chat agent, as a customer I started using live chat tool where it is possible. I cannot tell you that they helped me in 100% of cases, but I was highly impressed how helpful it could be for me as a client (I personally try to find an answer before asking in Live chat)
 
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It is an advantage to have a live chat as long as the person you are chatting knows what to do with your concern/s. It is good for quick queries and questions.
 
Live Chat is a good option as we can provide real-time customer service and it has a lot of other benefits. However, before implementing the live chat system ensure that you can meet the following

Determine your availability based on your customer needs
Guaranteed response and resolving time
Train your live chat employees on customer service and communication etiquette
Determine the process of escalating the complex issues to the support team
 
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