Live Chat or Ticket

[Zendevi]

I prefer live chat for pre-sales questions and tickets for technical issues simply because I can typically answer pre-sales questions in a flash while technical issues take time to check the account, look into particulars, etc.

 

[thewebhostingdi]

Live chat is important for pre sales questions or some billing related issues. For some critical issue I would prefer tickets.

 

[XStream-Hosting]

Both to be honest.

 

[jeswinaugustine]

Live chat is important. Costumer satisfaction is very important and so is clearing up any issues with them as soon as possible. That's why even if we are a company of 4, we all are involved in live chat support to provide 24 hours live support !!

 

[shockym]

We have both really, and it seems to help. Sometimes people just want a quick question answered and the chat works wonders. Yesterday I had a client who has a Sears Mastercard but even though he moved about 6 months ago and changed his billing addy, for some reason Sears did not accept it (so his payment kept failing). All cleared up now.

 

[HostEase]

you should have a live chat button on your website,because you will get benefit if you have livechat.The customers can consult product information and submit issues timely,I believe that it is good for your business.

 

[HL-Sean]

If you put a live chat button on your website make sure its not always offline. =)

 

[DrVPS]

I have made several sales by having Live Chat. We live in a society that wants their answers now and that is where Live Chat is useful. I only use it for sales, support still needs to submit a ticket.

 

[Hosting India]

It depends upon the request type, if it is an urgent call, you can always go for the Live chat, or often you can give a call. If you want your answer with a complete elaboration and you can wait for the result, ticket is the best

 

[OwlMan]

The ticket system is definitely a must, as for the live chat, it's good for answering quick questions. I've used it several times when I needed to ask something that any general support person could have cleared up as it was much more convenient than waiting 24 hours for someone to give me a 2 sentence response. I certainly would make it clear to your customers to rely on the ticket support more though and just to use the live chat for simple requests.

 

[jpatton]

I think live chat is a nice feature if you are online enough to make it worth it. If your live chat icon is always showing offline I think its a bit of a turn off. Now if you could have the icon only appear when you are online, and nothing there when you aren't online that may be an option. For a one man show though you may be better off with just tickets to start out.

John

 

[euk-damien]

Having a live chat as a mode of support indeed helps in pre sales as well as for support issues. If someone is looking for a new host and sees that he/she has more than one avenue to communicate with your company then he/she might be more inclined to purchase an account from you.

 

[Sabrina]

Hey AbbieRose:
There are many benefits you can get from Live Chat. With Live Chat your customer satisfaction and loyalty will be improved, and your sales also will be increased.

Of course many attentions should be paid on managing Live Chat. I suppose you should have some time to chat with your customers. You can see how many times the customers visit your site and other information of your visitors.


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[hosttalk]

Live Chat is very good I think for making a sale or impulse buying, a lot of people for example browsing at say 3pm in the afternoon on a Sunday aren't likely to want technical support, just making queries about products. The same really for late evening type queries.

If you have customers that require after hours support and you're already giving them a service, they will do the professional thing and stick to the ticketing system. I think common sense should dictate that you can't give a total stranger loads of technical support for free when they aren't even your customer. That's abuse of the system as far as I'm concerned and I certainly wouldn't expect it myself. I've never had one of our customers request technical support on live chat and I've been on it at unsociable hours.

If it's involved techincal support issues a ticket should be raised so that it can be prioritised and dealt with in the correct manner then you can start the correct and formal support process over e-mail/telephone.

 

[[HB]Andrei]

Live chat is not really an alternative to support tickets... but I believe it gives you an advantage since your clients can chat directly to your sales and support and get answers faster.

 

[romes]

Live chat is for minor problems or new clients wanting information. Ticket support is what clients should use if they have a problem that needs attention as a tech 90% of the time will tell the client to submit a ticket to tracking and security reasons. Ticket support is by far the best thing any company can have.

 

[povidiu]

Ticket is the best in my oppinion. First of all you are not under pressure by of the time, you can investigate better, ecc

 

[Nexpoint]

I believe if you had to choose one it would be a ticketing system. This provides a good log of the issues your customers have had and how you resolved them in the past.

 

[servercoreweb]

Good question. We have one and are not on it very often.

 

[jlynch]

I've seen Live Chat managed very well by two individuals, playing off of each other. I'm not sure why the two are offered here as an either/or option, as they do not deal with the same problems necessarily.