Do you offer live chat?

Some people wonder - "Why offer live chat? Why not just provide a phone number for customer's to call?"

I thought the same thing and then one day, I was shopping online from work and had a question. I could not call from my desk because we were having phone issues that day and of course, I forgot my cell phone at home :). They happened to have online chat which was perfect for what I needed. If they did not, chances are, I would have moved on and not bought anything from them. So I got to thinking, how many customers am I loosing because I don't offer online chat? What if a customer is at work and doesn't want their co-workers to know they are shopping? What if a customer is def or does not like to use the phone?

So I decided to do some research. There are several live chat software you can choose from. Some are free and others have either a monthly or yearly fee but they all offer FREE trials so you can figure out which one works best for you. These are the ones that were recommended to me while doing my research.

• ClickChatSold - Features - Prices
  
• PHPLive - Features - Prices
• LivePerson - Features
• ProvideSupport - Features - Prices
• Volusion - Features - Prices

I've been using live chat for a year now and have found it quite helpful. I love the fact that I can help several customers at once, whereas if I was on the phone, my customer would get voicemail and most likely hang up.

It's great for multi-taskers! :)