Page 1 of 5 I'm sure you have all seen them, the click here for live support buttons that are becoming more and more popular on today's web sites. I've often looked at them and wondered how effective they might be, would people actually use them enough to make the outlay worthwhile? I recently had a request from a client to research this functionality on their behalf with a view to setting up a system on one of their web sites. If it proved a success then it would be added to their other web sites. I was pleased to have the assignment. It was something I had intended looking at for my own site for a while but as ever, due to time constraint,s I had never quite got around to doing the research on the different software available. This was an ideal opportunity to put that right—time for a Google!
There are many, many companies providing software that supply this functionality, many offering what seem to be free versions, though in reality finding such versions on some web sites seemed to be impossible. There are a few open source options, but those that I checked out didn't really have the professional look my client would require. Some of the professional systems were also very expensive, then I came across Chat4Support. Before I go any further, I would like to point out that I have no connection or affiliation with this company, I like their product, and this is an honest review of that product.
So, what did I like about Chat4Support? Initially it was the fact that they advertised a free version of their software and it actually existed! Has to be a catch though, right? Well I looked through the options for the different versions, I checked out the screen shots, I read the documentation on their web site and it seemed to be just about exactly what my client had requested. Without further ado I created an account for myself and downloaded the executable. Installing the program took seconds. I created my custom buttons and uploaded them, and in under 5 minutes I had live support running on my web site. I progressed, still waiting for the snags to appear. Would I get relentless sales emails? Would the software be problematic? Absolutely none of it. The operator interface that runs on your local machine is excellent, the facilities that exist within your Chat4Support account are also excellent. I was getting to be more and more impressed with each passing minute. The original install is fully featured for fifteen days, after which you can either upgrade to one of the paid accounts, Professional or Standard or you can simply allow your account to time out to the free version.
The pricing for the paid accounts is very competitive and priced per seat, the standard is priced at $190 per annum and the Professional at $330 per annum. Additional operators can be added to each version at drastically reduced rates of about 50% per operator. Not bad at all if you're a large business and need maybe half a dozen seats or more.
Keywords
Live, help, support, Chat4Support,
