We have been using hosted live chat services at Batipi for a few years now. It has been an invaluable tool to communicate with visitors on our website, and handle support questions from customers.
Initially we started using this service PHP Live Support. At first the service was great, and we could still get a hold of these guys “live” on their own website. However, after a short while we started experiencing some problems & phplivesupport.com, was no where to be found. There voicemail box quickly filled up, and their own live support always read “offline”! We’ll to be fair, their Credit Card processing system worked fine, even after our countless attempts to cancel account. In the end we had to have our card re-issued, as the banks could not assist…which is a another topic, we won’t dwell on here.
Out of this experience, we went back to the marketplace to look for another vendor to offer live chat support on our website. We’re now using a service called Chatstat, and the experience has been exceptional. These guys have been available to handle support calls, which was a healthy change! Moreover, there service has a host of value-add services that you can add-on to your account. Here are just a few:
International “on the fly” translation for multiple languages (this is instant translation!)
Co-Browse Website with chat visitor (kind of nicer then pushing url’s for the visitor to view)
Customization of your Live Chat interface
Chat link for email signature
In-line Flash Chat (can embed chat interface directly into a webpage)
These are few of many add-on features they offer. The idea of instant language translation, I still find to be very impressive! Somebody is talking Mandarin or Spanish, and I’m reading this message in English, meanwhile, vise-versa on their end….incredible!
