Tag: web site

Categories
Review

Live Tech Support – Click Here (Part 1 of the review)

Live Web Site Chat Services Review - iStudioWeb BlogLast couple of days one of our clients and I spend quite some time researching providers of online chat service. This is one of those services where a visitor of your web site can click on the image with a smiling lady and supposedly chat with a friendly (or not so friendly) sales person.

The advantages of this sales tool and live help tool are numerous – you can see how visitors move from one page to another in real time, you can engage them in chat when they reach certain part of your web site or even walk them through your site! Various services allow popping up an invitation window after certain period of time, based upon certain rules or pages visited. We looked through several live help services and I have decided to share some of the research on live help service with readers of this blog.

BoldChat – overall we got a good impression of this live chat service. The setup consists of putting special code on your web site and downloading a Windows-platform software (they don’t have Mac version, as far as I know) to keep track of visitors, engage in live chat sessions and so on. The drawbacks are confusing list of features and a little higher price then most competitors – $29.95 per operator per month, $79.95 per 3 operators per month (there is a discount that adds to pricing confusion).

Live2Support – very confusing pricing model. Chat services are divided into Bronze, Silver and Gold plans with different number of operators available for each “denomination”. Cons: basic (bronze) lacks most of the basic features, poor sales representatives level. Pros: rich features on the pricier plans, ability to use both web interface and Windows-based software to keep track of users and chats, advanced chat functions – chat sharing, transfer, moderation. Pricing: from $9.99 Bronze plan with single operator to $69 for Gold plan with 10 operators.

LivePerson – one of the most expensive providers of live web site chat services. I was unable to find any mention of the pricing online, but through a chat session with a live operator I was quoted pricing from $99 and up per month per operator. The sales agent was very pushy, offering some discounts on a “take it or leave it” basis. They, however, are very popular service, powering many large-scale web sites.

(Continued – Part 2 of Live Chat Review series)

Categories
seo

Bad Times, Bad SEO

As a bad taste SEO techniques adopter a company called Sitelynx on behalf of the The Times (UK) was spamming media sites with links. Why would a reputable publication like The Times fall for black-hat SEO techniques is another story. What is interesting is that a report on Waxy.org looks like a breakdown to bootstrapping your web site. Well, at least a part of it. Comments give an idea what was done wrong, what worked and what didn’t. Very interesting indeed.

Last week I was participating in another experiment with Freshmeat.net. A lot of pages there have PR 3 and above, so it was naturally a good idea to comment away. However, moderators appear to be quite on guard, so most of the experimental posts and accounts went down the drain couple of days after the end.

Categories
business

Retail Online

These are the features ranked according to the number of top 500 retailers that are using them (as per Internet Retailer Magazine):

  1. keyword search
  2. daily/seasonal specials
  3. enlarged product view
  4. what’s new
  5. affiliate program
  6. advanced search
  7. online gift certificates
  8. rich media
  9. outlet center
  10. email a friend
  11. coupons/rebates
  12. top sellers
  13. site personalization
  14. alternative payments
  15. store locator
  16. wish list
  17. customer reviews
  18. catalog quick order
  19. mapping
  20. product customization

Interesting enough as well that most consumers (according to Forrester) are willing to decline paying for “flare”:

Fewer consumers are willing to pay for extras such as gift wrapping, or overnight delivery.
(26% of respondents said they would pay for expedited delivery prior to the holiday season, down from 45% who said they would do so in 2006.)

Generally, what this means is that consumers want to get their purchase faster, easier and with less extras then before. For most of the prospective clients that call us, top five requests for web site are:

  1. Large pictures/ability for visitor to enlarge product image
  2. Search engine optimization/marketing
  3. Ability to quickly add and remove inventory items
  4. Ability to post featured/for sale items
  5. Ability to use various discount codes to track promotions

It is obvious that trends for small and large businesses are almost the same. The slight difference is attributed to overall approach to ways of doing business for small business owners and large retailers.