Ask HN: Live Chat Support Software

7 points·quizbiz··10 comments

I'm looking for a 1 on 1 web chat application that can be running in the background of a secretary's computer and when someone creates a chat, it alerts the secretary with a pop up of some sort. Would campfire support this?

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If you're talking about live chat support via your website, where your secretary could be running a chat program in the background, a YC company that has a good product is http://www.olark.com/

I also concur on the olark recommendation. We have been using it for about 9 months now and routinely close deals via live chat.

Olark is a YC company and SnapABug is a Techstars company. Both are in that space and have great software.

A cool feature of SnapABug is that you can proactively chat with someone online. Not sure if that is available on Olark

I saw SnapABug demoed at Google I/O and I was pretty impressed. It does way more than just "chat" (like guiding users through your site and taking screenshots).

Olark definitely allows proactive chat :) - buddies come "online" when someone lands on your site

http://www.olark.com/portal/tour.html gives you a pretty good idea of what you can do with Olark. I think the biggest difference between Olark and the similar competition is that you get to see the visitors to your website in your buddy list of your IM program. (And yea, you can proactively chat with these visitors using Olark)

I use Olark and love it. Its integration with my contact list is great--don't even have to switch away from Adium to chat with clients.

I use Plupper and they have a very decent free version.

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+1 for SnapABug

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