Instead of boring A/B testing, let's discuss these "live chat widgets". Does anyone here actually use these? I consider them annoying popups and rather send an email if I have any questions.
Categorically, yes.
Many people prefer getting immediate answers than waiting for an email.
I sometimes do, but not neccessarily as a customer but as a normal visitor. For example if I read an interesting blog post on a startup's blog, I often open the on-site chat just to tell them that although I am not their customer or target market I like their articles and they should keep up the good work.
I hope this sometimes makes the day of a founder org engineer a bit better.
I used one for the first time last week. I was on major computer vendor's site looking for a new laptop battery. I had some questions about the differences between different batteries they offered and delivery timing... I tried Googling the answer and a lot of people had the same question, but no answer. A "live chat" box appeared, I clicked it, and the answers were quick, clear, and exactly what I wanted to know. I was pleasantly surprised.
Stopped using them about a few years ago when the response time got too high for most of the websites and majority were agents handling chats from a outsourced process. These agents knew as good about the products/services as the FAQs.