Ask HN: Live Chat Support?

5 points·quellhorst··3 comments

What do you guys use or plan to use for providing live support/chat for your website visitors?

We really don't anymore. When we started and had just 3 employees and < 250 customers, we had someone on an AIM account during business hours. Customers liked it but it just didn't scale well for us. We're now at 8 employees and 5000+ customers.

Most support is now dome through our ticket system. Our support team replies usually within 30 mins during sane hours. We get raves about our fast CS replies so I think dropping chat/IM support has actually helped us.

Asynchronous support just scales better IMO.

i agree.

the only unique thing that live chat will give you is the immediate 1:1, human-to-human, non-scripted ability to answer questions intelligently and close sales.

that is a huge timesink that you won't be able to keep up with forever, which will probably mean that you'll either need to scrap it, or outsource/script it. and either option moves away from the original intent, so why not start with a system that scales and just use whatever generic live chat option you want until you end up having to scrap it?

of course, I tend to target the, ah, 'technically adept' - but I use IRC. Personally, I think it's pretty awesome.

I really like IRC because it's not 1:1 - sure, I'm in there, and so is nick and will, when we have a chance, but there are many customers (right now, north of 40) in the room, and often they help oneanother.

It's also great for one off quick questions

Reply on news.ycombinator.com