I have been sitting here on my live chat client, and I was wondering what are your guys thoughts on inviting browsers to chat.

I have done it a few times, with rarely any results.

Would customers consider this harrasing?

I've also tried it but have had no success. People don't like to be bothered, I'm guessing ;)

I found it rather annoying. If the online chat desk is available, I would click on it when I have a specific question.

Of course, this is just me. It also annoys me when I am shopping in a mall and these people keep approaching and offering me help.


Edit: I think, however, a better approach is to let them know you're there and you're available to answer any questions that they might have. You don't bother them or to force them into a chat, just let them know you're there because many web hosting companies decorate their website with a chat desk, but 99% of the time nobody is there to help anything.

i dont like when visiting a site, a popup appears to invite me to chat...i prefer click on chat button when i want....

It would feel like a car salesman trying to sell me something. Let them make the decision on their own, I think it is better that way.

But in most cases it means "care". Take a look at rackspace: its fantastic. And its like the scream " i dont have what to do so better ll talk to you, maybe you have any problem or smth"

I think this is annoying, just like in real life. Everytime I enter a shop and want to buy something, there has to be someone asking me if he/she can help. I leave these kind of shops as fast as I can. If I have any questions, I can ask.

This is just me. There might be persons who like this, but you never know what kind of persons are behind the screen. I prefer not to bother them.

I've been pricing truck rentals at pensketruckrental.com and getting NEW pop-up "can I help you" windows every two minutes.

That's enough to make me go elsewhere. Once is annoying but tolerable; more than once is insane.

Yes there is a fine line when dealing with this sort of thing. You should simply pop up a chat screen to let them know you are there for any help. That way they know someone is ready to help and they aren't going to have to wait for any questions they might have. This is preferable.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I think i will leave the invite button alone :)

I know that Rackspace is a good and reputable company, but the idea of each time visiting the site, having a pop-up to chat with a sales rep was annoying to say the least. Either they're not doing it now, or my pop-up blocker is configured to disallow them.

If they want to talk, they will press the button. Make sure it's in a good location on all of your pages, and don't worry about bothering potential clients.

I can see how it represents "care", but really, I would consider care to be that when I make the chat request to always have someone there to answer instead of having enough people on staff to chat with every visitor to the website.

1, its annoying
2, Cant grab much of sales
3. Its the impression that you make brings sales, you loose it as soon as you invice a browser.

I made several sales in the past week using that feature in my live chat. You have to know when to do it ...

Wow... then i can say i'm old fashioned again... :) I give huge plus when someone has time for me, doesnt metter, its a shop, car service, bank etc. Of course, sales dep. means nothing, tech. dep can be overloaded, but i think in most cases this can help to decide who will look at you in the future. When i browse searching a host, i cannot trust in those "support is online", because it was 50th time when i pressed "chat" and got "sorry, there is no support stuff right now"(then why its green?!). Two companies left me impression with thrust support: serverbeach.com and rackspace.com. :) And i think i'll always remember this "i want to chat" force.... when i'll need company with quick support

(rackspace still want to chat every time you enter their site)
:)

Whenever I go to Comodo's website, and sit for a while I inevitably get a support/livechat request from them asking me if I'm finding everythign all right. In every case, they have been extremely helpful.

I've found that they only chat once you've been on their site for 4-5 minutes, and/or you've been idle on the site for a while.

I too am old fashioned, and like the fact that there is a live person there on the other end.

I really dislike those chat request popups. I wish there was just a chat now button on the site and I could click it if I needed to ask anything. When the popup just invades the page I'm looking on I normally close the page and don't go back.

geeks/webhosts dislike them

end users thinks its neat and caring


dont ask webhost about if they like it or not, ask end users :)