View Full Version : Do you ever "Invite" people to chat?
happierr
05-21-04, 07:19 AM
I have setup a "live chat" kinda thing what we all have.
Do you ever invite/push a chat to someone who is browsing your site (sales area?)
To me, this is rude, but I may be losing sales or something.
silverfreak
05-21-04, 07:50 AM
Yeah, I think phpChat has this feature, haven't ever used it though because of that reason.. seems a 'bit pushy. Just my opinion though.
Be cool if someone could make one that was on a shoutbox, and you could talk to them that just said something like "Hello, is there something I can help you with today?" kind of like the guys at Staples.
happierr
05-21-04, 07:53 PM
The one I am using kinada does just that....
A pop up comes up, and has an "Accept" "decline" for the end user.
but I am not sure I want to push.
I don't like to invite people because I think its rude, I'd only ask them if they would like any help if they have been on the site for 10mins. If someone askedme though, I would click yes, I like asking rather than searchin.
Greg
Chicken
05-22-04, 09:45 AM
I've had people do this to me before, and the one bad thing about it is that it interrupts what I'm doing, reading, etc.
PHPGeek2k3
05-23-04, 07:25 PM
Me honestly i would wait for them to request a chat. I honestly get anoyed when i visit a companies web site and i get a popup of some one within their company is trying to talk to me when i have not initiated the chat.
Someone mentioned something about having a shoutbox type deal where it would be where the visitor would be able to ignore the messages being sent.
One thing that i would do this for is if they are viewing a support section of our site then i might send them a chat request to see if they are needing help with something other then that i would wait for them to initiate the chat request.
Thanks
- James
I personally think its a huge help for someone to ask if they can help me or not.
markblair
07-01-04, 08:00 PM
I too have had this happen when browsing some sites and I personally think it's rude. Most people that would even know what to do with a chat screen would be able to find the button that starts one. I have closed them out without responding before due to the way they are forced. But that's just my opinion.
Chicken
07-01-04, 11:44 PM
Thinking about it more...
It reminds me of when I'm in a clothing (or other) store and a sales person comes up to you. I don't like it when they ask me, "Is there anything I can help you with?" or "Looking for something in particular?" -but I don't mind it when they casually let me know that if I need help they are there. Something along the lines of, "If you need help or can't find anything let me know."
Of course, all of that goes out the window if the sales person is a 17 year old hottie.
:: prepares for trip to Hell ::
A forced chat window on a site is an instant exit for me.
thebyp2
07-02-04, 04:23 AM
we have one that simply pops up after 10 minutes with 'if you need any help just ask'
they can accept it if they want by clicking ok or clicking on no thanks. it took a little modding of the script but i think it strikes a nice balance.
Chicken
07-02-04, 07:07 AM
I think rather than that, a predominantly displayed button inviting people to click if they need help would be better. For some reaons, I think what you described would annoy me. Especially...
When it is actually a script that sent the message, and if I *did* need help and typed a question, I'd have to wait more than 10 seconds for an answer. I know there's often an immediate autoreply but that doesn't help.
I hate IM type chat anyhow, and don't like waiting there while someone is typing, not knowing if they are typing, helping someone else, etc., while I'm waiting.
thebyp2
07-02-04, 11:25 AM
in our cse it only works if there is somebody available for chat. the timeout on the chat script is set really low so that people don't have to wait.
at any rate it appears a preference thing, and on a mass market product it appears it never going to be got right.
I think that Thawte has that too. It drives me nuts. I am compentant enough to locate the chat feature and start it up if needed. If I wanted to be hassled I would go to a car lot.
RackSpace used to use GroopzChat which had that feature. Let me tell you from my experience it didn't make me want to buy services from them, it just made me want to leave the site as they were a bit over-"Fanatical".
This has been cleared up with their move to LivePerson now though :)
Chicken
07-14-04, 10:03 PM
Yeah, that's because Groopz (and any product made by the DigiChat peolpe) makes one want to kill themself so unexplained reasons.
I agree, I do not like when its pushed on me. However, it's interesting that the majority of people here don't like it. I'm going to generalize and say that most of us here are probably more technical and more likely to find what we are looking for ourselves. I would be curious to hear from people completely out of this industry (although they are not here) to see if its something that is ok. It seems to be becoming a little more popular.
Originally posted by iblive:
I agree, I do not like when its pushed on me. However, it's interesting that the majority of people here don't like it. I'm going to generalize and say that most of us here are probably more technical and more likely to find what we are looking for ourselves. I would be curious to hear from people completely out of this industry (although they are not here) to see if its something that is ok. It seems to be becoming a little more popular.
You're looking at this from a very good perspective however I personally thingk not many complete newbies to servers would go an order something from a corporation like RackSpace etc hence why I personally think they slowly stopped doing it. But for your hosting busienss if you have a lot of newbies also, I think it may help them decide to order or not - I couldn't really say. And the people who could have a say on this (the new people) ... would most probably not be on these forums! (I could be mistaken however!)
Chicken
07-15-04, 07:17 PM
That is a good point. To expand on that, if your web site isn't laid out easy enough for me to find what it is I'm looking for without help, I'm already cursing you and whoever has trhe misfortune to start a chat with me will probably get an earful (handful?).
You are right though. There's a certain percentage of the population which might really need that type of hand-held help.
Well, I'm sure most of you have broken the bond between the glue and the computer screen and actually went out shopping .... for a car. Now, how many times have you seen a car sales(wo)man walk up to you and ask if they could be of any assistance. Unless you are a real finnicky car buyer such as I, you wouldn't let them begin to breathe another word to you, HOWEVER, I spent one week hanging out at a car lot and I can tell you that the majority of people don't mind when a car salesmen comes up to them and offers their hand in help.
What scares me though, is that these people trust these salesmen :eek2:
Getting back to the point, while I don't agree with people being invited to chat whilst on a website (I've actually left sites that did such a thing), there are still a number of naive individuals that would take this feature as being 'cool' or 'awesome' and they automatically think this company is worth the try just for that reason.
Just something to chew on ..
babywebmaster
09-19-04, 03:56 AM
I've been using help center live for a while. A lot of visitors to my sites are "work at hoem Mums" who don't really have a lot of technical knowledge. It has delighted several people when I initiate a chat & then push a page to them .. some have been completely gobsmacked
This works well on www.babyweb.com.au but if I tried it on www.linuxpreview.org I thing they would shoot me!
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