10 Questions to Ask When Selecting a Live Chat Provider

While many people know that live chat can cut support costs and boost online conversions, estimates of live chat penetration are still woefully low. Bold Software's research with online shoppers suggests that one in five choose live chat as their preferred method of communication with a retailer. If you’re interested in adding this communication and conversion tool to your site, you’ll be faced with many choices. How can you select the right solution for your needs?

Here are 10 questions that any company evaluating live chat should ask prospective providers:

1. What’s more important, live chat technology or the agent handling the chats? It’s an interesting question to ask a provider trying to sell their technology, but the response is telling. Bold Software's research has confirmed that the success of a live chat session has more to do with the agent than the software. Knowing this, a live chat solution should include functionality that helps drive agent effectiveness.

2. What features does your live chat offering have that others don’t? Many live chat offerings have similar functionality, so be wary of responses that claim technical superiority. Search for those that will help you harvest value.

3. How much control will we have over the live chat solution and how do changes get made? Responding to market dynamics, competitive attacks or internal strategic shifts requires that you be the master of your domain. Depending on your provider to make changes for you will reduce flexibility while increasing vulnerability.

4. Do you offer an uptime guarantee? Avoid companies that offer no uptime assurances. Be equally suspicious of companies that offer unrealistic guarantees of 100 percent uptime.

5. How much does your product cost? What do I get for the money? Cost effective is the name of the game. Get the proper mix.

6. Are there required set-up fees? Set-up fees aren’t necessarily bad. For complex implementations, professional services with a team of experts can be valuable. However, these types of relationships should be optional, not required.

7. Can you offer implementation best practices? The provider you choose should have documented and data-driven best practices which it can share with you.

8. What's your customer support model? What are your customer satisfaction ratings? Ask about a provider’s support structure and what it includes. Are they able to provide customer satisfaction details? Can they share references who can speak to the service they receive?

9. What does your company provide to help agents? You want to know if the provider offers tutorials, webinars, tips and tricks, or other kinds of learning opportunities to ensure you're able to maximize your live chat solution and its usage.

10. What features does your product have to make my agents more efficient? Ask a provider if it offers features like a single interface for managing multiple customer interactions. Functionality like this integrates the agent’s work — including chat — into one location and prioritizes tasks to drive efficiency.

Ultimately you want a provider that treats its customers well and can help your agents do their jobs better through flexibility and learning tools. Finding that company can help you realize the return you're seeking when implementing a live chat solution.

Steve Castro-Miller is president and CEO of Bold Software, a web communication tools provider. Steve can be reached at steve@boldsoftware.com.