{"id":5855,"date":"2013-05-30T09:51:45","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T23:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=5855"},"modified":"2016-02-23T16:18:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T05:18:28","slug":"a-new-online-chat-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/05\/a-new-online-chat-option\/","title":{"rendered":"A new online chat option"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5861\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/live_chat_123rf.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5861\" class=\" wp-image-5861 \" alt=\"Live chat grpahic supporting a supplier review\" src=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/live_chat_123rf-300x225.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/live_chat_123rf-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/live_chat_123rf-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/live_chat_123rf.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5861\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Deciding to add live chat to your website is just step one &#8211; deciding on a supplier can be\u00a0time-consuming. Reviews of suppliers can aid your search&#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Since writing my <a title=\"Online chat solutions in review\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/04\/online-chat-solutions-review\/\" target=\"_blank\">review of online chat options<\/a> last month (was it really that long ago?), I&#8217;ve done more testing and refining. And then another option caught my eye, despite having stopped looking, and I&#8217;m really impressed with it so I&#8217;m adding this to the list&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"assistro online chat solutions\" href=\"http:\/\/www.clixGalore.com\/PSale.aspx?BID=151532&amp;AfID=70569&amp;AdID=14295&amp;LP=www.assistro.com\" target=\"_blank\">Assistro<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They are based in Melbourne and I like dealing with and supporting Australian businesses when I can<\/li>\n<li>15 day free trial \u2013 again, I like the fact no credit card details are required in advance<\/li>\n<li>Can access via smart phones and tablets \u2013 needs a Google talk based widget<\/li>\n<li>Clean, attractive website \u2013 doesn\u2019t affect the use of the tool obviously but does inspire more confidence than the Live Help Now site<\/li>\n<li>Prices based on business size &#8211; $0 (1 operator and 10 chats per month) to $36 a month (8 operators, united chats)<\/li>\n<li>Can also pay for monitored chats \u2013 they\u2019ll answer queries for you! Appealing but obviously costs more<\/li>\n<li>Chat transcripts stored for 30 days<\/li>\n<li>Can apparently install in less than 30 seconds &#8211; it is easy to install but if you don&#8217;t have an instant messaging account you also need time to set that up (and it&#8217;s worth noting that Google has just changed their <a title=\"Google hangouts\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hangouts\/\" target=\"_blank\">chat to hangouts<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Can <a title=\"Branding the little things\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2008\/12\/branding-the-little-things\/\">customise<\/a> the chat window messages \u2013 but not the colours or branding unfortunately. However, that feature is coming in about 2 months and they\u2019ll help clients one-on-one as required.<\/li>\n<li>Form to collect contact details when you\u2019re offline<\/li>\n<li>Includes an installation guide on their website \u2013 and it is in Plain English, not tech speak<\/li>\n<li>Requires a third party\u00a0instant message client such as Google Talk, Pidgin or eBuddy<\/li>\n<li>Chat window stays constant even as someone moves pages on your site<\/li>\n<li>Chat window pops up after someone is on your site for 10 seconds but will not reappear once they close the window. Easy to close\/ignore\/minimise\/respond once the window pops up<\/li>\n<li>You can add it to as many websites as you wish<\/li>\n<li>It is supposed to work with all major browsers<\/li>\n<li>No contracts, just pay month to month via credit card \u2013 paypal option coming soon<\/li>\n<li>Maintain a regular presence on <a title=\"Tash (Word Constructions) on Twitter\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/TashWord\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a> \u2013 reassuring to see they are active and current as their blog is a bit light on<\/li>\n<li>I received friendly support via their online chat and a follow-up\u00a0phone call where they asked what features I want. My IT support also got\u00a0follow-up support very quickly after he asked for help in their chat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\">\u00a0** Unlike the other options I reviewed, assistro not only has an <a title=\"Selling as an affiliate - the basics explained\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wordconstructions.com.au\/articles\/business\/affiliatesell.html\" target=\"_blank\">affiliate program<\/a>\u00a0but is also worth mentioning via that affiliate program s0\u00a0the links to their site may result in an affiliate payment to me if you choose their paid service &#8211; it won&#8217;t cost anything extra for you either way.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since writing my review of online chat options last month (was it really that long ago?), I&#8217;ve done more testing and refining. And then another option caught my eye, despite having stopped looking, and I&#8217;m really impressed with it so I&#8217;m adding this to the list&#8230; Assistro They are based in Melbourne and I like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[1642,1644,1643,1612,133],"class_list":["post-5855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-info-tools","tag-assistro","tag-folow-up","tag-melbourne","tag-online-chat","tag-review"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5855"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6673,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5855\/revisions\/6673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}