Live Chat?

cormie

Hi,
Was thinking it'd be handy to have a little Live Chat feature on VanTasks.ie since I'm online quite a lot I could have it switched on quite a bit too. I don't think it'll be used THAT much by visitors but it could come in handy. I wouldn't be looking to spend any money on a subscription or anything so I'm just wondering is there any little applet that would allow you to have it on a website and what would be really handy is if somebody logged in and asked a question, that it could just pop up the way MSN windows do, what would be even handier would be if there was something for MSN that would allow it to run through msn?

Just an idea, any feedback appreciated

Goodshape

Something like Meebo Me could be what you're looking for ?

miju

try www.chatstat.com i'm using it on www.forever.ie and it's working a treat. you download an MSN type client and sign in and out on your desktop and the notice changes to online / offline dependant on your status. it also allows users to leave you a callback message or request when you are offline as well so you never miss anything

have really found it a great sales lead and customer support tool and can't recommend it highly enough

cormie

That's cool Miju, think that should probably do the trick. Did you go for any of the extra features yourself?

louie

http://www.craftysyntax.com/ is a php program I used before and found it very good.

cormie

Has anyone used both? How would they compare?

miju

have used a couple of the extra features namely extra users but TBH I found that the program works perfectly fine without the add-ons and not much difference is visible and hence not worth the extra cost (such as €5 a month to have customised pages)

cormie

What are the customised pages? Do you mean having my own logo on the chat window and things like that? Is it possible to change the look of the window for free anyway?

cormie

Is it a good substitute for MSN Messenger by the way? Does it have all the same features, not that I use half of them like webcam and stuff but do you think I'd be happy just having chatstat running my msn conversations or do you find yourself having chatstat open and msn open too yourself? If you use msn that is.

miju

yeah basically it is your logo / different colors. have sniffed around customising for free but all the pages are hosted on their server so theres no real way of doing it.

that said though, in all honesty there is near zero branding of chat stat on the customer contact pages so i dont really mind

also, when i said MSN type client I simply meant it operates in pretty much the same way. You canot chat to anyone else on the client other than either a customer contacting you or another chat stat user in the same "company" if you get me.

it wouldnt have webcam , social chat features. features it has are more along the lines of escalating / transferring calls to other operators and stuff like that

cormie

I think you might be running an older version? Check this out:



And I was told by a representative on the chat that it takes care of all the IM clients, well about 7 of them, see the MSN, ICQ etc logos in that screenshot:)

CoNfOuNd

I use ChatStat for Spiral Hosting. I'd definitely recommend it. I've tried a few of the 'Features on Demand' such as the Skype integration but you could really use ChatStat for free without any of the add-ons.

My version is 3.1.6.0.

cormie

Have you experience with using MSN on it?

miju

didnt see those features. i'm currently using 3.1.4

goes off to download new version

CoNfOuNd

I use MSN separately. I connect to Skype only through ChatStat.

I tried MSN there now and it works fine.

cormie

Is it good enough to ditch MSN altogether for do you think?

CoNfOuNd

If you just use MSN for chatting and nothing else, then it'll do the job.

Note: It won't do the same with Skype. You'll need Skype open too.

cormie

Ok cool, must give it a shot so

cormie

Got this set up on my site anyway. Pretty cool for a freebie and I got my web designer to integrate it nicely into the header and put my own little image beside it, www.vantasks.ie for anyone who wants a nose

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

Apparently there is a big major release coming in the next few days so I'm looking forward to that

miju

nicely integrated alright

louie

Very nice. Good luck with it.

mneylon

Do any of these have Mac and Linux clients? Chatstat looks nice, but appears to be Windows only

cormie

Blacknight, did you pop onto vantasks the same time you made that post? I was testing the new chatstat and just checking with people logging in and stuff and saw somebody visit around the time of your post

Chatstat is just a small company at the moment and I think they are working on a mac/linux version but it'll be a while yet as far as I know!

wheres me jumpa

Cormie, its very nice. From reading the thread I thought you were going to add an ugly feature that was needed but it has been integrated very well.

Id be interested to know how many queries you receive from this route.

cormie

Thanks, but just to point out, everything in the header for the chat bar the actual "Live Chat/Offline" button was designed and aligned by myself and then Greg from hotpebble aligned the button into the code somehow. It's actually a bit misaligned now because they changed the button with the new version, just released a week or two ago. I can easily edit the header.gif myself and it'll be fine though

The "Live Chat/Offline" button is the only bit provided by chatstat, but I think you can pay for different/customised options. I took the cheap (free) route

I'm not actually advertising with google at the moment so I'm not getting many visits as I'm sorting out loadsa stuff with the business at the moment and I haven't actually properly used it yet (in terms of full advertising and being at the comp all day when I am advertising) so I can't give you a good idea really at the moment. It's definitely handy to have and I have talked to customers with it and it's a great tool. Even for a site like mine, you wouldn't usually expect to see a live chat feature, so for other sites I'm sure it could be of far greater use. There's also a new feature on the new version that lets the visitor share their screen and the operator can click things in their browser (but nothing else as far as I know). This would be excellent for troubleshooting etc.