Chat Live Support

[jamal]

We are looking at implementing Chat Live support and was hoping that the group would recommend a good product based on recent experiance. I would also like to ask the group what they think of a hosted product compared to in-house implementation.

Jamal

[affearner]

Hello Jamal! We're currently using Live Support to assist online inquiry for the programs we handle. The Live Support we're using is powered by PHP Live. Hope you can check it out.

[TipPro]

I have had a good experience with this company in the past... http://www.providesupport.com/

[StarrHorne]

Hi Jamal,

My company is in the early stages of developing a live chat program, so I've done a fair amount of research on this. LivePerson and BoldChat seem to be the big players. I haven't heard anything bad about either.

You can certainly host the chat system yourself. But I would recommend testing the system under load before deploying. The reason is that chat programs can be bandwith/cpu intensive.

[affearner]

The reason is that chat programs can be bandwith/cpu intensive.

What do you exactly mean by this StarrHorne?

[StarrHorne]

It depends on what type of software you're using. (if you're using a hosted solution, none of this applies to you)

For example, if the software supports proactive chat (where you initiate chat with the visitor), then the visitor's browser has to ping your server every few seconds to see if a chat was initiated.

It's not a problem if you only have 10 people viewing your site at one time. But if you have a traffic spike where 200 people are viewing your web site, your server could be getting 50 pings a second.

That's not unmanageable. But if you're running a php script on shared hosting, or on the same server as your main site, it could bog down.

It's just something to be aware of.

[Corey Bryant]

Who's On is the company I would recommend. They offer a hosted solution or you can install their program on your server.

[affearner]

Thanks for the information StarrHorne. I'm glad that our system is still going strong.

[StarrHorne]

Sounds like you have it under control

[affearner]

Regular policing helps. We had to keep it well because we're using it for almost 24/7. This way we can serve our affiliates and potential affiliates on time