Greeting from the web!
The world of the internet is being revolutionized in many ways as you read this article. Where once the web was merely a repository of stored information (and not too long ago), it has now become a center for global interaction, and a world within a world.
The commercial web has, likewise, become the global marketplace. There is no better way to understand marketing from a global perspective then to observe how internet marketing and competitiveness in the e-marketplace has changed with advancements in hard and soft technologies (hardware and software), and how e-commerce has led the change in the web in turn. Development in web technologies are now centered upon fulfilling the requirements of international e-commerce, with big e-businesses all over the world providing the cutting edge in competitive development simply in order to attract the international e-customer to their portal or website or opinion.
The typical way today is to use simplicity and class to promote on the internet. A snazzy, simple and easy to use website is usually the first step. Branding then matters mush in order to garner visitor's confidence in the website, and this is followed by a simple, unique, short and comprehensive presentation of the business and its products and/or services. However there is always the danger of overdoing it.
Customer support and web based Live-chat
Too much automation is naturally unattractive, even to today's tech savvy web visitor. Human beings naturally want the comfort of being understood and require the confidence that they are not being misled, especially on the internet. Credit card and payment fraud along with the constant information leakage problem have made the general visitor wary of the activity they conduct on the internet. Moreover, different visitors have different ways that they understand information in. A contents page of a product or services website may make perfect sense to a visitor and may be confusing to the next. Too much or too little information can also be an issue in this regard, where too much may bore a visitor and too little may confuse a visitor or leave them unconvinced. One of the solutions used to counteract this scenario is web-based customer services.
Until recently, e-mail and inquiry-form based customer support, as well as phone-contact based support have been used extensively by web business from all over the world. This was very effective few years ago, while web-commerce was still not completely globalised and traffic rates on e-commerce websites were manageable. However, later on, these methods have become much less effective, leaving frustrated customers waiting on e-mail responses or holding onto the phone to hear a not-so-reassuring recording for hours on end. The new answer is live chat.
Live-chat is a chat based customer support model which allows an operator to chat with a visitor on a website. This chatting can be both visitor requested or proactively started by a customer support char operator. Imagine the potential of having a 'friendly customer care officer' type offering all manners of explanations/clarifications/after-sales support and generally, assistance of any kind on your website.
Chat-support personnel can;
-Provide sales and after sales support.
-Information regarding products and services.
-Pitch sales: From lead generation to closing.
-Present marketing material where required.
-Guide your visitors through your website and help fill out forms and such.
-Provide that vital human touch in order to garner confidence.
-Receive extremely valuable direct feedback from your customers about their perception of your business
Such chat-based models are gaining popularity, with more businesses implementing them every day. This stems from the fact that;
-Chat support is cheaper to implement than phone support.
-Requires a smaller team to run, as a single operator can take on multiple customers at the same time, thereby dramatically reducing costs in the long term as well.
-The response, in case of customer services requirements, is in real time. This means no customer or visitor is left waiting and is satisfied instantly.
About the Author:Allen Anderson - WebGreeter.com
Web greeter.com is a chat based customer service and support service which provides websites with live web greeters (also called WebGreeter) who are available live, in real time, on websites. These live greeters greet visitors on a website to provide customer care and sales support.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Greeting from the web!