Home | Site Map

Live Support from Your Website? Can You Do It for Free?

I'm a freelance programmer and somehow I managed to get clients, speak with them, and generate leads for years without a live help system. To be honest, I had put in bids for a "live" help system several times, and I wasn't aware there were free options out there.

Well, early last week I went hunting for something that would be my help desk and give me live support. I had some pretty strict requirements because I am not always sitting in front of my computer. I needed it to work like my present contact system and have live help built right in. I finally found something that works for me.

It's called helpcenterlive and if you do a search for it, you will find it in a heart beat. I was a little disappointed at first because even though it was free, I kept closing the window by mistake. Today I started going through all of the features, and I actually went to their website and roamed through their forum. I found out that they have an application that sits on your desktop and works just like the browser.

Now the important thing here is that what is it doing for my business?

My business is exploding. I have gotten 15 small copy writing jobs in a matter of days just because they can contact me instantly. In dollar signs this free script has paid for itself quite a few thousand times over. Because of the types of service my website provides, there really isn't a way for my clients to just "checkout," most of them need to speak with me and I need to speak with them to give them an accurate quote. They expect someone providing a service like mine to be professional and a live help desk is really helping me do that for my clients.

I'm sure the fact that my "presence" on-line is now much more professional I will get even more clients on a regular basis because they can contact me easily and my competition might take 3 days to get back to them.

There is an added bonus to Help Center Live. It's does an amazing job tracking your visitors, keywords, and even where those visitors are going on your site. There is a great review of Help Center live at http://www.track-it-now.info

Will it work for your site? Probably, if your selling anything it's nice to be able to talk with the folks who are your customers. It leads to more referrals and additional work. If your not putting customer service at the top of your priorities your missing out on the best part of being a webmaster. Security.

Edward Charkow is the lead programmer and copy writer for Stmadeveloper. Stmadeveloper provides top notch niche sites that focus on high paying keywords. No technical knowledge is needed since they do the creation, content, and promotion. Visit Stmadeveloper at http://www.stmadeveloper.com

MORE RESOURCES:

Yahoo! News Search Results for website design
Yahoo! News Search Results for website design

• Custom website design company for your online presence
We live in a technology oriented environment where most business owners try to establish a durable online presence or to upgrade their existing website, appealing to a custom website design company. Regardless of the web design services you need, those of you who want to make sure they will be working with the best have to know from the very beginning their web design needs and what to ask for ...
• Winning by design: how to keep your customers for life
Design can make or break your business. So says Dutch-born, Sydney-based brand designer Hans Hulsbosch, the creator of the latest leafy Woolworths logo and Qantas' contoured kangaroo logo.
• Ecommerce website development
Are you interested in ecommerce website development Do you want to locate a professional e-commerce web design company If your answer to either of these two questions is yes, then you should definitely keep on reading this article. You will receive all the necessary information about companies that have extensive experience in the field of ecommerce website development, being able to provide a...
• Website sells Shariah-approved sex aids to Muslims
The El Asira home page is a discreet design with two simple links for men and women. The only clue to its content are the small blue and pink hearts at the top of the page.
• New Web Design For Hostetler's Lawn Furniture
Digital Hill is pleased to announce the new web design for Hostetler's Lawn Furniture of Indiana, serving the web design needs of the greater Warsaw, Indiana area. This new website features an email newsletter sign-up, a CMS editor for allowing easy content editing, a product and category management system for easy creation of both main and sub categories of products, Search Engine Optimization ...

RELATED ARTICLES

Web accessibility for screen magnifier users
The needs of screen magnifier users are overlooked when implementing web accessibility on to a website. Screen magnifiers are used by partially sighted web users to increase the size of on-screen elements.

Ten Quick Tests To Check Your Website For Accessibility
The Disability Discrimination Act says that websites must be made accessible to disabled people. So how can you check that your website is up to par? There are a number of basic tests you can make to address some of the main issues that provide a good start in increasing accessibility to your site visitors:1.

Revealing the Firefox Secret Used by Top Web Developers and Power-Browsers
Profiles are one of the best kept secrets around regarding Mozilla Firefox (my browser of choice).In the role of web site designer, I find it useful to have Firefox set up with various Extensions for helping test compliance, keep track of Google Adsense earnings, checking PageRank and Alexa rating, etc.

The Two Most Common Mistakes That Scare Away Web Visitors
Can you imagine the hypocrisy of spending thousands of dollars, countless hours, and boatload of resources to create a marketing tool that actually sends prospects running for the hills? It might seem crazy, but a overwhelming majority of websites are doing just that.By failing to (1) define the specific goals of your website and (2) understand how it fits in with your customer's buying process, you could be loosing out on the opportunity to enable prospects to receive the value you can offer them.

Building Websites with Directory Generator
Directory Generator, a product from Armand Morin and Marc Quarles, builds directory-style websites for you in a matter of minutes. It is simple to use, it's reliable, it does what it claims to do.

Allocating Your Web Site's Budget Properly
I had a client say something to me the other day that I thought was rather interesting. He mentioned that he almost considers SEO as a marketing expense even though its really a web expense.

You Need a Website!
No matter the size of your business, having a web site is a low cost way to market your services and products twenty-four hours a day. Web sites are a constant advertisement for your business and will help you reach your targeted customers effectively.

Creating Dynamic Website Content with PHP - MySQL
Fresh website content for your visitors can be of real benefit when attempting to generate repeat traffic. Most webmasters, however, just don't have enough spare time to frequently update or rebuild their pages manually.

How Improving Your Sites Usability Can Increase Your Buyers by 40% and Boost Each Order By 10%!
With all of the factors involved in designing and building a web site, one of the most influential questions is often overlooked:Is your site easy to use?Usability isn't the same as design. Just because you've hired a talented designer to craft your site and make it look great doesn't mean it's easy to use.

UK Online Shopping with an Edge, for Buyers and Sellers Alike
Any new website competing on the internet, needs to take its business seriously, as there is so much competition around. So, there needs to be an edge on quality, content, and general user appeal.

Selling Your Site: Outsource or Homemade?
To the starting internet entrepreneur, there is nothing more discouraging then the erroneous realization that your dream for a self sufficient business cannot be realized without a heavy investment. This may be why so many people shy away from the internet; seeing all the flashy sites, many of which are $50 templates, people are afraid to enter the world of internet sales and marketing.

5 Tips To Supercharge Your Website Sales Copy
The art of turning website visitors into paying customers depends almost entirely on good sales copy. What is that?Simply put good sales copy is the content of your copy and presentation of your copy put together in such a way that it increases your visitor to sale conversion rate on a consistent basis.

Easy Steps To Website Development and Promotion
One of the most important parts of establishing a new website is website development and promotion. For people to visit your new site, you have to attract them.

How Worldly is Your World Wide Web?
The growth in Internet usage around the world is astounding - 146% in the five years prior to March 2005. And it's not just European and North American users on the Net.

Get to Know People through Websites
Web sites are not just places to sell things; they are a medium where people can get insight into other people's lives. Take the musician Xavier Rudd for example.

A Website Is Not Enough
Your ObjectiveYour small business needs an appealing and professional website but that is just the beginning. If no one visits your website and -- more importantly -- if it does not bring in new customers and allows you to sell more to your current customers, then your site is not effective.

High Quality Website at Low Cost
Although designing a great web site is an important part of developing a successful online business, it is often becomes a problem for newcomers to the internet business.The vulgar problem is the lack of money.

Where's Your Web Site?
This simple question can take on several different forms, but if you have your own web site, all are equally important. Don't worry, this isn't a sales letter, and it's well worth a read.

7 Golden Rules For Building Mini Sites
First, an eye opener. Making your fortune through affiliate programs on the internet is not easy.

Make Your Communication Come Alive
Design and layout can make your communication come alive and your message immediately apparent. Now, with so much technology at hand, design becomes much easier, but you must develop the ability to plan and visualize what you want to convey.