Hey there,

just wanted to let everyone know that we have just added a new feature that is available to all Basic, Professional and Ultimate accounts.  This feature allows you to upload a custom operator image, so you no longer only have the two default options.  We hope this feature will help you connect better with your website visitors.

This update also included some minor bug fixes and overall performance enhancements as we are always striving to improve the software and thus give you and your website visitors a better experience.

Finally, a word on the upcoming Chat Invite feature.  We are in the final stretch now and expect to launch the beta version to all paid accounts later this week.   You will already see the configuration option for the “Proactive Chat” feature on the Settings menu.  Please watch the blog for an announcement once the feature is fully deployed.

Cheers,

Derek

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to give you a sneak peak on the chat invitation feature that’s currently in development.

This feature is going to be unique in that it will give you two options for inviting your visitors to chat with you, Proactive Invitations and Smart Invitations.

Proactive Inviations: With this feature you’ll be able to individually target a visitor to chat with you. Using your chat monitor you can select a visitor and then click an invite button. The visitor will instantly receive an invitation to chat with you.

Smart Invitations: This will be an optional feature that you can either enable or disable. When enabled, every visitor on your website will receive an invitation after they have been visiting your site for a predefined period of time or page views. Visitors who have spent a reasonable amount of time on your site are clearly interested in the services or products you’re offering. With Smart Invites you can instantly invite these visitors to chat with you.

Below is a screenshot of what an invitation will look like.

We’ll likely be releasing this feature in two stages, with one of the two invitation options being made available first. Chat Invitations  will be available in beta to all accounts in approximately one week.

If you have any questions or suggestions please don’t hesitate to contact me at luke@providechat.com.

All the best,
Luke Holzken

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that a new feature went live today, and it’s one that you’ll find very useful; Chat Transcripts. Chat Transcripts allows you to view all of your past chats in a simple, easy to use interface.  This is a beta launch, so you can start viewing your previous chats right away and give us your feedback.  Of course, if you encounter an issue or have suggestions for any improvements,  please let us know and we’ll look right into it.

Also, with our policy of launching early and often, Chat Transcripts has been launched as a bare essentials feature. We’ll be adding more functionality in the coming days and weeks, including detailed search functionality. So stay tuned for that and more!

Cheers!
Derek

It’s been two weeks now since Provide Chat was launched and there have already been several sign ups, both paid and free accounts. For those of you who haven’t signed up yet, I thought I would take this time to talk about why using live chat software is so beneficial to your online business.

Here are 5 reasons (I’m sure there are more but this is a good list to start with).

1. Close More Sales
In an age where people can get answers instantly through Google or Wikipedia, people expect their sales questions to be answered instantly too. Live chat software gives your customers answers to their questions on the spot in real-time, which increases their likelyhood of purchasing from you rather than a competitor who takes 24 hours to answer them.

2. Save Money
Live chat saves money because it eliminates the need to maintain an expensive toll-free customer support line. Also, fewer customer service people are needed to answer questions because a person using live chat will be able to work more efficiently. Someone using live chat can handle three or four chats at once, a person on the phone can only handle one conversation at a time.

3. Increased Customer Confidence
If your visitors see a live chat button on your site, they will feel reassured that they will have easy access to a live person, even after the sale has been made. TIP: A live chat button can even be added to your post-sales emails so your customers won’t have to return to your site to access your live support.

4. Hosted, On-Demand Solution
While many live chat options are installed on your server, Provide Chat is hosted on safe, fast, and reliable web servers, so you don’t need to worry about a thing. Updates and upgrades are completely on us. There is nothing to install on your servers, all you need is a web browser and an internet connection.

5. Help Customers at Their Point of Need
Many sales are lost at the point of ordering. Clients become worried about providing personal information during the purchasing process, leading them to abandon your shopping cart. With live support, you can assist them in completing sales by walking them through the process. And with a paid account of Provide Chat you can offer a secure chat between you and your customer.

All Provide Chat paid accounts make use of SSL (which stands for Secure Socket Layer), but what this really means is that messages sent between you and your site visitors will be safe from prying eyes. SSL is the same technology that e-commerce websites and online banking websites use. If sending safe and secure messages between you and your customers is important to you then SSL is what you need.

To get set up with a Provide Chat account that supports SSL you’ll want to check out the pricing page.

And as always, if you have any questions about any of this please feel free to email me at luke@providechat.com.

Best regards,
Luke Holzken

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to post a quick note to let you know about another software update to Provide Chat.  Many of you have requested the ability to see when the other party in a chat is typing, also known as a Typing Indicator.  I’m happy to let you know that this feature has been added to Provide Chat for you and  it is immediately available on all account levels.

In addition to this new feature, this update includes some minor fixes which should continue to improve your experience.  In particular, several issues with Internet Explorer 8 have now been addressed. So if you use IE8,  please let us know how everything is working for you.

Enjoy the last day or so of 2009 and I want to wish you the best for the coming year.  We are looking forward to the many improvements and new features that will be implemented in the new year. Stay tuned!

Cheers!
Derek

Hello everyone,

we hope you are all enjoying the holidays and getting in some rest and relaxation!

Despite partaking heartily in the festivities of the season, we have managed to get in a minor update today which will improve your experience with our software.  One of the main features we have added in this update is the ability to close the chat tabs.  You will now see a little ‘x’ on the active tab which will simply and cleanly close the tab.  Please note that this does not end the chat (use the “End Chat” button for that) and you can re-open the chat you closed by simply clicking again on the specific user in the visitor table.  We also included a couple minor tweaks and fixes in this update which have been noted over the past week since our launch.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you and letting your feedback drive the on-going improvements to Provide Chat.

Cheers!

Derek

Hi everyone,

I would like to take this time to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at Provide Chat.

With our recent launch, 2010 is set to be an exciting year with many new features and updates. These include:
- the ability to invite visitors to chat with you
- a task bar icon that notifies you of new messages
- a message that lets you know when an operator/visitor is typing
- and much more

We hope you enjoy your holiday season, spending time with family and friends, and maybe enjoying a quiet evening in the comfort of your home with loved ones. So until then, I hope ‘Yule’ have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

Best Wishes,
Luke Holzken

Hi Everyone,

We’ve just launched Provide Chat and a brand new website. After more than a year of development everything has finally been put together. As you can imagine, we’re very excited about this. Provide Chat gives you a low cost, easy to set up system for offering live support. In fact, it’s so easy to use that you can be set up and offering live support to your customers in minutes.

What also makes Provide Chat unique is that the system is made entirely available online. As the world moves towards more online applications, why shouldn’t live chat? You can get started with live chat without having to download any software.

Even better, every account comes with a free 30-day free trial. You can use any version of Provide Chat and cancel anytime before your first payment takes effect. And if you run a smaller website and only need a one operator/one department setup, you can sign up to the Provide Chat Free version.

If you’re a user who helped out with the beta trial, as our thanks for all your hard work, you’re entitled to three months free for any paid version (basic, pro, or ultimate). To get your three months free please contact me at luke@providechat.com and we’ll take care of you.

This is the initial production launch, and with any new software there may be some minor issues. As we work hard to build the community of users that embrace Provide Chat, we’ll be relying on you to point out anything that doesn’t work quite right. Of course, those things will be given immediate attention.

So if you’re looking to get started by offering real time sales and support solution, you can sign up to Provide Chat here.

All the best,
Luke Holzken

Hello everyone,

We had a busy summer here working hard on getting Provide Chat ready for production and patching some of the remaining bugs.

We’ve fixed a number of bugs that were reported by Internet Explorer users.  If you’re an IE user please test it out and send us your feedback. We want to make sure these issues have been resolved.  This is especially important if you are a user that submitted an IE-related bug report.

With this update we’re now getting very close.

Thanks for your feedback and continued support.

Hello everyone,

just a quick note to all our recent signups.  We have had a couple users inform us about difficulties logging in to their new account after signing up.   We have since resolved this issue, which was related to all the site updates we have been doing as of late.  However, if you are still unable to log in to your account, please drop us a quick note by simply replying to the email you received after signing up.  We will need to do a quick tweak to your account and then you’ll be able to log in.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.