Other features include:

• Chat Logs: E-tailers can review transcripts of any chat session that takes place on their site online 24 hours a day to check for consistency and quality control.

   

• Advanced Stats and Metrics: View statistics information about both your customers and your operators, including what operators are online and how many visitor chats have transpired.

   

• Load Balance and Request Polling: If you have multiple operators in a department, the system will load balance and automatically select the least active operator.

Having live chat services on your site can help make your small business more competitive by reducing your customer acquisition costs and increasing customer satisfaction. For more information on WebSupportLive, visit the company's Web site.

WebSupportLive.com

www.websupportlive.com

Based in Owings Mills, this company is designed to bring live customer service solutions to the Internet. What does this mean for you? Check out the Contact link for a list of services in categories of Customer Relationship Management and Design. For a more detailed list, check out the Services link.

This company has live, online representatives who will help you answer customer questions 24/7 with the ability to deliver online sales and real time chat room customer service to your Web visitors, much as if they were speaking to one of your company representatives. That promises to turn Web "browsers" into buying customers.

"Customer Intelligence" provides information detailing how often specific customers have visited your site, where they've been in your site, the time spent on your site, if they spoke to a live representative and who that was. The data provided allows you to track information about potential customers more than any other site I've seen thus far.

President and founder of WebSupportLive.Com Nicholas Collins has done a great job of anticipating the needs and desires of Internet businesses.

In a nutshell, it's nice to be able to "shop from home." But sometimes you have questions or online forms can be confusing. That's when you need live interaction, and this company provides it. Human interaction with an electronic-based business in real time _ not waiting hours or days for a response to an e-mail inquiry. Boy, howdy if that isn't the innovative wave of the future before mere mortals realized they wanted it, I don't know what is!

Collins has even provided a pricing page to give you an idea of the cost of such a service, and a couple of testimonials from companies that have used his services. His client list includes companies like Hoover, Diamond Elegance and Imperial Distributors, among others. And if that isn't enough to convince you, click on the live chat and talk directly to a Web Rep _ at any time of the day or night _ for a live demonstration of how it works.

I deliberately waited until after 9 p.m. to try for a live chat _ and had a nice, long conversation in real time with Jennifer, who demonstrated while we were talking how some of the services worked. It only took about a minute to connect  and during our online talk, I found myself looking at Web pages that she linked me to in a demonstration of how she could get your customers to pages in your site that might be giving them problems or that the customer couldn't locate.

Upside: I'm impressed! The site is well laid out, easy to follow, and the live chat with a Web Rep made a believer out of me. Collins took the time to answer my questions. If his Web Reps are as congenial and well informed, this innovative e-commerce solutions company is going places!