I'm looking for a live chat program so that we can chat with the customers while they are browsing our online store. Has anyone had experience with this and what is your preferred program (preferably open source)?
Ugh. I used to have live chat on my sites. It was a total waste of time. Only people who wanted to use it were lonely people who wanted to chat with someone or people trying to sell something (spammers). No one else used it at all. If you want a way for customers to get in touch with you, an 800 number is far more effective. I used www.phplivesupport.com which was a good piece of software...but still.
Live Chat can greatly increase conversions on your website if used properly and manned 24/7. If you are serious about increasing your business online, use a reliable hosted chat service such as Velaro Live Chat Software, that provides stability and loads of useful features. Try researching our directory at livechatdir.com.