Hi everyone! My company develops and sells software products online. And my question is: which is the most effective contact method offered to potential customers on a web site? Any input would be appreciated.
Phone call as it makes it more personal and if someone has a question or hesitates to buy something they can contact you right away.
If you have the personal, as a consumer, I'd suggest livechat. It gets your questions answered ASAP which means a sale quicker than if you had to wait for a response from an email or contact form. For phones, many consumers do not like to call long distance and be put on hold...so its kind of an unknown for making a call.
Honestly, it depends on the situation. If the conversation is something I would like a record of, I usually send email. If I need an instant answer, I phone or live chat. If its just a general question, I use a contact form. I guess all four are the best, but in different situations.
Email is used the most, but if you don't offer a phone number people will be very cautious about dealing with you.
Perhaps IM? I think personally thats what I would use, I don't know if thats what you mean by live chat or not.
I think Live chat and email. I would very rarely use the phone as I don't like being placed on hold for long periods or dialing long distance numbers.
i would say phone call, locally i get most customers to call me up, also internationally its easy for client to communicate via phone, they don't wana sit up writing the stuff, i have also done deal with people who dont even have a email but have a website ..
If your able i'd add as many contact options as possible. The insurance company i work for has the following methods: Skype Quotation forms - Specialized contact forms basically Call me back - Small form where you fill out email, name, and phone number Contact page with numbers We get a lot of people doing call me back Personally I really like the chat room feature, though my site doesn't do that right now.
As a customer , I always prefer live chat - saves a lot of time. Phone support is good too, but it cannot be provided to all international customers.
I've been thinking of adding Live Chat so it's been interesting to read people say they like it. I'm unsure what to use though. I'm cheap so don't want to spend any money. I tried adding simple Yahoo IM since I have Yahoo webhosting. To test it out, I went to another pc without Yahoo Messenger to see what happens. It went to Yahoo sign in and once signed in, it went to a "Page Not Found". I think that would be very negative for customers to get that. Anyone got any great suggestions?
It has to be a phone call. Sales are best kept personal, businesses have to trust you. How do you know that your not dealing with a kid? Being relatively young myself I'm kicking myself in the foot, but in my field I have an unbeaten reputation