A click on the live help icon on the IMMS site opened a small dialog window on my monitor and I was directed to sit tight until an operator picked me up. An operator did not appear immediately, so being impatient I keyed in my question, "How much does the IMMS service cost?" Right after that "Mary Ann," the operator, asked how she could help me. I assumed she hadn't seen my question so I re-keyed it, but in the meantime she answered the first instance - an example of the problems caused by conversations with built-in delays.
Time delay
I then asked Mary Ann what the IMMS service included. She first asked about a potential company affiliation, though didn't say why. Then she gave a pretty good high-level answer to my question (see screen, opposite). My only complaint was the time it took for the entire dialog - about seven minutes for a fairly small amount of information. (In a conversation the next day, I was abandoned after my second question.)
As agency sites provide live help (staffed internally), they'll have to ensure quick response time and meaningful answers. I understand that, in general, live help sites may assign up to five simultaneous conversations to one helper. That's more efficient than a one-to-one telephone conversation and can make better use of a person's time when they need to do something before answering (e.g., in a technical support situation when the visitor needs to try something with the program in question), but it may not work as well when a true, rapid dialog is needed.
Powered by HumanClick
IMMS uses technology provided by HumanClick, a LivePerson company. The HumanClick solution does not require Web site visitors to download helper software and can, therefore, be used immediately by any visitor. But you have to have someone available to answer the questions as they come in. It seems to me that an agency CSR would only be effective with HumanClick when the interactive sessions were rare. Anything else could lead to a nervous breakdown or significantly impaired ability to carry out normal agency tasks. Assigning the task to the receptionist would not likely be satisfactory either. So does HumanClick and its competitors have a practical role to play in agency operations? More to come.
Three versions
HumanClick comes in three flavors: Free, Express ($19.50/month), and Pro ($89.50/month), with successively broader feature sets.
HumanClick can be customized for your site, make use of canned text for faster response, push visitors to specific relevant pages, identify returning visitors, store transcripts for future use, and provides a number of other features.
The HumanClick Web site offers a free download of the most limited version. At 2.5MB it doesn't take long to download. If you're even mildly interested, it's worth doing. HumanClick installs a monitor program on your PC that you use to interact with your Web site visitors, as well as change the status of your chat availability. And, optionally, HumanClick will go through every page of your Web site and add HumanClick buttons.
Easy install
By following the path of least resistance, I was able to add chat to my site in about five minutes. All I had to know was my URL, my home page name, my host account number, and password.
Once the software was installed and my Web site updated, I went to my home page and was immediately notified by the Human-Click monitor running on my PC (and connected to the Internet) that someone (me) was visiting my site. When I, as a site visitor clicked the chat button (added by HumanClick to the bottom of every page in my Web site), the HumanClick monitor program let me know someone was "calling," and asked whether I wanted to respond. I did and then had a conversation with myself — something I usually enjoy because of the clever repartee.
Since I usually have more to do than wait behind my Web site door for someone to enter, I searched for and quickly found a way to immediately reset the buttons on my Web site from chat to leave a message.
Cool stuff
HumanClick is definitely cool stuff. It's a clever, free service that would be cheap at twice the price. You may want to look into it, if only to begin to explore the possibilities and issues surrounding on-line, interactive Web site help. I suspect that it isn't possible to really understand this method of interaction a priori. You really need to experiment, see what happens, and then adjust.
If you're interested, take a look at www.humanclick.com.
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