If you are considering live chat for customer service, you probably already have a website. Almost every business has a website these days. The purposes of the websites vary as much as the types of businesses that build them. Some business websites just focus on providing information and an increasing number of business websites offer sales of products or services to internet customers. Although running a website and offering internet sales might be new to some business owners, the importance of excellent customer service should not be new at all. Listening to customers is just as important online as it is face-to-face and live chat is an important way to connect with online customers.

I am a customer. You are a customer. Everyone becomes a customer many times over in a day – coffee shops, gas stations, any business to which your daily routine takes you. You already know how an initial excellent customer service experience can turn into a long-term customer/business relationship. Everybody seems to have that one favorite business that is frequented and recommended to family and friends. You also know that there are businesses that will never get your repeat business, probably due to a bad service experience. Customer service experiences – good and bad – happen online every day too.

Online businesses usually offer customer service through phone and e-mail. An increasing number of businesses are integrating live chat into their websites to connect with customers in real-time as they browse. The concept of live chat is very simple. Customers are presented with two text boxes – one to type text intended for a representative, and one to receive replies from the representative. The result is a powerful and effective method to engage customers in a conversation that, hopefully, creates an excellent service experience.

Why is live chat powerful and effective? An obvious answer is that it provides yet another channel for customers and businesses to communicate. This is definitely important. After all, excellent customer service requires giving your customers a voice through which they can communicate their needs and feedback. A more subtle answer lies in the timeliness and informality of live chat. A live chat widget embedded on a web page offers the customer an immediate conduit to your representatives. She does not have to navigate your website to find a contact number. She does not have to send an e-mail and wait for an answer. She can ask right now. And because the chat widget is right there on the page, she is probably more likely to ask a question that, while of interest to her, may not warrant the perceived importance associated with a phone call or the wait associated with an e-mail.

So, what does live chat cost? There are many live chat software solutions out there, offering a variety of features with a variety of price points. Most price their plans as a monthly subscription. At least one offers a pay-per-use model. Shop around and you’ll most likely find a product that contains the features you’ll want at a price that fits your budget.

Because online customer service is important, businesses are increasingly incorporating live chat to connect with customers on their websites. If you represent a business that values excellent customer service, live chat is genuinely worth consideration.

Amy Shelton is the Chief Technical Officer at Nub Games, Inc., creators of My Customer Cloud and LibraryH3lp. My Customer Cloud helps businesses provide effective customer service through web based CRM. Reach customers where ever they are by combining website live chat, popular IM clients, SMS, and social networks into a single, centralized customer service solution. My Customer Cloud can be found online at http://mycustomercloud.com.