E-tail specialist LivePerson has announced the general availability
of its LivePerson Sales Edition software, which allows companies to
add sales people to e-commerce sites via interactive chat.
LivePerson Sales Edition combines chat capabilities with real-time
monitoring, offering companies the ability to track "hot prospects"
on their site and engage them in an instant message (IM) chat.
Company representatives can capture visitors' actions, such as Web
pages visited and the amount of time spent viewing each page,
allowing them to target customers who are likely to buy. In
addition to sending instant messages to potential clients,
representatives can also direct content at visitors and generate
automated online marketing campaigns using the customer information
it collects.
"There are tens of thousands of prospects on companies' Web sites
and we are providing them with the capability to reach out," said
Tony Pante, senior vice-president of product strategy at
LivePerson. "You need to put people in the Web process and humanise
it," he added.
The software also tracks the visitor's Internet Protocol (IP)
address, allowing it to detect repeat visitors, and archives chat
sessions which representatives can pull up for reference when the
visitor logs back onto the site, Pante said.
The presence of online sales help can dramatically increase
companies' ability to convert browsers to buyers, according to
Pante, who predicts that online sales will be much more prominent
in the future.
Genealogy site Ancestry.com implemented the software a few months
ago to help visitors sign up to its subscription services.
According to Mary Kay Evans, public relations director at
Ancestry.com's parent company MyFamily.com, the company has seen a
15-fold improvement in its conversion rate of Web site browsers to
buyers using the software.
It took about a week to integrate the software into its Web site
and two days to train its representatives, Evans said.
MyFamily call centre manager Jared Richards said that the company
is getting positive reviews from customers on the new interactive
features.
"They say it's better than phone or e-mail because we can follow
them through the subscription process in real-time," he added.
LivePerson Sales Edition is priced at $10,000 (£6,477) per month
for up to ten users.