Management

Don’t Be Shy – Have a Chat!

When we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the workplace are beginning to catch up.

If we keep going at this current rate, we will achieve full equality in about 475 years. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait that long. So said Lya Sorano – founder and principal of Atlanta Women in Business.

That impatience may indeed be amplified by the battalions of protesters we have today who have clearly adopted the chant which invariably ends with: “…When do we want it? …Now!”

I can only conclude that it has global approval since it can be heard in many languages over the world. So you may well ask what this has to do with the web. I think I am on reasonably safe ground by suggesting the web today is the largest selling medium we have and it is still growing.

The demand for online shopping has suddenly accelerated and grown in volume since the introduction of the latest technological toy – the tablet. Once again we are confronted with mobility becoming the common denominator, the pointer, which we first obtained with our phones and brought into popular prominence with the advent of smartphones.

The issues of web design still exist but what became grudgingly adequate has suddenly blossomed because of the advent and popularity of tablets.

An article by Joe Arico is most informative and explains: More users are doing online shopping on their tablets than any other device, leading retailers to adjust their advertising and e-commerce strategy.

Customers doing their shopping with tablets in 2011 spent more than twice as much money as those visiting sites on smartphones. They were also three times more likely to make purchases when looking at products on the web, according to Adobe’s Digital Marketing Insights report. The report looked at more than 16 billion anonymous visits to the websites of more than 150 top US retailers.

“The results of this show that tablet devices have become an absolutely critical new sales channel that marketers must address head on,” said Brad Rencher, general manager of Adobe digital marketing business. “This study shows the importance of optimising your 2012 e-tail strategy for tablet visitors.”

The higher volume of purchases on tablet devices can partly be contributed to the age group using tablets for shopping. A large number of visitors in the study were people between the ages of 18-34, who are more in tune with new forms of technology like tablets, a market that has only taken off over the past two years. Tablet owners also tend to have a higher income level than those who only own a PC or a smartphone, making them more likely to spend money online. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have recently launched less expensive devices but the $500 iPad 2 still sits atop the market.

With shopping on all mobile devices on the rise, retailers are likely to take a hard look at the design of their websites’ tablet format. As shoppers continue to use these portable devices as their vehicle of choice when making purchases on the web, companies will ensure their mobile websites are easy to use and welcoming to consumers. Shopping and e-commerce apps are likely to ramp up as well, providing easy-to-navigate portals and catalogues to ease the shopping process.”

Analysts expect sales of the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook to continue to pick up steam in 2012, which will likely lead to even higher levels of e-commerce in the future.

Since the article by J Anrico was written the situation with tablet production has changed dramatically with a plethora of new models being released in rapid machine gun fashion. The $100 Android Tablet by Novo7, the world’s first budget priced tablet to run Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich software, is expected to be available in US markets soon at this low price, much to Google’s satisfaction. There are also the top of the range Asus ePad, Samsung Galaxy, New iPad and more with all expected to drop their prices.

What is also becoming very noticeable is the use of interactive web sites where the punter can actually communicate with the service provider. As I have previously remarked, it is easy to actually ring the seller from mobile devices. That however is difficult to sensibly achieve with a conventional web site. Never-the-less both can also hugely benefit by using “live chat”.

This fancy piece of technology under the generic name of “live chat” allows instant on screen communications between two (or more) parties and satisfies the current need for things “…Now!”

The available features are almost endless providing for visitors to chat even on your operator’s own initiative, using SSL Security if desired. When you use SSL (secure sockets layer), your conversation with visitors can be encrypted so no one can intercept your critical dialog. It can be as simple as typing into a text box and receiving answers in like manner or, if a visitor provides a phone number during a chat, the operator can use appropriate support to connect to Skype to call the visitor directly. Another nice feature which would perhaps suit the small operator would be the use of a Support Ticket System. By this, when operators are off-line, visitors can leave messages in the system and choose a department to reply to them. Visitors can even transfer files to operators, and the operators can send files back to visitors as well.

These systems can display the status of visitors’ activities, including browsing, calling or chatting time information and even provide pre-recorded common messages for greeting and signing off, etc. This saves time wasted on composing, poor grammar and embarrassing spelling mistakes by operators. There is almost no practical limit to what such systems can provide.

Imagine the advantage of the system when a visitor receives your email and can click the chat button to communicate with you in real-time. You can even add a live chat button in your Outlook Express messages. You can even capture any screens and transfer them to whom you are chatting with.

Small stand alone systems as well as quite economical provider systems are readily available to also get you into a multitude of communications options with the new tablet (or old PC) equipped buyer and provide the “…Now!” service.

Clearly, speed of communication is the essence of business success today!

Arvo Elias
Cybercons 

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