LiveHelp 3.0 is now available from Aestiva LLC. The point-and-click Web application allows businesses to provide live customer communications through their Web sites.
LiveHelp is a pop-up chat window that’s added to a Web site to provide live technical support and/or sales support services. HelpMate “supercharges” a Web site with “popup help” windows. It allows a client to give live support online or embedded in e-mail messages through hyperlinks that launch a customer chat window. From the chat screen, staff can help customers by answering questions, providing product information or “pushing” specific Web pages.
One new feature in version 3.0 is groups handling, which allows chat requests to connect with specific individuals or groups within an organization; linking the company Web site to sales, support, accounts-receivable or any other department, according to D.M. Silverberg, Aestiva’s director of technology. Other new features of LiveHelp 3.0 include chat transfer, which allows staff to hand off a chat session to any other staff; chat conferencing, which makes it possible for any number of staff to be brought into the online discussion; dynamic image links, which indicate whether or not chat is currently available; and Aestiva’s Active-Chat technology which lets users know when staff is reading a message, typing a reply or waiting for the next question.
Unlike ASP chat services, Aestiva LiveHelp is installed on one’s own Web site. There are no monthly fees. The system runs through a browser so there’s no software to install on staff computers. Every staff member can access Aestiva LiveHelp over the Web, whether they’re using Macs, Windows or other platforms. Administrative functions are also Web-based, so setup, report retrieval and other advanced tasks are available from work and home.
Also available is Aestiva LiveHelp Pro Version 3.0. In addition to all the features of standard Aestiva LiveHelp, the Pro edition includes database logging, making it possible to pull up chat histories. And back in March, Aestiva introduced a Mac OS X version of LiveHelp.
“Aestiva has broken the ASP barrier by offering Aestiva LiveHelp as a software product, not a service,” Silverberg said. “Users can have it installed on their own Mac OS X server or in their own shared hosting account. Customer information stays under the user’s control, and there are no monthly fees.”
LiveHelp is one of four Web site applications that Aestiva announced in January in tandem with Tenon Intersystems. The new applications are an outgrowth of Aestiva’s “NET-anywhere” initiative. Launched late last year, NET-anywhere is a campaign dedicated to the principle that software applications can be hosted on any Internet Hosting Provider and with any kind of Web server.