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Do you want to personally interact with your customer base?
August 09, 2014

Do you want to personally interact with your customer base?

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Gold

Modules Used

  • LiveChat

Overall Satisfaction with Olark

Olark has been specifically used by my organization as a tool to interact extensively with customers - answering questions about our website, services we offer, job opportunities, recruiting a larger customer base, and helping folks navigate our website. Olark is typically only used by a few individuals in the organization itself, although most office employees have a working knowledge of the program. As for business problems, Olark manages to provide instant gratification for those with internet access and burning questions or concerns.
  • The program itself entails an incredibly easy set up with user-friendly features. It is also possible for multiple Operators to speak with customers/visitors at once - this particular feature can be useful if there is a large surge in visitor traffic.
  • When logged into the LiveChat feature, Operators are able to see the visitor's location in the world, what pages they're looking at on your site, as well as previous pages browsed and lapsed time exploring your site.
  • Olark also offers a great deal of custom features - it's a bit difficult to explain thoroughly, but for example, one may choose to customize the site's chat feature by creating a pop-up chat widget, or a "click to chat" feature image.
  • Not really an area of improvement for Olark specifically, but I will offer that it is incredibly important to keep in mind your company's "shopping hours" or peak traffic times (there is a Reports feature on the software that allows you to analyze peak traffic times).
  • Transcript history can be a little tricky - if you're searching for a specific past conversation, sometimes you may get multiple search results and have to sift through them until you find exactly what you're looking for.
  • I'd also offer that you will occasionally come across folks that are on your site to cyberbully or say nonsensical things. While there isn't an absolute fullproof way to deal with this, Olark does offer a nice "block" feature to disregard any unwanted conversations.
  • Better customer service by far - we are able to speak to multiple customers simultaneously and address various questions and concerns through one software program.
  • In many ways, it seems that we have an edge over our competition - several similar companies don't offer this sort of service and haven't even considered offering such a service.
  • Employee efficiency has also improved greatly - many employees are able to multitask and accomplish other tasks or assignments while operating the Olark Live Chat.
I actually haven't tried out any similar products at this time, unfortunately.
I think it's a great feature to be more in touch with a customer base - it saves time, money, and is often extremely effective in terms of answering customer questions and addressing concerns. Although the subject of product renew is not necessarily in my hands, I strongly advocate for the program's future use.
I do believe that many customers enjoy the fact that using Olark's Live Chat feature is a way of (more or less) instantly gaining access or insight to questions and further information. In today's overtly connected world, for some individuals, it's much easier to log onto their desktop, laptop, or some other mobile device and seek the help they need - and it seems that many individuals would rather do this than dial a phone number. For example, if a customer asks a very difficult question to answer on the phone, there could possibly be that awkward silence on the other end while you struggle to answer their question or concern. However, with Olark's Live Chat, that lapsed time isn't necessarily an awkward silence, but instead allows you a bit of time to think and respond appropriately.

With regard to well-suited or less appropriate scenarios, I think the most important thing is to know your customer base and traffic flow to your specific site - what exactly do they prefer? What would they like to see in the future? What can you do to help them? How can you provide better customer service, and via what medium?