Online Support Software?

When online support software works the way it should, it can be a great thing for the company and the customer … . But when online support software doesn’t work, watch out …

I can't tell you the number of times that I've successfully used online support software to quickly get answers to my support and pre-sale questions without resorting to the telephone or email. Online support software has allowed me to resolve a bunch of technical issues almost instantaneously. I've made purchase decisions on everything from golf clubs to web hosting packages.

But I've noticed a bad trend when I click the "chat with a live customer support rep" button lately ...

The online support chat window opens, I plug in my name and contact info, click the send button and nothing happens. Well, not exactly nothing. My browser freezes, to be exact. Frozen isn't a cool thing when it comes to web browsers.

It doesn't happen all the time, but it has happened as recently as last night.

I checked in with LivePerson today to see what they had to say about it.

I may have found the likely culprit.

The very helpful customer support rep explained that LivePerson's current software supports Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows (and up), as well as Netscape 4.7 and up (note: interactive co-browsing may not be possible when visitors are using Netscape 6 or 7).On the Mac side, they support Internet Explorer 5.1, Netscape 4.7, and Safari 1.0 v85 and up. The online support rep further explained that while basic chat function may work with Mozilla, Firefox, and Opera, they currently do not fully support those browsers.

Yes indeed, I'm a happy Firefoxonian, taking those lumps with my tea and those arrows in my forehead.

If you're considering an online customer support software solution, be sure to find out if the software works with all the popular browsers (not just MSIE).