UserFlux – Instant Chat Without the Barriers

People who want quick answers from their friends and colleagues will typically fire off instant messages rather than taking the time to send emails or pick up the phone to call. Now, customers are demanding the same type of real-time responses from the businesses they visit online. UserFlux is a web-app that businesses can use to appease customers by integrating a live chat widget into their websites.

Quicker response times equal happier customers, and happier customers always boost the bottom line. Before you can start increasing online sales at your own company, you’ll need take UserFlux for a test drive. Pick a plan based on the size of your company and copy/paste a few lines of code to integrate UserFlux’s widget into your site. When you’re all set up, visitors who click onto your site will see a smartly designed “Live Help” widget in the bottom right corner on every page. Clicking on the widget brings up a Gchat-style chat box that shows the name of the representative on your end of the line. Customers are prompted to type in their question and press ‘enter’ for a fast, friendly response from an employee at your company. In addition to the customer’s question, you’ll also see the customer’s location, operating system, browser, and information about what brought him or her to your website. With UserFlux, you can respond to the customer’s query right away, even if you’re not at your computer. Assuming you’ve already plugged in your GTalk or Jabber account, you can reply to customers with a mobile phone or tablet PC. To expedite the process, UserFlux puts specific tools like special coupon codes and page links right at your fingertips.

When you get back in the office on Monday, you may want to sign onto your UserFlux dashboard to see what you missed over the weekend. On one screen, you can see the number of chats conducted and the average time a customer waited before getting a response. You can also review archived chat transcripts to see if there’s any room for improvement in your employees’ sales skills.

Practical Uses:

• Answer questions for a customer who is lingering on a product page
• Give coupon codes to nudge shoppers into making a purchase
• Quickly respond to website complaints or concerns from customers
• Direct customers to the page on your site that they’re looking for

Insider Tips:

• UserFlux integrates with GTalk and Jabber
• Widgets can be customized to reflect a brand or aesthetic
• Users can push updates to their site through UserFlux
• All chats are saved and archived

What we liked:

• The Live Help widget is visible on every page of a company’s site
• Businesses can capitalize on current events by pushing updates and information to their sites
• Employers can search for chats in the archive by keyword
• Users with upgraded plans get CSS customization

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• IMified – http://www.imified.com
• Olark – http://www.olark.com/portal

Company Info:

• Launched: September 2011 (Beta)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: New York, New York
• Web site: http://userflux.com

Costs:

• Solo plan is $19/month
• Basic plan is $39/month
• Studio plan is $99/month
• Agency plan is $149/month
• Corporate plan is $299/month
• Enterprise plan with variable pricing