It's cheaper to provide live chat on your website than phone and email support. The average cost of a chat is around $1.50/chat. It’s about $2.50 for an email, and $6 to $8 for a phone call.
Live chats are cheaper because:
- On average an operator can respond to 5 chats at a time. With email and phone, they can only do one at a time.
- As with email, a lot of responses are scripted
- Chat can be handled offshore well by people that understand English yet may have foreign and hard-to-understand accents. Such staff can be in developing countries, with low labor costs
... David Ferris, with thanks to InQ's Bernard Louvat