WebSite101,Best,Show,Award,Int DIY WebSite101 Best of Show Award InternetWorld 2002

When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in

In a never-ending quest to make life easier for small businesswebmaster, I'm fresh from the InternetWorld 2002 conference inLos Angeles with a surprisingly valuable tool to benefit eventhe little guy online. Even though internet trade shows rarelyprovide the entrepreneur without megabucks anything worth muchdiscussion, this show delivered for David as well as Goliath.I hereby award the "WebSite101 Best of Show Award" to Groopz,for their stunningly simple and very powerful sales tool that,although stretching the limits of affordability for the typicalSOHO (small office, home office) practitioner, it is definitelya fit for those who are trying to decide whether office spaceis justified. My answer, unless you MUST have a place to meetthe public or can't separate yourself from work at home, I sayDON'T rent that office yet! Instead get Oracle Small BusinessSuite plus the Groopz service which together total just $200monthly, far less than any worthwhile office rent might cost.Even if you do rent the office, this combination can't be beat!To many who choose to work from home, it just isn't possible orthere is little need to meet the public at a business location,but now you can virtually greet them via Groopz live Java chatand real-time customer greeting system. Their marketing tag-line is, "Breathing Life into the Web!" It turns out that thisis not so far from the truth since business owners with Groopzenabled site can now greet customers whenever they walk intoyour WEB store, extend a "digital handshake" and offer the wellknown greeting, "Hello, Can I help you?"The Groopz enabled web store allows a business rep (or owner)to know instantly that someone is shopping, know which page thecustomer is on and how long that customer has been in the storeto make it possible to offer that "digital handshake" at anytime or simply monitor traffic and activity in real-time. Thereare two ways for a conversation to be initiated. You can waituntil they click the "Contact live support" button or you mayproactively approach them after noticing they are on the FAQpage looking for answers. A Java chat window appears on screen.The time to initiate that contact may be when you see them onthe information or sales page of your most profitable productor when they linger on one page for any significant length oftime. Just as a person expects a store staffed by salespersonsto be available to answer questions, so to would experiencedvisitors of your site. Once they have had that live interactionand refer your products to friends, they are very likely to letthat friend know that live support and help is available fromyour business web site. If they leave with questions, they'llvery likely return to ask them rather than leaving frustrated.This concept is not new, as HumanClick and LiveHelp have shown,but it is now affordable for the little guy at just $95 monthlyfor the complete service, which includes chat transcripts andexportable logs for evaluation in WebTrends or other trackingsoftware. If watching the real-time information and graphing issufficient for you, you needn't even own analytic software asall activity is visible on your site at any time with Groopz.Last year at InternetWorld, my Best of Show award went toCallButton.com for a service that allows customers to click abutton to summon a telephone call from a sales rep or web siteowner. While that seemed like the best solution at the time ofthat review and still provides an excellent support solution,it does NOT measure up to the power of Groopz live support nordoes it require a web site visitor to offer up any personallyidentifiable information until they make the purchase. My biggest objection to the Groopz service is the possibleintrusiveness of an unexpected live chat popping up unwantedor unrequested. When I pointed privacy implications out to thefolks at Groopz, I was told, "The only information that is nowgathered by this live help tool is the very same data gatheredby WebTrends for analysis." While this is true, most users ofWebTrends don't watch as an IP address travels through theirsite. As a privacy advocate, this feels voyeuristic to me, evenif all you are doing is watching an IP address move through thesite, I feel just a little uneasy with it. But those extra salesmight be worth a bit of uneasiness if customers aren't offended.The Java chat window that pops up for the greeting may wellstartle site visitors but, according to Groopz, experience hasshown that most just politely answser no, or click the chat boxclosed as though it were a pop-up advertisement. Since you cansee what the visitor does, even though they close the window,you'll know if they leave the site because live information isstill on your interface screen.Research has shown that up to 80% of online shopping carts areabandoned and although reasons are simply unavailable for this,I'll assert that it is frustration over not being able to ask aboutsimple matters like battery life or term of warranty that makesan online shopper leave without purchasing products already in anonline shopping cart.Additional, albeit separate, research has shown if shopperscould have questions answered, they would convert to buyers andcomplete up to 80% of those abandoned transactions. Completingof even 40% more sales would more than justify the $95 monthlycost of Groopz.com service for many online businesses. Any oneof those contacts offer the opportunity to upsell too! Groopz.com receives WebSite101 Best of Show award for this simple,affordable sales tool for the small business webmaster. For a listof runners-up and more contenders for the award, visit WebSite101. Article Tags: Website101 Best, Show Award, Internetworld 2002, Live Support