All-hands support is an Olark institution. We’ve been sharing responsibility for chat and email support across everyone on our team — everyone, including developers, designers, marketers, and our CEO — since our company was founded in 2009. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s always been worth it. How have we made it work?

Over the coming weeks, we'll be improving your Olark navigation menus. Product Designer Taylor LeCroy talks about the decisions behind the new look: 

Can you believe 2017 is almost over?

…

Let's try that again.

Can you believe 2018 is almost over?

It's that time of year again — when colleagues 'round the world gather in restaurant lounges, hotel bars, and tinseled-up conference rooms for that most eagerly-anticipated of events...the company holiday party!

In this post, Robert Brandl, owner of WebsiteToolTester, shares some creative ideas for using live chat to improve your online store and increase your sales.

As we scaled our startup, we knew we needed more than just a mission statement to focus our team, improve our hiring practices, and keep communications issues in the workplace at a minimum. In 2012 Olarkers began formulating a list of values to do just that.

Question: What do industries like auto, supply, and manufacturing have in common?
Answer: They’ve been around a heck of a lot longer than live chat.

While English once dominated the internet, it's now the preferred language of barely a quarter of the online population at just just 25.2 percent. As of April 2019, 19.3 percent spoke Chinese, 7.9 percent spoke Spanish, and 5.2 percent preferred Arabic.

If you're selling online and catering only to English speakers, you might be missing out on a lot of potential sales. Fortunately, with a little technology and a few general communication skills, you can expand into a multilingual market without breaking the bank.

A few years ago, a colleague turned me on to a pretty fun procrastination game — type a few English sentences into Google Translate, translate them into another language, translate the result back to English...and repeat. It only took a few cycles to end up with a hysterically garbled mess.

At Olark, we believe human connections are essential to business growth. But to really connect with someone, you need to understand their context. What problem are they trying to solve with your product? How did they hear about your company? Are they considering switching away from one of your competitors, and if so, why?