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?

What is social selling?

You probably already know that your target customers hang out on social sites — whether it's a Facebook group for runners (who might buy your shorts!), a LinkedIn community for small business owners (who might buy your software!), or even a Quora thread about sticky IT issues (solution: your professional IT services). You may even have closed a sale by joining a group and weighing in on a question or two. But did you know there's a name for that?

You’ve probably heard that Olark is a 100% remote company, and that we have some cool ways to connect virtually. Once a year, we get the whole crew (and families) together for an annual retreat. Retreat 2018 starts tomorrow, Saturday August 25.

Every time you interact with a lead or customer on chat, you learn something new about their goals, preferences, and priorities. From the seemingly minor (e.g., shipping preferences) to the sales and marketing “jackpot” (e.g., a detailed summary of a customer’s motivations for using your product), quick access to customer information can be a game-changer for growing your business…

One of the primary benefits of live chat over other methods of sales or support like email or the phone is the ability to help multiple people quickly and efficiently. Here are seven tips to help make chatting a breezy, pleasant experience for you and your customers!

Sergio Aicardi is the proud owner of The Miami SEO Company and Mobility Scooters Direct. He has been an active blogger for several well-known marketing publications and was short listed in the US Search Awards 2 years in a row for Best PPC Campaign & Best SEO Campaign. In today’s post, he talks about how he’s used Olark Live Chat to improve conversion rates on the Mobility Scooters Direct website.  

An essential part of of any digital strategy, content marketing is the elusive unicorn for most small businesses. Today Pete Rawlings, of This is Neat shares his opinions on how effective writing, great design, and live chat all combine to create the perfect content marketing experience.

What I’ve learned journeying from the Olark support department to our engineering team in 22 months.

This is the fourth post in Rhoda’s Tips from a Farmer series. Read her first post on working smarter, not harder, her second on Prioritizing like a farmer, and third on Getting Help.