Maintaining consistency and immediacy when faced with a question like, "How are you better than your competitor?" can be tricky for anyone. Even more so when that question comes in over live chat. So we came up with a system to use Olark Shortcuts to help our team respond, and wanted to share it with your team. And if you try it, we'll buy you pizza...

When first starting with live chat for your website, there are a LOT of options for tools and platforms that you can use alongside chat to improve your customer experience.

I mean, this article from Appcues shows you 60 different tools that will improve your customer experience, and that's just one article!

In the fast-moving worlds of SaaS and ecommerce, it helps to focus on picking a CRM first. CRMs, Help Desks, and Knowledge Bases come in all shapes and sizes, so it's important to evaluate each option based on what will make make your business most successful. Doing so will make it easier for you to customize customer conversations, and analytically highlight the strengths and weaknesses of your communication channels. 

Over on the Zapier blog, we were recently reminded to maximize taxible deductions by purchasing software subscriptions before the new year. Good advice to follow, but where should you invest your money?

Last week I sat down with Carol Krakowski of StellaService to discuss data and trends that are driving change in the retail customer experience. We covered a wide range of topics, from eCommerce to live chat to Facebook Messenger. You can view our entire conversation in the video below, or scroll down to the highlights. [-Karl]

[Editor's Note] Today's article comes from an Olark friend, Mr. John Dubock, a software specialist for BuildTools.com. John first wrote us to share some of the huge sales numbers he was getting from chat on his company's site, so we asked him to share what his sales day on chat is like. If you have questions about his setup, or specific tactics for selling, leave them in the comments and John will get back to you like he does on chat...ASAP! [-Karl] 

Salespeople today have amazing selling tools to choose from, but they really only need two: a chat platform and their favorite CRM.

Today's guest post is by Jacob Baadsgaard, founder and CEO of Disruptive Advertising. Previously Jacob showed us how to create content specific proactive live chat prompts. Today he explains how to create proactive chat prompts specific to a PPC ad campaign.

Today's guest post is from Brandon Liebowitz, founder of SEO Optimizers.

In his article, How to Create a Better Customer Experience, Shep Hyken says, "There is no doubt that creating a better customer experience translates into revenue." Everyone can agree that a good Customer Experience is good for business. 

For too long, I ignored my closet. My pants situation was dire. Crotches were torn, knees were ripped, and I was bereft of any pants but for a single pair of jeans and one pair of khakis.

Yet all was not lost.

One week every year I sit down to reflect on the state of the SMB SaaS market, and I thought I’d share my thoughts with you.