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Please note that Chat Stat has been discontinued and is no longer available. You can read our old review of Chat Stat below, or check out the rest of the Live Chat Support Software we've reviewed. |
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Our Review Costs & Features User Reviews |
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Editor's Review:
ChatStat is a live chat support product that can be integrated into any website to provide fully secure live chat functionality. Allowing users to chat live with your site's operators has been shown to reduce site abandonment and increase sales and with just a few lines of code ChatStat can give you all this and more. The end to end system looks good and works fine, but we do have concerns about the pricing model if you go beyond the basic package.
The basic ChatStat package is priced per operator per month and includes a basic feature set that can get you started and will enable you to live chat with the visitors to your site. This is quite good value on the surface, but when you realise that some of ChatStat's best features are only available as optional extras, things can get much more expensive. For example the web analytics package is extra as well as the ability to initiate chat sessions. If you were to opt for all these features, which actually come as standard on many other services, it could end up at quite a high monthly charge. It would be much easier if ChatStat simplified their pricing model and made it clearer exactly what was included.
There are some optional extras ChatStat offers that are quite a lot more expensive, but can be very useful a part of a full solution. The ability to use the remote screen control features comes at a price but, in a customer support scenario, it can give you the edge over the competition. Simply clicking a button during a chat session can give you full control (as long as the user consents) of a system to debug problems with setup or installation. While this sort of thing can be found in dedicated services too it is very useful to have one fully integrated system to deal with these issues.
The ChatStat user interface is fully customizable and you can even purchase editors to completely change the icons it uses. This customization extends to the functionality of the product as well with integration with Skype for click to call functionality. One slight downside is that operators must use a Windows based client, which, while there is nothing wrong with it, does mean that there is slightly more work involved with setting up new operators compared to a web-based interface. On the other hand a desktop client provides much richer usability in general.
ChatStat isn't a bad live chat solution, but we have seen better – especially if you want any of the features outside of the basic package. ChatStat also allows you to host the system on your own servers though, which could prove to be a more effective solution in many cases. A live demo is available on request to see what you think for yourself, but do remember to make sure exactly what is included in the package if you decide to buy!
Please note that Chat Stat has now been discontinued.
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