From ECommerce-Guide.com:

While live support sounds like a positive solution for both businesses and Web site visitors, it is not without issues. One problem is that a text-based chat just isn't appropriate for all types of business.

eStara recently launched of its real-time text chat solution. However, its flagship product is its Click to call. Instead of users clicking to text chat via the Web site, clients can choose to "click-to-call" by entering in their phone number. The call request is routed through eStara's data center, which instantly places phone calls to both the customer and the merchant's call center. To the customer it appears as if they are requesting a simple phone call, but analytics come into play as the customer's data and history (based on the Web site's privacy policy) is also transferred to the attending agent.

eStara's Marketing Communications Manager, Dan Obregon, stresses the power of voice and the need for businesses to offer the right form of communication at the right time.

"For more complex or high value transactions, voice is often the most comfortable form of communication for client."

Citing loan applications and financial oriented services as an example, Dan Obregon went on to say that many service oriented businesses would benefit more from offering clients immediate phone support through their Web site.

While eStara's Click to call is geared to large businesses and enterprise clients, small businesses can look to third-party providers such as Verizon Super Pages or the Amazon A9 search directory for click-to-call solutions. Both of these services offer business listings with click-to-call deployment (offered on a pay-per-call subscription basis). In this case, small businesses don't even need their own Web site to offer click-to-call services to prospective Internet customers.

Rather than making a firm decision between offering click-to-call or click-to-chat solutions, businesses can also offer use combination of both. eStara's solution offers a text-based communication session which can be seamlessly escalated to a phone session through the easy-to-use Web interface.

This piece appeared today in Multichannel Merchant.  We hope it provides a decent overview of click to call technology and some of its applications, particularly for internet retailers.

Don't you just love awards season?  We may have been overlooked by the Academy for next week's Oscars, but the good people at the Newspaper Association of America know how to recognize talent when they see it.

Last week, the association recognized the Palm Beach Post as a winner of their Digital Edge Award in the Best Ad Program category for their eStara-enabled "Talk to Seller" online classified and display ad service.  Here's how it works. 

Talk to Seller is the first implementation of click to call in online newspaper classifieds.  We were able to get a sneak peek at what INSIDE CLASSIFIED wrote about the service.

Few people realized it, but last month, Verizon Superpages.com celebrated its tenth anniversary.  Here's an article from Multichannel Merchant on how the IYP and local search engine pioneer has evolved over the years, and what they have in store for the future.

Now, Verizon's not alone in the IYP and local search space.  So, what makes Verizon Superpages different? Innovation and thought leadership.

According to the article, "Of course, plenty of other IYPs were making approximately the same decision at the same time about the future of expanded local search—not to mention lots of the first- and second-tier search engines. While local is only part of the ad business at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves and AOL, and is certainly a small sliver of their general-search focus for consumers, those companies can be aggressive competitors on the technology development front.  For that reason, Chandler says, it’s all the more significant that Superpages.com was able to bring out a pay-per-call ad option before any of its non-directory rivals."

A report released last week touts the advantages of phone-based customer contact over text chat, e-mail and self-service.  When it comes to sales conversion and customer service, there's nothing like voice for closing the deal.  Here are some numbers as reported by Internet Retailer: 

Jupiter found that despite the high level of adoption of online self-service, total use remains relatively low. For questions about billing and delivery, only 7% of consumers used online self-service, compared with 47% for the phone, 40% for e-mail and 6% for text chat.

For inquiries about product and service support, 10% used online self-service, with 46% using the phone, 37% using e-mail, and 7% using text chat.

For questions about orders, 10% of consumers preferred to use online self-service, with 43% preferring the phone, 39%, e-mail and 8%, text chat. With questions about products, 26% of consumers preferred online self service, 31%, the phone, 37%, e-mail, and 6% text chat.