For any website who is selling products/services and would like to provide a quick support to their visitors, live support chat systems are very useful as they are simple-to-use, return questions into sales better, analyzed easily and can be used by distributed support teams.

HelpOnClick, a feature-rich live support chat service, is giving away "10 Lifetime Basic Accounts ($19/month) with free Desktop Application ($59)" to WRD readers and also offers:

• free plan upgrade (from Basic to Pro or from Pro to Deluxe) + free desktop application (normally $59) once you purchase the service by visiting their website from the links in this post.
• partners (resellers or affiliates) who sign-up by visiting their website from the links in this post will get 40% lifetime commissions instead of 30%.

What is HelpOnClick?

It is a web-based and real-time live support chat service where visitors can instantly start chatting with you or leave a message when you are offline.

The application provides real-time traffic data, notifies you when a visitor is browsing your web pages and even enables you to start the conversation by "pushing a chat invitation" before the visitor asks for it (which can be a good method if you think the visitor is trying to decide between the products).

It is possible to chat with multiple visitors at the same time, thanks to features like "canned responses" and "seeing what the visitor types before the message is sent",  you can respond much faster.

If there are multiple support operators, the application can assign the chat requests randomly and also, chats can be transferred between operators (like forwarding an expert question to a senior).

HelpOnClick has an advanced reports and statistics feature where you can analyze your support departments easily (number of support requests/day, operator statistics, etc.). And, you can search inside or display the past conversations anytime.

The interface of this chat support system can be customized with theming support and the ability to change every text + icons.

For the installation, all this functionality starts working by a one time copy-pasting of an HTML code.

How to join the giveaway?

In order to win one of the "10 Lifetime Basic Accounts", just comment to this post and winners will be selected randomly with the query below on 09 May 2011 (one week later).

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=2224 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 10

Good luck to all.

For a good user experience, it is always a good idea to display a "how to" on a  web page that requires an action from a user.

Embedded Help System is a wonderful jQuery plugin for creating visual and animated usage guides on a web interface.

It can be easily added into any existing web page and can display tip boxes that shows + explains the steps of an action. Or, it can perform an animated display of a mouse guiding the user on "things to do".

The plugin gets the settings from a JSON file and can focus on an element for a given period, style it (to emphasize the importance) and more.

There are various demos provided that are worth checking to see the functionality better (click the links on the left bar of the demo page).

For any website or business who collects data from visitors/customers, a privacy policy is must to disclose how the data will be used.

GeneratePrivacyPolicy.com is a free online service which eases creating one quickly.

It asks several questions from the name of the business and URL to the type of data collected (and why they are collected). Once all details are mentioned, it generates a professional policy instantly.

The service requires registration (free) and can list any previously created privacy policies for managing them better.

Traffic Light Feedback, an instant feedback service, is giving away 3 annual accounts ( £180 GBP/account) to WebResourcesDepot readers.

Details on "how to winning the licenses" can be found at the bottom of the post, but before that:

What is Traffic Light Feedback?

Learning what your users are thinking on a subject (a new feature you're planning to add, how the support was, etc.) is so important to better shape products, services or plans.

However, nobody is interested in filling forms that requires time & focus.

And, this is where Traffic Light Feedback comes in. It offers a very simple way of getting feedback from users: asking a question & having 3 clickable responses (green, yellow and red) where users don't have to fill anything.

You can create an unlimited number of templates (that carry your logo) to be sent anytime you want.

Every feedback gathered can be viewed from your dashboard & it is possible to set different e-mails to be notified for every traffic light clicked (which is great for taking proactive measures "for ex: customer support contacting the user if the feedback is red).

Adding customer lists to Traffic Light Feedback is very simple with the "import from spreadsheet" feature. And every e-mail sent has an "unsubscribe" link attached for allowing your customers to unsubscribe themselves.

The service also has a SOAP API for seamless integrations with 3rd party softwares.

How to win the licenses?

Commenting to this post is enough to join the giveaway & winners will be selected randomly via the query below on 8 March 2010 (1 week later).

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=1486 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3

Good luck to all : ).

OTRS is an open source trouble ticket system for easily managing support requests in a multi-agent interface.

The application can auto-convert e-mails into tickets (e-mail piping) which "eliminates the need of using the web interface" for customers.

OTRS is used by large organizations like Opera, MySQL AB, BitDefender, Suse & has very nice features like:

• transfer of tickets between agents
• auto-calculation of hours worked on a ticket
• powerful reporting
• canned responses
• multilanguage support
• themable web interface
• role-based user management
• & much more..

OTRS is built with Perl & can work with different databases (e. g. MySQL, PostgeSQL, Oracle, DB2 and MSSQL).

It has one-click installers for multiple operating systems (including Windows).

HESK is a free help desk (also known as support ticket) system that is built with PHP/MySQL.

Using the application, anyone can submit tickets from a web-based interface & follow their status easily. Also, the admins will be able to sort any requests by priority & answer them without leaving any non-replied requests.

The admin-side has support for canned responses for faster replies, tickets can be auto-closed after x days & more.

There is also a full-featured knowledgebase, that supports unlimited categories, where users can find answers to their questions themselves.

P.S. HESK has a free & paid version where the only limitiation of the free version is a backlink.

Jutda Helpdesk is an easy-to-use & open source trouble ticket system that is built with Django.

Whether the tickets are sent via the web interface or e-mail, the application can create the ticket & users can reply to e-mails to continue the conversation (e-mail piping).

It can be enabled to accept tickets from non-registered users which also makes it possible to be used as an advanced contact form.

Tickets can be separated into departments, product-groups, or any other classifications. Also, they can be escalated automatically between users by priority.

The application supports multiple RSS feeds & has an API for integration with 3rd party products.

P.S. Jutda Helpdesk is currently in alpha status yet very promising.

HelpDesk Pilot is a professional support ticket & helpdesk software for managing support requests sent via e-mail or the web interface easier and better.

The application runs on your server (PHP & MySQL / MSSQL) for a better customization & integration.

HelpDesk Pilot strives to offer a good customer service experience. Here are some nice features provided:

E-mail Parser

Users can submit new tickets via e-mail. The application auto-parses the e-mail & creates a new ticket with it.

If the user responds to a ticket with e-mail, that works too. With the unique IDs in the e-mail subjects, the application adds those e-mails as an update to the ticket.

Online Support Portal

Users can create a new membership to the support system, send new tickets & view the status/details of the old ones.

With the help of the knowledgebase plugin, a category-based FAQ system can be created for minimizing support requests.

Flexible Ticket Management

With a clean & slick admin interface, admins can see the priorities with an instant look.

There are several features for answering requests faster, like:

• Canned replies (one-click replies to popular questions)
• Mass reply (reply multiple tickets with one answer)
• Similar tickets (see similar tickets answered in the past)

Besides these, tickets can be assigned between departments & admins, private notes can be added, custom fields can be created & more.

Also, admins can see the other admins that are online for a better collaboration. The RSS support offers a wider usability, literally on any internet enabled device.

And, HelpDesk Pilot is multilingual which makes it possible to be used in any language.

The application comes with several editions offering different limits in department/admin staff & number of domains it can be installed. You can check the pricing for the detailed info.

Limited-Time Special: $100 Discount

HelpDesk Pilot is offering a $100 discount for any purchase completed between 10 March 2009 – 17 March 2009 with the coupon code: WRD100.

To see more, check this powerful help desk software.

P.S. This post is a sponsored-review.

RT (Request Tracker) is an open source support ticket software that helps managing user-submitted tasks, issues easily.

Users can submit tickets via e-mail (e-mail piping) or from a web-based interface.

Tickets can have priorities & admins can assign them to each other if needed. And, it tracks critical information like time spent per action, due dates, and estimated time to completion.

From one installation, RT can track multiple projects for multiple teams. The application is written with Perl & works with MySQL, PostgreSQL or Oracle.

For a full list of features, click here.

Support ticket systems are very handy applications for managing the whole support process better.

osTicket is an open source support ticket system, built with PHP & uses MySQL for storing data.

It provides a web-based interface where users can create new support requests, view the status of them & reply back.

osTicket, with the e-mail piping support, can also create new requests sent via e-mails.

The multi-user admin pages make managing support requests easier. Some administrator features are:

• Canned messages for faster answers
• Writing internal messages about tickets
• Ability to transfer a ticket to another department
• Assigning a ticket to a specific user & more..

Compared to professional alternatives, this open source ticket system is less-featured & not a complex one. But sometimes, that’s what is needed.