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Many companies today have a website to show their products or services, and at the same time they use email and text messaging to communicate with customers from all over the world. But often the customer has not the time or patience to install the chat software. In addition the customer may need some information on the fly while viewing the web site. Then a chat system that is embedded into the web site results to be really helpful and easy to use.
The software is composed of a main application which is run on a computer at the business owner, some files that are installed on the web server where the website is hosted, and the pages that are viewed by the clients with a normal web browser.
When an user opens the web page of the chat the page checks the status of the server, if the server is connected the page displays the input box and button to start a chat, otherwise the page displays a text message that invites the user to send an email, using the web form which can be in the same page or in another one.
If the server is connected the user can initiate a chat by choosing a username and clicking the login button or pressing the enter key.
The main application then receives the login request and displays a warning on the screen, and possibly plays a sound to alert the operator at the business office.
The main application can handle multiple chats by showing them in separate tabs, of course the operator is a human being and may have some difficulty in carrying on multiple conversations with different users, so the operator will decide which user to put on standby if needed.
Many companies have several websites active, and so the application is designed for having multiple websites as sources of chats. When an user opens a chat the operator can see which site the call comes from and answer accordingly. Each site can be activated independently from the others.
Each site can be enabled or not for being connected when the application starts. If a site is enabled then it will be connected when the application starts, otherwise it will not be connected immediately. The operator can also connect or disconnect a site while the application is running.
In addition to the information inserted by the user, the main application shows to the operator all the information that is available by means of the internet system: IP address, host name, user agent name, whois, geolocalization of the IP, etc...
The application stores all the messages in the same computer where it is running, the messages are not stored into the web server. When a site is disconnected the application can also show the content of the chats archived for that site.
The chat page can be easily customized with logos, text, different fonts and colors. The labels of the support operator, the welcome message and the other automatic messages can be modified as preferred.
The little logo showed on top of the chat is the logo of the web site where the chat is coming from.
The application can be customized for businesses with additional requirements, for example by requiring additional data to the user, like a valid email address, at the moment of the login, or by limiting the access to the chat only to registered users, who have to create an account with username and password, and insert both to start a chat.
The server application is composed in Java and so will run on every platform having the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The users that connect to the system can use every web browser with JavaScript enabled. On the web server only some PHP scripts are needed.
The functions for sending and receiving files through the chat, both from the user to the support center and from the support center to the user, are under development and will be released soon.