There has been several services that enable you to embed chat onto your website, allowing real time communication with your users. One of them is Google Chat (which I placed in my blog for several months and later remove it). The reason for the removal is because 90% of the chats are job seekers, which I must respectably say, I am not an employment agency. Also, I believe they will have more chances in getting a job in websites like Flex Coder or even the Singapore Flex Usergroup Job's Forum. There has been a few good occasions though, when webmasters and website owners contacting me when I blog about their website. Still, getting “Guest did not enter chat” most of the time is overwhelming.
Last week, I am looking at the speaker panel of e27 unconference event and come across Zopim. Today, having spoken to their CEO Julian Low, I decide to give ZopIM a try. ZopIM, is a new service that allows business owner to embed a chat widget onto their website, which enable real time chat with their customer. With the focus of business owners and a professional chat / support channel in mind, ZopIM has clearly exhibits features that is more than just a chat service.
First of all, unlike Gtalk Gadget, ZopIM creates a chat window within the website itself. There is no popup , and chat window integrates seamlessly into the website
On top of that, if the user has previously chat with you via the website before , if he happens to leave the chat window open when he leave the website, the chat window will be automatically opened with the chat history. For websites that provide critical services, like hosting, this will be a plus as visitors can easily refer to what they had discussed with the help desk beforehand.
You can also enter your IM details in ZopIM page, in which ZopIM will notified you via IM when a visitor visits your site. However, I found that ZopIM sends me a notification each time someone open the chat window (without me responsing), and as he navigate across my site,ZopIM will send me more notifications. This is good for business owner, but for a mere blog owner, this may prove too overwhelming.
The general ZopIM control panel looks good too. Providing features like chat history, and even detailed information like IP address of the users. Using an AJAX interface, it is very responsive, although Julian express that they are currently working on a Flex interface, which is definitely inspiring.
A few ideas I will like to throw to ZopIM for consideration:
“user” as the one seeking help and the “agent” as the one who is answering questions
1. Allow the user to upload screencast (videos) or screen shots (images). Since they are targeting help desk. Having media is definitely better than text
2. Allow the agent to add a few FAQs, which auto replies the user. I have relative who works at customer service department so I know how hectic it is. If someone is asking a question and the agent is not responding (but online), that will probably means he is busy. Why not let the agent enter some text, or even videos to serve as a general FAQ to the users when they are waiting for a response. Or may a “tips and tricks” that will actually fix the issue. Since ZopIM already can add “notes” to their interface (for commonly used phase), selecting a few for auto reply should not be too difficult. For example, if a service is experience problems and users starts using the chat for help, a auto reply like “Hi, if you are experience problem, please wait 10 mins, we are resolving it ASAP” will be super neat.
3. Allow the user to change his/her nick. This will give a more customized experience. Visitor1049583 seems intimidating. ZopIM currently allow Agent to manually key in a user email. My sleepy eyes missed that
4. Allow collaboration between Agents. That will be helping to bigger companies with hundred over agents / CSO
ZopIM is still young but definitely has a lot of energy. Click the right button to chat with me then! Although I will still appreciate if you can email me at shinchi[at]gmail.com for most matter 
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