The first spotlight of the year shines brightly on the two interface of our live chat software service from an operator's perspective. Although the Visitor Chat Window will always remain the same for your chat visitors regardless of which version of our application you choose to deploy, there are a few nuances and mild shades that we would like to tell you about. But first, a brief background.

Down Memory Lane

Although the browser-enabled interface of our live chat software was the first flower in our bouquet of services back in 2003, we realized that a desktop standalone interface of our live support application would also serve our customers well. Broadband wasn’t as ubiquitous then as it is today and a desktop standalone interface made perfect sense. Accordingly, the desktop standalone interface of Live2support was developed and successfully launched after extensive beta testing. It was our premise that the desktop standalone interface would eventually take over and the browser-based interface of our software application would receive minimal patronage. It didn’t turn out that way. The browser-based interface of Live2Support is just as popular as the desktop standalone interface. Here is why:

Portability

The browser-based interface doesn’t tie you down to a specific, PC, workstation or local area network. If your organization has multiple locations or if your chat operators are transient, the browser-based interface scores a visible advantage. Immediate access of live support monitoring window from any computer, no download and installation required. Just browse, login and chat.

Admin Permissions

For security and other reasons, many organizations prefer not to install third party applications on their servers. The browser-enabled interface is the perfect answer to such situations.

Personal Preference

Many users simply have a personal preference for a browser-based solution since an Internet browser is considered by many as familiar territory. Providing live chat service in a familiar environment is perceived to be less invasive.

The Desktop Standalone Interface Scorecard

Having outlined some of the reasons why many prefer the browser-enabled version of our live chat program, there are a number of good reasons why you should at least consider downloading the desktop standalone interface and taking it for a test drive if you haven’t done so already. In the first place, the desktop standalone interface is more stable than its browser counterpart and this is not because of our software but because of the browsers on which our application has to piggy-back. Internet Explorer, for instance, has a long history of instability that is both recorded and documented. Secondly, the desktop standalone interface uses minimal system resources and remains in the system tray unless invoked. Our users tell us that the desktop interface is fast and its response time is impressive.

The desktop standalone interface of the program allows us to preserve all the user-defined application settings that are unique to specific users. Each time your chat operator logs out, all the settings are automatically saved and are in effect the next time the operator logs in. The browser-enabled interface does not support this level of flexibility. Moreover, these application settings are not secure when you use a browser to provide live chat service. The Chat operators can save and maintain unique settings on the desktop interface of our application.