I was just researching website live chat providers and best practices for a client of ours and came across a press release issued by an outsourced provider of “24/7 live customer support”.  After reading the release,  I followed the link to their website and the image to the left is the first thing I saw (this is the actual chat box copied from their website). This was unbelievable given the fact I had just read their press release with a strong message against this VERY thing.

Here’s the excerpt from their press release:

Man the website 24/7 with live support agents. Nothing can be more destructive for your website than having live chat OFFLINE on your website. Use live chat support only if you have adequate resources to man your website 24/7.  If you do not have resources to setup agents inhouse, there are cost effective chat providers such as (company name removed to protect the guilty) who provide agents 24/7 specifically trained for chat and customized to your specific business needs.

The lesson here – (1) Only promise what you can deliver and (2) You must have consistency at every possible customer touch point or you will forever lose credibility and a potential customer – like these poor folks did with me.