Add Instant Messaging To Your Website

Few people know that one of the stipulations for using VOW (Virtual Office Web) data on your website is to offer web visitors a "chat" or instant messaging as a method of communicating with an agent. Many State Real Estate Commissions have such wording in their VOW guidelines.

But there are other reasons to offer chat or instant messaging on your website. The least of which is to make it as easy as possible for a potential client to contact you. Studies have shown that most web visitors want to remain anonymous while they are early in their search process. But when they are ready for your assistance, that same study shows they want immediate response and will typically work with the first agent they make that contact with. Offering chat or instant messaging on your website gives them the best of both worlds; they can remain anonymous and thus are more likely to contact you, and they get response now.

There are many service providers that offer chat capabilities for your website for a fee. But why when you can just as easily provide it for free, thanks to Microsoft. You and your agents can go to http://download.live.com/messenger to download Windows Live Messenger. Then go to Windows Live at http://login.live.com/ and get an ID you plan to share with anyone that takes floor duty. Only one person should be logged in at a time with that ID, the agent on duty, though you can have more than one actually signed in. I like to have the agent one duty as the primary and the broker in charge logged in to the same account as a backup.

Now once you sign in on the web to your ID, you will see on the left the ability to create Web HTML code that will allow you embed a Windows Live Messenger on a web page. You will need to copy that code and paste it on your website where you would like the instant chat window to show up. Most of the time it is placed on the "Contact Us" page, but it can easily be on your home page or property search page.

Now your agent on duty can login with the ID you created. Now when anyone needs"Instant Chat", they will see a Windows Live Messenger window on your website and an indicator of "Online" or "Offline" depending on whether or not the agent on duty is signed in. If signed in, the web visitor can now initiate a chat session with the agent on duty. When the visitor submits the request to chat, the Windows Messenger will alert the agent on duty he has a request for a chat and he or she can begin conversing.

There is also a mobile version of Windows Live Messenger so agents can even monitor and chat with website visitors from their iPhones, Droids, or mobile phones. How cool is that!

We have been using this since it went into beta about 2 years ago and we actually get a few chat request per week off our website to inquire about properties. Enjoy!