Take Reader Engagement To The Next Level With VeriShow

These days, the internet is all about interaction. Once upon a time, you would visit a web page, find what you want, and leave. These days, you might leave a comment, sign up to a blogger’s social network, or send them off an email. The web 2.0 movement ushered in a whole new era of informality to the web.

If you are a blogger who is feeling rather brave (or a business that recognizes the value of excellent customer support), the next logical step is to integrate some sort of live support service into your blog. Like when you go on certain websites and a little popup appears prompting you to chat with an assistant immediately.

It Aint Out Of Our League

I for one have always assumed that such a feature is both expensive and complicated to install. But that is certainly not the case with Verishow – a live chat tool that integrates beautifully with WordPress. I’m not kidding – I had fully-featured live chat functionality up and running on my blog within literally 3 minutes.

The service comes complete with a WordPress plugin. Just install it on your WordPress blog, enter the code that Verishow prompts you with, and that’s it! If you refresh your homepage, you will find a little “Live Expert” button ready and waiting:

If you are logged into the service and a reader hits that button, they can be instantly connected with you in a multitude of ways:

As you can see from the above screenshots, Verishow comes out of the box with a number of functions. You have video and audio chat, text chat, a whiteboard feature, and much more.

Imperfect, But Impressive

The basic functions of the service (namely those mentioned above) work very well. However, there appear to be some bugs that need ironing out. I couldn’t get the screen share function to work, and as you can see from above, the video quality leaves little to be desired.

Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised with the ease in which I could set this up. And let’s not forget – it is free! Anyone with limited requirements for this service will not have to pay a dime. If you do need to take a step up, the pricing plans seem pretty reasonable.

How Brave Are You?

If you are a blogger, are you tempted to install this on your site? How do you feel about conversing with your readers at will, and in such an intimate manner? Similarly, if you run a business, would you use this product?

Creative Commons image courtesy of TDNphoto