I have a website, now what?
Interview with Dijana Dimitrovska, Product Manager of ActiveReception, an innovative software solution that enables to monitor visitors on your website and communicate with them in the same moment they are searching for information or are interested in what you have to offer. This solution addresses the problem area: “I have a website, now what?”, enabling the owners to be proactive on their websites.
Click Magazine: Where did you get the idea for this solution?
Dijana Dimitrovska: The idea for creating this solution came naturally after the realization that Internet as a medium, is enforced a standard for every company to establish web presence. However, it did not anticipate one thing: the problem with the quantity and type of information that a website can hold. No matter how much effort we put into our websites, we might never satisfy the information requirements of the today’s client base and help them make the decision. In most cases, the information displayed on our websites go as far as the interest phase and trigger an additional need for information in order to make the decision.
What do online customers do in that case? They keep surfing to the next competitor company hoping that they’ll find enough information there. Imagine this happening in the real world! Imagine leaving our stores without staff and let visitors walk around the store. If they have n any question (whether it is a basic one like different color of product), they will certainly walk away to the next store, having nobody to help them. No matter how hard we try to digitalize and make processes and website flows automatic, we will always be at a certain loss: we’ll loose a lot of sales from customers falling through the cracks of buying process, having no one to help them; and will loose time for updating information on the website at the same time, not being able to put everything at the end.
This is the exact need that triggered the creation of ActiveReception live chat software: the need to add a human dimension to the company’s web presence, to enable company reps to greet their online visitors, just like they’d do in their physical stores, and to make themselves available if visitors have any questions.
The software solution is developed by iDevelop, a Macedonian software company with a british capital.
Click Magazine: How can people use this software and which platform is it created on?
Dijana Dimitrovska: ActiveReception is an on-demand solution, meaning that it works on the principle of monthly subscription, without any downloads or installations needed. The fact that it is a hosted, means small initial investment (45 euros/month), as well as a setup in several minutes on your website. It can be used from any computer connected to Internet, independent of the operating system and configuration, with simple login from our website: www.activereception.com. The software solution is extremely user-friendly, there is no need of IT knowledge for its usage and at the same time ensures highest levels of security for your data (chats, visitors statistics), which is kept on a highly protected servers. The software is created in PHP/MySQL platform with AJAX и JAVA scripts.
Click Magazine: What are the main functionalities and benefits from the implementation of ActiveReception?
Dijana Dimitrovska: ActiveReception contains a website visitor monitoring console, meaning that in each point of time, you are able to see how many visitors you have on your website, where they come from, which pages are they looking, what was the referral page to get to your website, how much time they spend on each page, which online ad they clicked to find you / which keywords they used to find you and many other profiling info. Having all that information about your website visitors, if you, for example, notice that the visitor has reached the interest stage, you can initiate a chat invitation and chat with him within a chat window. You can also be available if the visitor clicks the “Click here for chat” button placed on your website and chat with him to finish that sale!
As for the benefits, they are multilayered and different for each industry and type of web presence, but I’ll try to sum up. Despite the obvious ones and the most important at the same time: increased online sales and improved online customer service; the benefits lay in the area of decreasing of the operation costs of a business, and the economy on a broader level. If you direct larger amount of your current and potential clients, partners and other stakeholders towards your website and practice formal online communication through ActiveReception, you have the ability to save a lot of phone-call time, lots of backwards/forward e-mailing. In other words, you become more efficient and you improve the perception of the company in the eyes of those stakeholders.
Click Magazine: How do the local clients (on the Macedonian market) accept and assess this service. Is the awareness level high?
Dijana Dimitrovska: The level of development of the e-commerce in Macedonia hasn’t fully formed (it will really soon) the perception that large amount of Macedonian businessmen have about web presence (they still don’t realize the full importance). The prevailing opinion is still on the level of: website as a cost. Because of this, we have a different strategy in the home market (apart from the one in the countries with larger index of e-business readiness, which are our main target). We try to change this perception in many ways, with direct meetings and presentations, as well as organizing seminars and conferences. The reactions that we get are mostly positive and there is an interest for usage, which has currently reached the early adopters stage in each industry (telecoms and mobile operators, tourism portals and hotels, online shops etc). We are completely satisfied with the feedback that we get from local clients, and use the information to set the direction of the product development.
Click Magazine: What are your future plans? Will you be adding new features?
Dijana Dimitrovska: We constantly add new features, releasing them as they are created. Our development schedules are created from feedbacks that we get from clients using ActiveReception, as well as following the global trends, such as Web 2.0. For now, we would like to announce new add-on to ActiveReception that will help you create active online campaigns. For more information, please come and chat with us on our website: www.activereception.com
See you online!
