Online chat is a better option compared to other customer service strategies like an email exchange or a personalized phone call. For live chat, some essential criteria have to be considered. First, it is important to ensure that the client or the user is registered on the company's website as all chat sessions would originate from the website of the company. Second, it is also important to know that whether inquiries being received are quick to answer or are detailed inquiries in order to continue with at least three chat sessions at a time. Third, the basic requirement is to have an operator during live chat sessions. Due to live chat sessions, a knowledge base of prepared responses gets build up which benefits in responding to customers faster and re-type the same answer, and thus there is a consistent communication between the company and customer. Read more at: http://managementhelp.org/blogs/customer-service/2010/06/04/customer-service-strategies-live-chat/