Lights, Camera, and Bold Chat

Abt’s employees work 24 hours a day to keep day-to-day operations running at the high standards set by generations of the Abt family. Most day employees arrive between 3-9am, although employees come and go all day and night long.

Thursday began like most, with one major exception: at 8:30am Ross Haskell, the director of marketing at Bold Software, and a production crew came in to spend the day taping a video for the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) 2010.

The IRCE is a conference where internet retailers convene to learn from each other over a four-day period each June. This year both Jon Abt and Ross Haskell will be speaking for a conference session to discuss software that has become a lifeline of our customer’s internet retail experience. Bold Software created BoldChat, a technology responsible for giving our customers the ability to speak with a customer service or sales specialists live on-line regarding anything from product specs to tracking info to sales quotes.

BoldChat is a managed communication tool, which provides customers live human contact over the internet, in the form of a chat, which is similar to texing or emailing with the instant gratification of an immediate expert response from Abt’s highly-trained staff.

In a world full of automation, customers appreciate the person-to-person contact attainable because of BoldChat sessions. Abt has grown into the largest single-store retailer in the country, thanks to uncompromised values like customer service, as seen in the store’s motto, “The answer is always yes to any reasonable request.” BoldChat gives Abt another outlet to serve customers in every aspect of the sales process.

During the long day of filming, Jon Abt along with customers, and staff did interviews about their experience using BoldChat. The consensus was BoldChat has become a tool that Abt can’t live without. Customers appreciate the versatility of being able to speak with a sales or customer service specialist while multi-tasking. It is so flexible that consumers in every demographic can use BoldChat.
Customers are parents, students, at work, or just have so much going on that they don’t have time to be on the phone. The overwhelming customer response to the question, “what do you like most about BoldChat?” was the ability to pose a question and walk away from the computer, knowing upon their return, an expert response would be waiting for them.

Customer service personnel can answer questions and include links to products, shipper’s websites, or even spec sheets on a manufacturer website. The best feature of Bold-Chatting, according to our staff, is their ability to provide unparalleled customer service and assist multiple customers at the same time.

Jon, Abt’s co-president, is hands-on with the internet sales division of Abt. He is always willing to jump in and assist sales or customer service staff with answering phones and questions on BoldChat. The internet division of Abt sales has been around for 13 years. Since 1999, BoldChat has been an essential component of our service. Jon believes that BoldChat is an enhancement that has made it even easier than ever before to get answers to questions, as simple or complex as they may be.

Abt’s staff, who utilize BoldChat daily, believe that the ways to assist customers seem endless. Just about any questions a customer could ask on the phone, staff can easily answer over on a BoldChat.

Constantly changing to meet our customer’s ever-evolving needs is a top priority and thanks to BoldChat, we are able to help customers in yet another effective and personal way. At Abt, customer needs come first, and thanks to BoldChat we can offer even better customer service than ever before!

-Kelly B.