Live Chat/Help Offline Graphic - Hide it or Show it?

Should the graphic stay or go when help is/isn't available

[justgowithit]

I'm toying with the idea of adding live chat/help to one of my sites and I'm trying to decided whether to display the live chat graphic or to hide it when help is not available.

I'd like to leave it showing with a "Currently Offline/Leave Message" indicator so that customers who wish can leave a message.

On the other hand, whenever I go to a site and see that there's live help but no one is there, I get a pretty negative picture of an empty office.

Has anyone done any research on this? What's your opion?

[Beagle]

From a user's experience only - I'd say to leave it up but, if possible, indicate when live help will be available: "Get live help M-F from 8 am to 2 pm (EST). Outside of those hours, please leave message." If you can't be that regular, then something like "Live help will be back on line in [-time countdown-]."

If I visited a site once and saw a graphic for live help, then visited a second time and didn't see it, I'd assume they'd dropped the service.

[steve]

Hide it, and replace it with a 'send us an email' or 'fill in the form'

Why tell them you have live help when it isn't available?

Just my two cents!

[justgowithit]

If I visited a site once and saw a graphic for live help, then visited a second time and didn't see it, I'd assume they'd dropped the service.

That's a very good point that I hadn't thought of.

Thanks for the suggestions - I appreciate your input.

I think I'll try leaving a graphic online with hours posted when the service will be available as suggested.

Steve, you bring up a good point but I think I'll put a little spin on it. The site features a ticketing system and an FAQ database as well. When live help is off line I think I'll link to these two resources..... heck, I think I'll link to these two resources from the live help graphic even when it is online.

[pbradish]

On our sites we have a custom image for both live help online and offline. The offline version says "leave a message". This seems to work pretty well.