With Christmas around the corner, today’s e-commerce sites are revving up to welcome eager customers. Despite these efforts, however, Web sites average abandonment rates of 30 percent or higher. In fact, industry studies show that most Web users abandon a shopping cart at least once a month. Unfortunately, a key contributing factor to Web site abandonment is less-than-stellar online customer service. That’s where iSupporter comes in.

Following two years of work and research, iSupporter launched the first alpha version of its Online Assistant application in May 2005. Specially designed for customer support, Online Assistant offers online collaboration between Web sites and visitors with advanced features such as online chat and a quick answering system. What makes Online Assistant unique, however, is the fact that it provides browsers with live customer support using VoIP.

What’s more, by relying on a real-time messaging system, Online Assistant allows for unfettered communication over 99 percent of all firewalls, proxies, VPNs and routers without comprising quality or key features. On the server side, iSupporter’s Online Assistant only calls for a single line of javascript, and visitors need not install software to be able to use this live customer support application. In the end, the result is an application that enables companies to provide customers with live support while reducing phone costs and improving response times – crucial accomplishments as the year’s busiest shopping season approaches.

To date, iSupporter clients include Jumpeye Creative Media and FlashStore Products.

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Cindy Waxer is a Toronto-based freelance journalist specializing in business and technology. She has written for publications including TIME, Fortune Small Business, Business 2.0, Computerworld, Canadian Business, and Workforce Management. To see more of her articles, please visit Cindy Waxer’s columnist page.