Will a chat help keep my members close?

[bianca18]

As a forum member, I enjoy staying on forums if they have a chat feature. It easily keeps me to communicate with other members that I'm fond of talking to.

 

[munky-head]

Most definitely!

After some good experience with my hosting company, I've learned to actually choose my service providers by seeing how they can assist me via chat...

 

[Wajdan]

It's a good idea to have chat function/room on the forum

 

[surreypcsupport]

Chat only works if you have enough forum members so that there are always a handful of concurrent users on the site. Otherwise there won't be enough momentum to keep vistors viewing the chat page.

 

[rockdale]

it is a nice idea to have a chat on forum. it makes it more interactive.

 

[regan]

A chat is the best possible idea for keeping your members involved but it's a must that on chat to be always 4+ members that communicate.(you may see best traffic hours and activate the chat only then).

 

[Conran]

I think it really depends on the nubers of site users. I'm involved in a site with about 300 members, and it has a chat facility. But unless you have enough people online at the same time it just sits there doing nothing.

I think you need to reach a critical mass of members before a chat facility is actually going to be worthwhile.