Montreal Tech Watch

Note: again, I didn’t have a chance to write about this week because of some rails work.

Two undergrads from mcgill university have started a new company called ClixConnect.It provides live online customer support for any website, through a widget. A window with a few suggestions appears to the user, which might be product suggestions, or just chatting. The service is targeted for online retailers, web hosting companies, and web design agencies.

There are already many live chat solutions but their solution seems much more simpler and it can be a very straigtforward way to bug help future customers. If the website owner is not available, ClixConnect will have a team member to interact and talk with the user. To get an example, go to their website , a pop-up window will appear, inviting you to talk.

The company is entirely bootstrapped, with development done in Romania and Pakistan. Their marketing seems to be focused on blogs and forums, and pretty much other ‘viral marketing’ strategies.

Now, I have some concerns about direct marketing on the web. Is this scalable? will Montreal become the world’s customer support center? What will happen in September, when school opens again? And more importantly, can we just transpose the “store clerks” concept to an online store?