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Live chat windows that pop-up automatically and hassle you once you've spent X seconds looking at a website are annoying, much like email subscription modals. B

by dyates 4y ago

Live chat windows that pop-up automatically and hassle you once you've spent X seconds looking at a website are annoying, much like email subscription modals. But when I've been actually looking for support and made the choice to click on the chat button, I've generally had a great experience, so long as it's connected me to a human rather than a menu of chatbot options. It's asynchronous enough that I can keep doing something else while I wait/chat, saves me from having to spell things out or repeat alphanumeric codes over the phone, and is way quicker than email.

thih9 4y ago
> as it's connected me to a human rather than a menu of chatbot options Another annoying option is getting an auto reply about no-one being available; or being asked for personal data, sometimes before even starting the chat.
Sakos 4y ago
I've seen a live chat implementation that starts as a chat bot, but switches you to a person after a few clicks and you can't find what you need. I felt that was a perfect compromise.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Yeah that filters out probably the 90% of trivial requests.
- soco 4y ago
  A very annoying "feature" of some of those is making you wait for the human (okay that's acceptable) BUT timing out the session if you don't reply them within a minute or such.
  - thombat 4y ago
    That's the cousin of telephone hold music that interjects with a recording periodically, such as "We apologise for the delay; your call is important to us". All this does is repeatedly grab the caller's attention AND progressively reduce the strength of the grab, so that finally when a real live & hopefully useful human joins the call they may not be noticed. Just give me some crappy Muzak: instrumental without voice, or a gentle periodic beep to confirm the line hadn't dropped. If there is a voice then let it be only to tell me the remodeling queue length, e.g. "You are now eight callers from being served", and only do it upon change of status, not repeating every 30 secs.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      fading the music and overlaying the status would be better rather than the abrupt cut. Best of all is the system where they ring you back when they are ready
    - Eleison23 4y ago
    - JadeNB 4y ago
      > If there is a voice then let it be only to tell me the remodeling queue length, e.g. "You are now eight callers from being served", and only do it upon change of status, not repeating every 30 secs. I have almost never encountered this while on hold (the closest I have come is the despicable "we are experiencing unusually long hold times", all the time), and it would be so good. What I particularly hate about the repeated announcements of the type you describe is that they are often much louder than the background music, so, not only do they train me not to pay attention, they force me to turn the volume way down, or hold the phone far from my ear, making it still harder to hear when a human comes on the line.
  - PebblesRox 4y ago
    The other annoying thing is when the human asks the same questions I already answered to the bot.
  - jlokier 4y ago
    Revolut's in-app chat was like that. You may have to wait over 4 hours, so obviously you're not looking at the screen when a person picks it up. Then when you take a look you find they've replied and then left, and you have to wait for another person on a different shift to pick up your reply. The trouble is, this was also their only support channel. No phone or web or email. This went on for nearly 1 week when I was trying to talk to them to unblock my blocked-for-no-reason account a few years ago, and their response times got progressively slower. In the end a quick message on social media got the account unblocked in 20 minutes. How?!
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Bad internal structure, is how.
- halgir 4y ago
  When I need live chat support, it's because I've already exhausted the help center and can't find my answer elsewhere. I really do need to speak with a human. Fortunately, many chatbots in my experience will indeed switch over to human support if I write "I want to speak with a human". I'm glad they take that into account.
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    I'm glad you had that experience. In my experiences with both website based and call center based chat bots, the primary goal is to make it as difficult as possible to reach a real person, if I have a detailed question. I'll get a few menu options and maybe a link to an FAQ. I find it unbearable.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    I approach it from the other direction nowadays. I'll hit up live chat instead of checking the help center. If they're going to annoy me with that on every page, I'm going to use it. And if it wastes their time on something trivial, that's on them.
    - halgir 4y ago
      Does that actually benefit you though? Is it more efficient for you to wade through a chatbot or wait for a human to respond rather than read the documentation?
  - badwolf 4y ago
    You, along with most people on this site, are not the average consumer for these type of chat apps though. People aren't exhausting the help center, reading FAQ's, searching other sites, they're probably barely even reading anything on a help center at all.
- badwolf 4y ago
  This is the ideal scenario when building these out. Automate a lot of the low-hanging fruit that most people are going to be looking for, then seamlessly convert to a support chat with a human as needed
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  It ought to be possible to closely integrate a chat bot with a human so that people don't even notice the transition... It is always fair for a human to say "let me talk to my supervisor" and it is the same for a bot.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  The chat boxes that actually are chat don't bother me. Provided they don't try to pop-up unrequested or otherwise make themselves annoying, I actually like them. They can be really handy for asking a quick pre-sale question or getting support. The ones that are just a shitty interface to a FAQ suck, though. I don't even like it when they're as you describe, because its eventually turning into an actual chat with a real person is kinda-hidden functionality.
  - troupe 4y ago
    Exactly. When I know I can get a real live helpful person, it is awesome. When it is a bod that will just try to find information in the FAQ that I've already read, it is not very useful. When it is a live person who only knows how to give me the phone number and say, "please call during business hours" it is very annoying.
jjice 4y ago
Absolutely agree. Don't give me a sales pop up when I look at your landing page, but if you have an Intercom chat on your support page, I'm all ears. Had to contact Stripe support a few weeks ago and they got to me pretty quick and were really good about it. I think the company I work for spams you on the landing page unfortunately...
drdaeman 4y ago
I have used those chats, talked to humans, and had my issues resolved - but I can't say it was a great experience. I had to keep the relevant tab open and actively watch it because there is no sane method to get the notification if it's in background. Can't get distracted for too long, gotta actively watch that stupid chat for when someone comes in or replies after "I need a few minutes to do something for you, please hold on". Also, I was nervous that any accidental navigation actions (like clicking on some page link) I take in my browser would lead to loss of that chat session. Basically, I was trying to not breathe in the direction of that chat and hope that it would work. I mean, it shouldn't, but I've seen it happen. Honestly, I'd rather see a bunch of links to various messaging platforms. Or a phone number I can send a text to. Humans or machines, short or long response times - at least I know the underlying technologies are reliable.
- quadrifoliate 4y ago
  I have had the same feeling – "this is okay, but could be way better"; I think a big part is in the lack of context. Why on earth does the chat person need ask me my account number yet again? I am logged in to the website, they should be able to see that I am Account # 820914 and currently viewing Order # 788321. Ensuring that this sort of context communication as the lowest bar for an in-app chat would go a long way towards making me prefer it to a conversation where I have to gather and route relevant information.
  - eropple 4y ago
    > Why on earth does the chat person need ask me my account number yet again? Because their integration isn't very good. Ones I've used, as long as you've configured a way to resolve the user, it pops right up in the service side of the chat system.
    - pifm_guy 4y ago
      > Ones I've used, as long as you've configured a way to resolve the user, it pops right up in the service side of the chat system. Be scared of those. They typically use client side JavaScript to read a cookie to know which username is active. There is usually no verification of that info, so obviously it could be faked by a malicious client. The docs say that, but it's way too easy to just trust the info rather than setup a properly secure solution.
basch 4y ago
It's time for this to be a protocol, and built into the browser.
wintermutestwin 4y ago
>so long as it's connected me to a human rather than a menu of chatbot options Key point here. Chatbots are a universal "please despise my company" tool. If you don't have a live human available - don't show me the chat button.
- troupe 4y ago
  If it is clear I'm talking to a chat bot, then I have the option. But if you make me jump through hoops to get a human and then give me a bot, I'm going to be pretty annoyed at you.
JTbane 4y ago
The one time I used the live chat (to attempt to cancel my Economist subscription) they immediately left the chat
KIFulgore 4y ago
I agree. A live chat support option, appropriately staffed, is often the most expedient way to get help. I work configuring contact center software. Chat agents are often more experienced, "tech savvy", and less overloaded than phone agents too. And Chat is harder to ignore than Email, which Agents can just give a token reply to punt it back to the pending queue.
hedora 4y ago
I’ve found they are particularly effective when the chat option only pops up on the “contact us” page, and it goes direct to a human (with a max of one question to route the request). Amazon gets points for having the worst implementation I’ve seen. Although it doesn’t pop up and spam you, if you click through on the website or app, it connects you to an incompetent chat bot. Third parties provide direct links to Amazon’s competent chat bot that can actually handle basic requests. Seriously, WTF are they thinking?!?
tinus_hn 4y ago
It’s way over the place, sometimes it’s great, sometimes you have to wait in a queue for half an hour, sometimes it’s just a cheap bot shield in front of the customer service representatives.
smoe 4y ago
Overall I had very mixed experience with chats for support, because it is impossible to get past the bot. Or if, it takes age for a human to show up, then they disconnect if i don't respond immediately. But my bank, which is horrible is many ways, has implemented it exactly right and the chat has been my main way of interacting with them for a year or so. It starts out with a chatbot listing common FAQ topic but also says that at any point I can just type "Asesor" (Advisor) to be connected to a human, which usually takes little less than a minute. They can then trigger authentication from within the chat so they can actually do basic things related to the products (but not things like e.g. doing transfers).

by dyates 4y ago

thih9 4y ago

> as it's connected me to a human rather than a menu of chatbot options Another annoying option is getting an auto reply about no-one being available; or being asked for personal data, sometimes before even starting the chat.

Sakos 4y ago

I've seen a live chat implementation that starts as a chat bot, but switches you to a person after a few clicks and you can't find what you need. I felt that was a perfect compromise.

Gigachad 4y ago
Yeah that filters out probably the 90% of trivial requests.
soco 4y ago
A very annoying "feature" of some of those is making you wait for the human (okay that's acceptable) BUT timing out the session if you don't reply them within a minute or such.
- thombat 4y ago
  That's the cousin of telephone hold music that interjects with a recording periodically, such as "We apologise for the delay; your call is important to us". All this does is repeatedly grab the caller's attention AND progressively reduce the strength of the grab, so that finally when a real live & hopefully useful human joins the call they may not be noticed. Just give me some crappy Muzak: instrumental without voice, or a gentle periodic beep to confirm the line hadn't dropped. If there is a voice then let it be only to tell me the remodeling queue length, e.g. "You are now eight callers from being served", and only do it upon change of status, not repeating every 30 secs.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    fading the music and overlaying the status would be better rather than the abrupt cut. Best of all is the system where they ring you back when they are ready
  - Eleison23 4y ago
  - JadeNB 4y ago
    > If there is a voice then let it be only to tell me the remodeling queue length, e.g. "You are now eight callers from being served", and only do it upon change of status, not repeating every 30 secs. I have almost never encountered this while on hold (the closest I have come is the despicable "we are experiencing unusually long hold times", all the time), and it would be so good. What I particularly hate about the repeated announcements of the type you describe is that they are often much louder than the background music, so, not only do they train me not to pay attention, they force me to turn the volume way down, or hold the phone far from my ear, making it still harder to hear when a human comes on the line.
- PebblesRox 4y ago
  The other annoying thing is when the human asks the same questions I already answered to the bot.
- jlokier 4y ago
  Revolut's in-app chat was like that. You may have to wait over 4 hours, so obviously you're not looking at the screen when a person picks it up. Then when you take a look you find they've replied and then left, and you have to wait for another person on a different shift to pick up your reply. The trouble is, this was also their only support channel. No phone or web or email. This went on for nearly 1 week when I was trying to talk to them to unblock my blocked-for-no-reason account a few years ago, and their response times got progressively slower. In the end a quick message on social media got the account unblocked in 20 minutes. How?!
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Bad internal structure, is how.
halgir 4y ago
When I need live chat support, it's because I've already exhausted the help center and can't find my answer elsewhere. I really do need to speak with a human. Fortunately, many chatbots in my experience will indeed switch over to human support if I write "I want to speak with a human". I'm glad they take that into account.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  I'm glad you had that experience. In my experiences with both website based and call center based chat bots, the primary goal is to make it as difficult as possible to reach a real person, if I have a detailed question. I'll get a few menu options and maybe a link to an FAQ. I find it unbearable.
- Sakos 4y ago
  I approach it from the other direction nowadays. I'll hit up live chat instead of checking the help center. If they're going to annoy me with that on every page, I'm going to use it. And if it wastes their time on something trivial, that's on them.
  - halgir 4y ago
    Does that actually benefit you though? Is it more efficient for you to wade through a chatbot or wait for a human to respond rather than read the documentation?
- badwolf 4y ago
  You, along with most people on this site, are not the average consumer for these type of chat apps though. People aren't exhausting the help center, reading FAQ's, searching other sites, they're probably barely even reading anything on a help center at all.
badwolf 4y ago
This is the ideal scenario when building these out. Automate a lot of the low-hanging fruit that most people are going to be looking for, then seamlessly convert to a support chat with a human as needed
PaulHoule 4y ago
It ought to be possible to closely integrate a chat bot with a human so that people don't even notice the transition... It is always fair for a human to say "let me talk to my supervisor" and it is the same for a bot.
yamtaddle 4y ago
The chat boxes that actually are chat don't bother me. Provided they don't try to pop-up unrequested or otherwise make themselves annoying, I actually like them. They can be really handy for asking a quick pre-sale question or getting support. The ones that are just a shitty interface to a FAQ suck, though. I don't even like it when they're as you describe, because its eventually turning into an actual chat with a real person is kinda-hidden functionality.
- troupe 4y ago
  Exactly. When I know I can get a real live helpful person, it is awesome. When it is a bod that will just try to find information in the FAQ that I've already read, it is not very useful. When it is a live person who only knows how to give me the phone number and say, "please call during business hours" it is very annoying.

jjice 4y ago

Absolutely agree. Don't give me a sales pop up when I look at your landing page, but if you have an Intercom chat on your support page, I'm all ears. Had to contact Stripe support a few weeks ago and they got to me pretty quick and were really good about it. I think the company I work for spams you on the landing page unfortunately...

drdaeman 4y ago

I have used those chats, talked to humans, and had my issues resolved - but I can't say it was a great experience. I had to keep the relevant tab open and actively watch it because there is no sane method to get the notification if it's in background. Can't get distracted for too long, gotta actively watch that stupid chat for when someone comes in or replies after "I need a few minutes to do something for you, please hold on". Also, I was nervous that any accidental navigation actions (like clicking on some page link) I take in my browser would lead to loss of that chat session. Basically, I was trying to not breathe in the direction of that chat and hope that it would work. I mean, it shouldn't, but I've seen it happen. Honestly, I'd rather see a bunch of links to various messaging platforms. Or a phone number I can send a text to. Humans or machines, short or long response times - at least I know the underlying technologies are reliable.

quadrifoliate 4y ago
I have had the same feeling – "this is okay, but could be way better"; I think a big part is in the lack of context. Why on earth does the chat person need ask me my account number yet again? I am logged in to the website, they should be able to see that I am Account # 820914 and currently viewing Order # 788321. Ensuring that this sort of context communication as the lowest bar for an in-app chat would go a long way towards making me prefer it to a conversation where I have to gather and route relevant information.
- eropple 4y ago
  > Why on earth does the chat person need ask me my account number yet again? Because their integration isn't very good. Ones I've used, as long as you've configured a way to resolve the user, it pops right up in the service side of the chat system.
  - pifm_guy 4y ago
    > Ones I've used, as long as you've configured a way to resolve the user, it pops right up in the service side of the chat system. Be scared of those. They typically use client side JavaScript to read a cookie to know which username is active. There is usually no verification of that info, so obviously it could be faked by a malicious client. The docs say that, but it's way too easy to just trust the info rather than setup a properly secure solution.

basch 4y ago

It's time for this to be a protocol, and built into the browser.

wintermutestwin 4y ago

>so long as it's connected me to a human rather than a menu of chatbot options Key point here. Chatbots are a universal "please despise my company" tool. If you don't have a live human available - don't show me the chat button.

troupe 4y ago
If it is clear I'm talking to a chat bot, then I have the option. But if you make me jump through hoops to get a human and then give me a bot, I'm going to be pretty annoyed at you.

JTbane 4y ago

The one time I used the live chat (to attempt to cancel my Economist subscription) they immediately left the chat

KIFulgore 4y ago

I agree. A live chat support option, appropriately staffed, is often the most expedient way to get help. I work configuring contact center software. Chat agents are often more experienced, "tech savvy", and less overloaded than phone agents too. And Chat is harder to ignore than Email, which Agents can just give a token reply to punt it back to the pending queue.

hedora 4y ago

I’ve found they are particularly effective when the chat option only pops up on the “contact us” page, and it goes direct to a human (with a max of one question to route the request). Amazon gets points for having the worst implementation I’ve seen. Although it doesn’t pop up and spam you, if you click through on the website or app, it connects you to an incompetent chat bot. Third parties provide direct links to Amazon’s competent chat bot that can actually handle basic requests. Seriously, WTF are they thinking?!?

tinus_hn 4y ago

It’s way over the place, sometimes it’s great, sometimes you have to wait in a queue for half an hour, sometimes it’s just a cheap bot shield in front of the customer service representatives.

smoe 4y ago

Overall I had very mixed experience with chats for support, because it is impossible to get past the bot. Or if, it takes age for a human to show up, then they disconnect if i don't respond immediately. But my bank, which is horrible is many ways, has implemented it exactly right and the chat has been my main way of interacting with them for a year or so. It starts out with a chatbot listing common FAQ topic but also says that at any point I can just type "Asesor" (Advisor) to be connected to a human, which usually takes little less than a minute. They can then trigger authentication from within the chat so they can actually do basic things related to the products (but not things like e.g. doing transfers).