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Live Chat
Main Post:
What are your thoughts on live chat? I think it’s the most frustrating means of communication when working in customer service. Instead of it being a conversation, just as it would be in a phone call, people will often just type and type without giving you a chance to respond.
Instead of typing a paragraph to explain their issue, they type one or two words and hit “enter”, leaving the CS agent to try to piece together fragmented sentences and hearing an annoying beep every 3 seconds when the new message comes in. Also, with every new message, it pushes the text up and out of view, so you have to now scroll to see the full conversation. I hate it!
Edit - I forgot to add that companies make you answer multiple chats at a time. Why? They wouldn’t expect you to answer multiple phone calls at a time, so why chats? You still have to look up the customer’s account and investigate the issues just the same as a call.
Top Comment:
I worked on phones for some years, and now I work with chats, while I do agree that communication via phones is easier, I actually enjoy chats more, mainly because I can listen to podcasts, videos or music while doing my job.
The only thing I dislike about chats is multitasking with 2 or more clients at the same time, depending on the questions and issues, it gets overwhelming. Abusive customers are also easier to deal with since you are not hearing insults or yelling, you are reading them and that, at least for me, makes it easier to manage because I can just ignore them and send them canned responses.
LPT: When using online chat Support (customer service), the agent can most likely see what you’re typing as you do.
Main Post:
I worked in online customer service/support for about 10 years. Always was professional and legitimately was trying to help all I could. I can’t even tell you how many times the customer on the other end would start to type expletives, very rude comments, etc ...and deleting it before hitting send, and re typing some very kind reply - completely unaware I just was watching what they were originally saying.
Most support people are there to help, probably aren’t getting paid enough in respects to how much they help the business save, have usually non acknowledged jobs, and are really nice people limited to what they can budge on in a dispute.
But no matter what the situation, just remember they most likely know what you’re typing before you hit send 😀
Top Comment:
They barely read what I send, I’m not too worried about them reading what I’m typing.
Me: I need to update my address.
Chatbot: Welcome! It sounds like you want to find tech support to log in. Here are three links that might help.
Me: No, I’m already logged in, that’s how I started this chat. How do I change my address?
Chatbot: I’d be happy to help. Are you moving? Utah is lovely this time of year.
Me: What? I’m sure it is. But I already moved. Now I just need to update my address. You sent my last package to my old home.
Chatbot: It sounds like you could use a representative, let me get somebody.
Transferring to live representative...
Chat ended.
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Chat customer support agent, is it a stressful and hectic job?
Main Post: Chat customer support agent, is it a stressful and hectic job?
Top Comment:
Customer service is hectic. There is no customer service job where you could expect to be able to slack consistently.
Sometimes there are periods when no one is calling/chatting/emailing. They are not consistent, and to the extent that they are less people are scheduled to work during those times so that they become not so.