Live chat. What happens when it's not live?

SenseiSteve

SenseiSteve

HD Moderator
Staff member
Just out of curiosity, how often when you reach out to a provider on live chat, and if they do not respond, do you actually try again later?

Do you create a sales ticket for those missed prospects and do they ever respond back?
 
The web hosts that I work with, one of my requirements is Live Chat. I do not like any "bots" or "fake help". While it can be useful for some, it's not helpful to someone that knows what they're doing.

I generally open a chat and if there's a level 2 tech or an admin that can assist, great, otherwise I redirect to a ticket.

I have had instances, infact I ran into one just this weekend with a plugin that I was installing. I contacted the plugin provider (who had live chat), and when I started the chat it said that I can enter my info but staff wouldn't be back to answer until Monday. I was a little annoyed that it said "live chat online" but I filled out the ticket anyway, and surprisingly enough, I got an answer late Friday night and my question resolved.

I would much rather have had just a ticket option than a fake "we're online" message.
 
bigredseo said:
The web hosts that I work with, one of my requirements is Live Chat. I do not like any "bots" or "fake help". While it can be useful for some, it's not helpful to someone that knows what they're doing.

I generally open a chat and if there's a level 2 tech or an admin that can assist, great, otherwise I redirect to a ticket.

I have had instances, infact I ran into one just this weekend with a plugin that I was installing. I contacted the plugin provider (who had live chat), and when I started the chat it said that I can enter my info but staff wouldn't be back to answer until Monday. I was a little annoyed that it said "live chat online" but I filled out the ticket anyway, and surprisingly enough, I got an answer late Friday night and my question resolved.

I would much rather have had just a ticket option than a fake "we're online" message.
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Agreed as this is one of my pet peeves.
 
I always try to reach support via live chat first but if they aren't available I would open a ticket right away. Live chat is not a big deal for me as long as they response to my ticket fast enough.
 
Recently tawk.to had started offering Live Chat agents at like $1/hour.

They were painfully slow to respond, and a few test support questions and they were always answering the wrong answer, I hope no one in this industry uses it
 
hostkoala said:
Recently tawk.to had started offering Live Chat agents at like $1/hour.
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They have offered this service for several years. Also dont forget if you are outsourcing support like this, then their chat agents need to know everything about your business offerings and products/services as how can they help your customers if they dont know anything about your business
 
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bigredseo said:
The web hosts that I work with, one of my requirements is Live Chat. I do not like any "bots" or "fake help". While it can be useful for some, it's not helpful to someone that knows what they're doing.
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Yes i hate the 'Hi i am sally your virtual assistant' and then anything you write, you get the same canned replies that offer you no help
 
I am a big fan of live chats. But only when they are live. And manned.

I agree with Conor, it's beyond annoying to invest your time into inputting name and contact information, just to enter the chat and be met either with a bot, or a message that the chat is currently not serviced.

I noticed that I've been using chat more and more often, if there is such an option, with banks, Apple, ISP provider. If I could, I'd use it for everything, because I cannot stand calling or waiting on the phone for an hour before someone answers it. I'd rather go at a text chat pace.
 
easyhostmedia said:
Its all because companies think it is better to keep live chat as active and have a bot give canned replies rather than turn off live chat when they cannot answer chats
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Which means live chat internally open ticket or forward the request to some email id and response time is not instant. So live chat in actually as good as opening support to sales ticket with provider :)
 
turbovp said:
Which means live chat internally open ticket or forward the request to some email id and response time is not instant. So live chat in actually as good as opening support to sales ticket with provider :)
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Not always

I have had an issue with a company since Nov. 2019, the bot gives a ticket ID, but you get nothing else from them
 
@Artashes

I agree with Artashes. Live chat should be manned. I am a customer of Resellerclub and their livechat agents response quickly. This is one of the reasons why I am a fan of livechat.

I don't like bots in live chat that some hosting provider is using. I find that it is not quite helpful for me. I prefer a real live chat.
 
I work with a global webhoster and hence a manned 365/24/7 support live chat is a MUST! After all, there is always day somewhere on the globe!

Maybe business which are operating only locally can afford to run live chat business hours - that depends on the marked, I guess. If you plan to run a chat with business hours, you should make sure that your customers can drop an e-mail if no agent is online. I also think Bots are mostly not too helpful and shouldn't be used.
 
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I do not offer any 'bots' or fake representatives on my live chat, I always do my best to ensure our hosting company's live chat is online as much as possible, but if it is offline the client will be directed to send us a message (e-mail) and that they will get a response in business hours :)
 
Some clients are preferred to use Live Chat for quick communication, but some clients preferred to use tickets because they don't like to keep on wait over live chat for an agent. When we are unable over live chat, we make sure to disable the live chat widget on our website and encourage to submit a ticket.
 
I think live chat is a good support medium, as is tickets or email. With a huge company I would always expect to receive 24/7 support, with smaller companies I wouldn't but then very often the level of support and personal service that you get is much better.

The single most important thing is that all of the communication with a client is recorded together and accessible to whoever is dealing with the support question. It's so so much easier to solve any issue if you have all of the information in front of you!
 
S4 Hosting said:
The single most important thing is that all of the communication with a client is recorded together and accessible to whoever is dealing with the support question. It's so so much easier to solve any issue if you have all of the information in front of you!
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I've noticed more and more companies not recording the chat logs for user review - meaning, me as a customer, I should be allowed to re-read what was done before.

This was something we had available to our clients when I ran hosting. A user could see any ticket they entered, and any live chat communication that they had with staff.

Today, more than ever, I find myself running into a similar issue that I had resolved a few weeks or a few months ago, but can't remember what I did (or the host did) to resolve it. Having that chat log or ticket log available means I can quickly tell the staff "do X as per previous chat" without them having to research how to do something.

Seems like all the big hosts are removing the ability to review old tickets or chats.
 
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