Are your customers shy with live support?

[adame]

Hello,

I know a few companies who use live support systems. But you wonder, how many people use it. It can be great to have it, but is the customer/guest or client going to use it?

If you are using live support please vote in this poll.

Thanks.

 

[CS_Jonathan]

I work for a company that has a live support feature however not many chat sessions, so many people visit the site however no sessions.

 

[UltraMatrix]

We have a live chat support feature on our website for sales and technical support. We get quite a few chat reqests and people seem to love the feature. I have found that live chat allows you to build a more personal relationship with your clients. We can now also communicate with people instantly, which allows us to answer questions quickly. While live chat support is not a must, it is definately a big plus.

 

[PVT-Jordan]

I don't think I will go as far as saying that live chat replaces a phone, but I think that many people opt to go with the convenience of an online solution instead of picking up a phone and waiting for an operator.

 

[kris1351]

It is rare we see someone on live chat. Usually it is just pre-sales if anything so we run it.

 

[paul-ukwsd]

Live chat is used very little by our site visitors, they prefer to submit a ticket.

 

[MadCow]

I have found that our message board is used ever less than our ticket system. We did not install a live chat, there are some customers you do not want to talk with forever

 

[TheOrbit]

We used to run a live chat system, however, nobody ever used it for three months. Everybody seems to prefer a ticket system due to organization and the clients feel that it is much easier for them to look back in case they have similar problems.

 

[romsourcing]

Thank you for sharing your chat support experiences.
We`ve just started a business offering online support.
Maybe we must close our business before is too late.

Regards,
Claudiu

 

[Phat !]

My customer dont really do live chat with me sometime only 1 - 2

 

[nocturnalhostin]

In my case, I've found live support requests to be so rare that I stoped offering them. The only place that I've seen that had a decent use for a live chat feature would be a company like value-web where their sales staff will pop up a window to prospective customers looking at their site automatically - rather than waiting for the customer to click on the support link.

Asside form a sales tool, I've found that most customers like the idea of opening tickets better as it gives them the impression that someone is seriously taking the time to research and respond to their issue (well, providing of course that the answers they receive are what they are looking for).

We actually did a poll for one of our hosting sites with about 200 customers to see if the live chat was a feature they did or did not find helpful - the majority response was that it played no role in their choosing to host with us, wasnt something they would use beyond a quick questions (and such questions were quicker for them to find the answer to in our KB system) - which is why we discontinued the live chat feature.

One hosting provider that has a live chat feature that comes to mind (well, I don't want to mention their name) - but the site is run by only two individuals who spend less than an hour a week actually "logged into" thier live chat system. Since those individuals and I worked at the same day job (about 4 years ago) - a few of the people that worked with us choose to host with us over them for the sole reason that their live help feature was never manned - they felt that it was better not to have a live chat feature than to have one that isn't properly staffed and simply asks people to leave a message...

Hope my input is useful....

 

[Artashes]

To continue on the overall note, I think that a live chat session would come as a less value to end customers. Knowing that an issue often needs time to resolve, and people expect fast replies using chats, it can eventually keep support professionals unfocused and rushed and customers annoyed.

That's how I see it.

 

[Simon]

I would not advise any company to offer live chat for technical support issues.

It's fine when you have ~50 customers, but when you're talking 3, 4, and 5 figures, then it's an impossible model to sustain, and will actually make the company look worse (imagine 50 people, all with a small issue. 50 x 5 minutes = too long a wait for customer #50).


Simon

 

[wfwh]

We use a live help feature on our site, it shows the potential customers that there is someone there live on the other end in case they ever needed help, at least in my opinion. While i do agree that tech support should for the most part be handed in a ticket system, i dont agree that you shouldnt provide live support all together. Some people dont want to call and talk to someone, they would just rather get a quick answer via your website.

As for initiating a conversation when a customer visits our site, we are debating whether or not to start doing that.

 

[Simon]

Without being rude, wfwh, I can guarantee that you will not sustain that mindset, should you start to get a lot of customers.

Live sales, and live support, are different kettles of fish however.

Simon

 

[ANMMark]

As Simon has said, Live Support chat is very hard to maintain with a lot of clients, not to mention can become expensive.

Most all professional live chat applications are charged per seat. You'll usually get a particular number of seats (number of techs that can be online at once) with your basic monthly fee.

However, the larger your client base becomes, the less efficient those initial seats become.

For example, if you have the ability to have 3 techs on live support at once....this is fine, until your have a client base too large for 3 techs to handle at once. This means you'll generally have to purchase and pay monthly for additional tech seats for the software. So this already adds more overhead.

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about freeware scripts. I'm talking about professional business class software.

We started offering live support, as we did not even get many tickets, and if we do, it's typical "How do I....?" type questions, answered completely and quickly within a few mins. So we figured, we'll offer live support, as we didn't feel that too many folks would use it, but those that would would have questions, generally in the same above mentioned genre. The 6 tech seats that came with the software was just fine for that scenerio.

However, once we began our datacenter migration to Peer1, it became an instant bombardment, as soon as the first DNS issue struck. We then realized that the 6 techs on online support were not going to be able to handle them all efficiently, and ordered them to go into "away" mode, until they finished their current calls, then to logoff completely.

Still at this time, while our migration is still being completed, Live "support" is offline.

We have been forced to re-evaluate what this tool is used for, as far as our company is concerned.

 

[annbaby]

live chat

We have a live chat support feature on our website for sales and technical support. Daily we had to attend 10-15 chats. Through live chat we can answer and solve our customer's problems instantly. From their response I understood that live chat is very useful for them...........

 

[Anjay]

It's fine when you have ~50 customers, but when you're talking 3, 4, and 5 figures, then it's an impossible model to sustain, and will actually make the company look worse (imagine 50 people, all with a small issue. 50 x 5 minutes = too long a wait for customer #50).

That is why you have more than one person on the live chat system.
If you have say ten people, then the maximum one needs to wait if a chat session takes five minutes is twenty five minutes. But if you have so many clients, you're going to have more than ten support people [Or at least should do].



My company however no longer offers live chat support. The reason being that people did not use it; and it became too expensive for its use. You have to pay someone to be on line, and when no one is using that support system, it's money going to waste.

Occasionally a client would contact live support, however no often. Pre-clients did not even contact live support that often. The reason being that they all found it much easier to simply submit a ticket or send an e-mail.

Submitting a ticket is very easy, and very quick - It does not take much; and at times can be quicker than live chat.

If you have a demand, then supply, however if there is no demand it is silly to supply.

I may re-introduce live chat support, however it is very unlikely. Having support handled by a ticket system makes it a lot easier for everyone - the clients, the staff and me.

Also, what you should do is go over the support chat logs if you hire someone else to respond so you know that they're doing their job. I found it easier to go over tickets then to go over chat logs; however that is just me.

Also another hassle was that live chat support was offered also via AIM, MSN, ICQ and YIM. Making it more difficult to check up on the support logs.

 

[Simon]

Having ten people on live support chat is non-sensical.

I can not, for the life in me, understand the business knowledge or sense behind such a decision.

Live sales? yes, most certainly. Sales is as sales does. Many sales reps will work on partial commision basis, so it's their choice.

Live tech support? not a chance. It's just a waste of man power to put 10 tech support agents ($20000+ per month) on a live chat system, when their work would be more optimized on; 1: Phones. 2: Ticketing systems.

Keep in mind, for every live support agent on live chat, there needs to be at least one "off". That one who isn't on live chat, I can guarantee you, has a faster, more efficient resolution time and rate.

To suggest that putting 10 live technical support agents on live chat is sensible, one would have to presume you have never been in a position of authority inside a company in the IT world, or business world.

The numbers don't crunch, and when that happens, you're missing a link somewhere.

Simon

 

[ldcdc]

Hmm... it really depends on the size of the company, the pricing etc. I would say that almost everything is possible for the right amount of money. Also, we must take into account the costs and the function of live chat support. Having highly qualified $50000+ per year system admins standing by waiting for a chat session is one thing, having moderately knowledgeable staff from developing countries is another thing. It all depends on the business model, target market, projected company image etc.

I agree that live chat is not exactly efficient. I would say that a properly manned ticket systems allows both the customer and the hosting company to use their time in a more efficient manner.