What level of Technical support should we provide over LIVE CHAT?

[diggdigital]

What level of Technical support should we provide over LIVE CHAT for a website visitor?

 

[RH-Calvin]

We should keep it minimum when technical issues arise over a live chat. Some technical issue take time to resolve and sometimes customers get impatient about it. It's better to let them open a ticket and gets things resolved faster.

 

[diggdigital]

We should keep it minimum when technical issues arise over a live chat. Some technical issue take time to resolve and sometimes customers get impatient about it. It's better to let them open a ticket and gets things resolved faster.

I agree! Visitor(Usually SPAMMERS) communicate to an extent to get a free test server for a day.

I am trying to formulate set of questions ONLY to be answered over a live chat for the team!

Thanks for sharing

 

[cheapdedicated]

Its good to offer live support BUT it tends to come with alot of time loss. I would start by making sure the email support is quicker and my knowledge base is very comprehensive.

 

[easyhostmedia]

I am trying to formulate set of questions ONLY to be answered over a live chat for the team!

That would be hard as not everyone contacting live chat will have same questions. Also when i go on live chat i can tell a canned answer to a live answer and if i just get canned answers then they wont get my business.

Saying that Live chat should at least offer level 1 support and possible some level 2 support, but i would try and teach your clients to use support tickets rather than live chat as then this logs the issue in your system and to the clients account, so if they have the same issue again, they can refer to your ticket replies

 

[HostAG]

We offer lovel 1 tech support and pre-sales support. For more complicated issues, we always encourage our customers to resort to tickets. But I have to admit that live chat is the first resort of customers in case of an emergency.

 

[zomex]

Good question.

I've had quite a few issues recently with providing too high level support requests over live chat. I think when it becomes as serious as needing to login to a website to check it should be done via tickets (for security reasons also).

 

[cheapdedicated]

Good question.

I've had quite a few issues recently with providing too high level support requests over live chat. I think when it becomes as serious as needing to login to a website to check it should be done via tickets (for security reasons also).

Weell you can always have them verify by loging in before you proceed. Hostgator does it all the time

 

[Harv45]

I believe live chat should handle the following.

Light support requests
Sales

Then if they should have to submit a ticket, you could log a ticket for them instead of saying "Please submit a ticket for this".

In my mind at least if the company is willing to log a ticket FOR the customer then it way better (especially if they already stated what should be in the ticket beforehand). Provided that the name and email and/or whatever else matches the account.

 

[cheapdedicated]

I believe live chat should handle the following.

Light support requests
Sales

Then if they should have to submit a ticket, you could log a ticket for them instead of saying "Please submit a ticket for this".

In my mind at least if the company is willing to log a ticket FOR the customer then it way better (especially if they already stated what should be in the ticket beforehand). Provided that the name and email and/or whatever else matches the account.

Email and name match in a live chat may not be sufficient to discuss certain issues with the person on chat. a login might be necessary to asertain that the name and email actually are being used by the rightful owner before jumping into serious issues like logins, ssh etc

 

[svijayan]

Live chat can be minimum, but in an emergency situation, i'd suggest that we should help the customer without asking them to open a ticket.

 

[Harv45]

Email and name match in a live chat may not be sufficient to discuss certain issues with the person on chat. a login might be necessary to asertain that the name and email actually are being used by the rightful owner before jumping into serious issues like logins, ssh etc

Absolutely I can understand there are issues and requests that you do want to be 100% certain it that person (OS reload, major changes, and etc). But if the server is down let's say and you can easily get the match you could at least dispatch the ticket to the technical department to look into such things.

 

[coloAZ]

Keep it to Level1 and Presales to avoid spending too much time on the chat. Time is money - either you are paying staff to man the live chat, or you are spending your time that could be better spent growing the business.

Presales is the exception. Spend as much time as you can to draw out the customer and close a deal.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Absolutely I can understand there are issues and requests that you do want to be 100% certain it that person (OS reload, major changes, and etc). But if the server is down let's say and you can easily get the match you could at least dispatch the ticket to the technical department to look into such things.

But with live chat and even email, this can be anyone. the only real way to confirm it is the client is for the client to use support tickets.

we have a simple method that we use in that we require a client to provide the support pin which then get from their clientarea, so even if they come onto live chat then we will not discuss or do anything on the client account until they provide us with the support pin which we can check against the one we have in our WHMCS admin area against the clients account.

 

[cheapdedicated]

...if the server is down let's say and you can easily get the match you could at least dispatch the ticket to the technical department to look into such things.

I think that every one that offers live support will do the light and non harmful bits even if they were raised by someone that isnt the account owner. But once it gets to issues that could compromise an account then a login is a must.

 

[Harv45]

I think that every one that offers live support will do the light and non harmful bits even if they were raised by someone that isnt the account owner.

You would be surprised, as I was told a few times "please open a ticket about this to us". Even for basics like I said.

 

[cheapdedicated]

You would be surprised, as I was told a few times "please open a ticket about this to us". Even for basics like I said.

If for example a server is down or compromised, regardless of who raises it I think support should pick it up and go to work immediately

 

[easyhostmedia]

If for example a server is down or compromised, regardless of who raises it I think support should pick it up and go to work immediately

This is why any host should have their client management system (WHMCS/Hostbill/CE etc.) on a separate server to that of clients accounts, so if the server goes down then clients can still contact you and visa versa.

the thing with live chat and emails is as i stated earlier you have no idea if it is actually the client you are communicating with, so support tickets from their clientarea means they need to be logged in to contact you, so then you are covered for any mishaps like the client saying i never contacted you to do anything related to my account. if its from their client area then they takes responsibility, but with live chat/email they cant as you have no way of saying it was them contacting you

 

[Harv45]

the thing with live chat and emails is as i stated earlier you have no idea if it is actually the client you are communicating with, so support tickets from their clientarea means they need to be logged in to contact you, so then you are covered for any mishaps like the client saying i never contacted you to do anything related to my account. if its from their client area then they takes responsibility, but with live chat/email they cant as you have no way of saying it was them contacting you

Now of days emails are just "auto converted" into tickets anyways to avoid these hassles. You could also log the chat into a ticket as as well once it done for "safe" record keeping for good measures as well.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Now of days emails are just "auto converted" into tickets anyways to avoid these hassles.

They are not. This is something a host must do from within their hosting management system and Cron. to pipe certain emails to support tickets.

It is better to have a specific email address that will do this, but then even so the ticket generated would not identify the client, so still unknown if it is the client communicating with you.