1. You have to put in a bunch of info before hand to even start a chat session. I am just looking to understand very quickly, without a bunch of searching, whether or not my question can be answered. I don't want to have to spend the extra min of time to put in to the chat window what appears to be useless information that never really helps the agent on the other end. When this becomes exceptionally annoying is when you have already logged in to the website and been authenticated. I should not have to put this info back into a chat window.
2. The connection time to actually get to an agent to chat is HORRENDOUS! In the last couple of months I have tried to use live chat systems from no less than 10 companies and I counted an average of 88 seconds of "hold" time before I got to an agent. What is unacceptable in a voice que should hold true in a chat que as well. Don't make customers wait. Especially when it is a digital channel and they are expecting instant communications just like they get from using Skype, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, Facebook Messenger etc... Their expectations based on their "consumer" technology is instant. Make yours instant as well or at a minimum set their expectations that it will not be instant.
3. When you are chatting with the agents, you know they are not dedicated to talking to you. The biggest reason I know this is that it takes forever for them to get back to you after you ask each question or answer their question back to you. In my interactions with these companies, I averaged 52 seconds between each question and answer from the agent. So, if you ask and answer 4-5 questions, you end up sitting and "chatting" to this agent for around 5 min. And these questions I had were simple, pretty straight forward questions. I can't imagine if I had to chat about a real complex issue.
So, although more and more companies are putting chat on their sites, the sad thing is that they are not making the experience consistent with their other channels. It seems once again that companies are using technology to try to solve a problem or add another channel of communication without understanding the experience from the customer side. There is so much potential promise in getting answers in real time for customers while on a website that goes well beyond the crappy search that exists today. Unfortunately, the chat promise is not living up to the expectations of customers.
How do you use chat or view it as a customer? Does it help you find information quickly?
4 comments:
Companies have not been able to force their agents to avoid their "multi-tasking" either their on the phone and have open chat sessions or are taking care of housekeeping work and doing let night chatting.
A chat should be what it is in real life: direct, between 2 or 3 people at most, honest, and with interest of both parties to leave the chat experience fully satisfied or at least well informed of the issue/solution.
And some companies are alienating their customers by attempting halfheartedly to offer as many customer interfaces as possible, rather than concentrate on improving those that work well.
kudos!
Great comment David. Focus is so key to the experience. I could not agree more!
Rob, agree this has to be done right, or not at all. I've had some positive experiences with chat, and some not so. When I saw it work, I felt that it saved me time getting someone chatting rather than going through a phone queue. Best case was a consumer site where questions were quick and relatively easy!
Thanks Doug, great comment. I agree, consumer sites where people are looking for quick and easy answers are a great place for chat, if and only if the chat is set up to quickly answer the question. You are spot on.
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