Live Chat as a support tool

[Optic]

What are your thoughts on Live Chat as a support tool?

 

Normally they're found in the corner of a page as a pop-up widget and usually connect you with a support agent quickly.

 

I've had good experiences using them with Telstra (telecommunications company) as a consumer. But I had bad experiences with Camera House (camera retailer) where they said it was online but I didn't get a response even after waiting a few minutes. They did eventually get back to me by sending me an SMS but that was a week later...

 

Am curious on your experiences.

[drill]

Hm... Well, I find that live chat is usually better than using the phone. For some reason, the people on chat tend to know more of what they are talking about. Although, I still prefer just searching my answer online before contacting an online chat place, as I like finding answers by myself. Also, if I couldn't find the answer online, I won't be bothering the support with a dumb question that they hear many times per day. I've only ever used support chat for my college though, so I'm not sure if its different elsewhere.

[SanguineTear]

Oh I love live chats so very much. Both the times I've used live chat, they were excellent to deal with, and the problem was taken care of extremely quickly, almost no waiting involved.

[Nuh1000]

Personally I prefer talking on the phone, it's easier to articulate your tone which may influence the outcome of the end of the conversation, but I just find live chat to be difficult anyway

[Nectar]

I prefer to use the telephone to talk to support. I don't like Live Chat as I've had bad experiences with IRC waiting for ridiculous amounts of time, and having to leave my laptop on to wait for a response.

 

If I call, I get to talk to someone much faster. Even their accent is on the brink of unintelligible, it's still more convenient than using Live Chat.

 

For me, anyway.

[zoop]

If I could deal with all of my support issues via chat, email, forum, or any other text-based medium I would never make another support call on the telephone ever again. I don't like trying to understand folks through bad connections, thick accents, obtuse numerical menus, and things of that sort.

 

If I'm dealing with something via text, I can multi task, have loud music playing, and what not. Phone support to me means waiting on hold for a ridiculous amount of time, ear to the phone / headset / etc, ready to respond at a moment's notice whenever someone gets around to me.

[Kohloo]

I find it really handy for when I'm doing anything involving my mobile provider! It gets things done really fast for me. I hate calling them because you usually end up on hold for ages and then I quite frequently have a hard time understanding people on the phone. So the live chat support on the website is ideal for me, in that regard.

 

I haven't used it anywhere else though

[brycec]

I find Live Chat to be great.

 

I have a hard time understanding people over the phone, with things like accents and such, but my biggest reason for them, is that I can get a transcript.

 

My Live Chat experiences have been good and fast, and much better than having to put in additional numbers.

[Greeneyes]

Live chat is a really good idea but it also depends most chat is only text so it takes longer to get your message across to them.... I have had so far good time using them but I noticed it takes twice as long for them to get the problem I usually face because it takes along time to type for me or its difficult to explain..

[Orius]

Very convenient and my most preferred way of support. Phone support is faster, but like it's a pain holding that phone for hours in my living room. I feel more comfortable getting that support on my computer in my comfy chair, where I'm always at. And like brycec has said, you can have trouble understanding people over the phone as well. With live chat, the experience is just less tedious overall.