Please describe a time you've had a question and successfully used a chat widget to solve it
For most small businesses like mine these chats go straight to the phones of the founders. You've got a direct line to the most knowledgeable person about the service.
So to your question, many people use them successfully.
This literally describes 90% of successful marketing tactics.
We, software devs, can be unnecessarily pedantic and nitpicking.
On the short term, yes. But as soon as I'm not required to use Slack anymore, I will remove it from my Mac and advise anyone against it.
So on the long term, I'd say a business would be better off not making the balance so precarious.
In this case, it's making the internet a less productive place to be. So many chat widgets I encounter are now used for growth marketing, not actual support, that whenever I see one I expect it to pop up and seize my attention at an inconvenient moment. Now that everyone is doing it, it's ruining it for everyone else, and something like this browser extension shows up.
If it works for you, then great, I suppose? But if I were the internet dictator I would have placed a ban on preemptive chat messages in these widgets years ago.
Chat widgets can be a good thing but its all about how you use them within the company... I'd say, definitely no popup, when nobody is available, just don't show the widget and redirect to a contact us form or email address. Make the support flow as dynamic as possible.
* Email. High latency, low bandwidth due to long turnaround time, sometimes my emails get lost.
* Phone. Useless - no records, I always forget something or miss some detail because I'm trying to talk and think at the same time.
* Issue tracker. This is often what I prefer for technical topics, but sometimes I need faster turnaround or I'm working on something nontechnical.
* Discord or matrix or IRC. Great if I just have a dumb configuration question, but not at all suitable for real problems, and not an option for real customer service tasks.
* That little chat widget. Not as good as a bug tracker, but all the precision and recordability of email with the speed of a phone.
The chat widgets are fantastic and I go for them almost every single time.
99% of the implementations you encounter though are failed sales attempts. Fake human prompts like "Hi, can I help you with something?". When they are accompanied by a sound they are even more annoying. I have heard from marketing people that they convert pretty well though.
Maybe it's specific to the SaaS space, but I tend to reach for the live chat right off the bat if I have a question. If nobody is online, usually they still get back to me by e-mail anyway, which is no worse than if I had just sent an e-mail.
It has the added convenience that we instantly and correctly know a) what URL they're looking at and b) their logged-in account ID. I'd say about 80% of the time, this is 100% of the context needed to resolve their issue, which eliminates a whole class of to-and-fro discovery that amounts to a large proportion - perhaps even the majority - of support time.
By politely specifying exactly what the problem is, what actions need to happen for it to be considered resolved, and asking to contact a party who can take those actions in my first message it helps hasten the interaction.
I've yet to run into a phone support person who doesn't know it without any explanation required on my part.
Also used it to ask/politely demand Verizon reset my roll-over data balance anytime my card on file expired or was canceled and I forgot to update it so auto-pay failed and service was suspended temporarily, which removes any roll-over data balance.
I used it to disect the roll-over data policy which requires auto-pay to be enabled and confirm system limitations that disallow scheduling payment prior to experation and/or keeping additional month balance on account to avoid service interruption so shortly after a failed payment. Agent was able to set custom $1 auto pay amount and I now use my bank bill pay service to pay full monthly amount a few days before service end date avoiding interruptions. This arrangement involved lots of questions in the chat widget.
2. My hosting provider’s support via the widget is SUPER Amazing. Needed shell access, Tony pulled it of in 7 minutes. Having speed issues for my business site? Migrated to a dedicated IP in under 10 minutes.
3. Numerous other times where I eventually would have a question.
Its made me more willing to invest the time asking a question instead of wasting time digging around for an answer that is usually in the realm of customer service or technical support.
What it has NOT done is make me any more or less likely to buy the product.
I’m mostly ok if it stays collapsed, especially on sites where that doesn’t impact the UI too much. The ones that automatically pop open with roboSteve asking me if I need help...Now those ones are obnoxious.
Chat can be done right, and Raiffaisen does it right. They don't harass you with anything, it's just there if you need it, and the representatives seem to have very broad access to provide information.
This is what I'd expect from a support chat.
I guess the annoying part is the widget opening by default but I actually like having the chat, because you know something is serious when a company devotes time to support.
This is unusual enough for those things that I was flabbergasted and told everyone I knew about how one of those things was actually helpful for once though.
We eventually worked out that I was an idiot and had sent it to another locker, a short hike across town. Oops!
Embarrassing, but helpful.
Amex chat support is amazing too
I don’t really get why you would need an extension for this.
Now, if you want to make an extension that is really helpful, make one that auto accepts cookies on all those annoying GDPR slide ups that warn you about cookies!