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Slightly off-topic, but do you people also feel an enormous increase in chat boxes at the bottom right of the screen, in particular at SAAS companies? For me t

Slightly off-topic, but do you people also feel an enormous increase in chat boxes at the bottom right of the screen, in particular at SAAS companies? For me this is really off-putting, in particular as they suggest that you are talking with a human (photo and pseudo-friendly greetings), although they just want to catch your e-mail address, and the first interaction is clearly with a bot. I am not sure where this is going, maybe I am a minority, but for me this "interactions" are really off-putting.

lcpriest 10y ago
Those are powered by about 5 main startups - a lot of them are actually people on the other end too, or they are during work hours.
- legodt 10y ago
  Can you talk more to humans being behind the boxes? How do they have the human-power to do such a thing?
  - MattJ100 10y ago
    Similarly to how they staff support phone numbers, with teams of people trained in domain-specific knowledge (of the product, account management, etc.). Sometimes these teams are in-house, sometimes they are contracted to a third-party (i.e. how most call centers are). If you don't think they could handle the volume, that's not really an issue in practice. Chat scales better than phone calls (agents can handle multiple chats concurrently), and just as with phone systems, the chat systems support wait queues. If the queue is long, then you will usually be presented with a contact form or the chat button will just be hidden from view in the first place. Some of these systems do use bots for initial triage, and the "pro-active" ones that look like an agent is asking if they can help are almost always fake (you only get connected to a real agent if you actually reply).
  - nickdavidhaynes 10y ago
    For many startups, there aren't enough users actually using the interface that a couple employees can't handle it. And the insight gained from those direct interactions is worth the cost of the labor.
- protomikron 10y ago
  Yeah, true, however not the initial conversation attempt. I guess, if you really answer you might get hooked up with a real sales human at one point, but the initial attempt (after you have been 5s on the pricing page) is always extremely awkward. I think if I just scout the chat bubble I already start questioning the business really hard.
frik 10y ago
Yes. It's kind of a gray pattern. Has someone coined a name for it?
reitanqild 10y ago
I actually love it when sites have chat solutions. Usually it seems there are real people and it provides the fast respose of pgone together with the asynchronity of email. Fast but less awkward when kids are screaming in the background.
dangerlibrary 10y ago
The most frustrating part is when I go to a site, start watching the pitch video, and am interrupted 10-15s into the video by a chat bot asking me if I have any questions. I don't know if I have questions yet. I'm watching the video. I have javascript enabled - you can tell that I'm watching the video. Leave me alone.
brilliantcode 10y ago
I'm okay with it provided they don't start prompting me with messages. that's intrusive. but I like being able to chat with a human on the other end to quickly make buying decisions.
doublerebel 10y ago
For all the startups I've worked with, it's a real person (or persons) behind the chat, usually founders. The greeting is pre-set but all conversations are real. How do founders have time for that? Not many customers use chat, but the ones that do are valuable. As pg says, all early stage startups should just be writing code and talking to users, so founders make it a high priority to reply quickly!
- berkay 10y ago
  This is exactly how we use the chat and have few dozen conversations per day. Most (not all) initial conversations are pre-set but if you reply, you'd get a real person, including one of the founders. The email is asked when no one is available to engage within few minutes so that we can get back to the person.

lcpriest 10y ago

Those are powered by about 5 main startups - a lot of them are actually people on the other end too, or they are during work hours.

legodt 10y ago
Can you talk more to humans being behind the boxes? How do they have the human-power to do such a thing?
- MattJ100 10y ago
  Similarly to how they staff support phone numbers, with teams of people trained in domain-specific knowledge (of the product, account management, etc.). Sometimes these teams are in-house, sometimes they are contracted to a third-party (i.e. how most call centers are). If you don't think they could handle the volume, that's not really an issue in practice. Chat scales better than phone calls (agents can handle multiple chats concurrently), and just as with phone systems, the chat systems support wait queues. If the queue is long, then you will usually be presented with a contact form or the chat button will just be hidden from view in the first place. Some of these systems do use bots for initial triage, and the "pro-active" ones that look like an agent is asking if they can help are almost always fake (you only get connected to a real agent if you actually reply).
- nickdavidhaynes 10y ago
  For many startups, there aren't enough users actually using the interface that a couple employees can't handle it. And the insight gained from those direct interactions is worth the cost of the labor.
protomikron 10y ago
Yeah, true, however not the initial conversation attempt. I guess, if you really answer you might get hooked up with a real sales human at one point, but the initial attempt (after you have been 5s on the pricing page) is always extremely awkward. I think if I just scout the chat bubble I already start questioning the business really hard.

frik 10y ago

Yes. It's kind of a gray pattern. Has someone coined a name for it?

reitanqild 10y ago

I actually love it when sites have chat solutions. Usually it seems there are real people and it provides the fast respose of pgone together with the asynchronity of email. Fast but less awkward when kids are screaming in the background.

dangerlibrary 10y ago

The most frustrating part is when I go to a site, start watching the pitch video, and am interrupted 10-15s into the video by a chat bot asking me if I have any questions. I don't know if I have questions yet. I'm watching the video. I have javascript enabled - you can tell that I'm watching the video. Leave me alone.

brilliantcode 10y ago

I'm okay with it provided they don't start prompting me with messages. that's intrusive. but I like being able to chat with a human on the other end to quickly make buying decisions.

doublerebel 10y ago

For all the startups I've worked with, it's a real person (or persons) behind the chat, usually founders. The greeting is pre-set but all conversations are real. How do founders have time for that? Not many customers use chat, but the ones that do are valuable. As pg says, all early stage startups should just be writing code and talking to users, so founders make it a high priority to reply quickly!

berkay 10y ago
This is exactly how we use the chat and have few dozen conversations per day. Most (not all) initial conversations are pre-set but if you reply, you'd get a real person, including one of the founders. The email is asked when no one is available to engage within few minutes so that we can get back to the person.