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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.
by 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 agoCan you talk more to humans being behind the boxes? How do they have the human-power to do such a thing?
- MattJ100 10y agoSimilarly 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 agoFor 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 agoYeah, 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.