8 ms·

Please describe a time you've had a question and successfully used a chat widget to solve it

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mosselman 8y ago
Many times. Just the other day I had a question about Skylight (which we use where I work) and I was promptly helped through the widget. Granted, this could also have been done through e-mail, but it is pretty convenient to have it on-page. 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.
dec0dedab0de 8y ago
Amazon chat has helped me a bunch. Though its almost impossible to find when you need it.
- majikandy 8y ago
  So true. You have to google to find it, finding it on the amazon site directly is much much harder.
garmaine 8y ago
This is the primary way I interact with my bank, and with Amazon support.
Waterluvian 8y ago
Lots of times. Banking questions through my banking app. Looking for a certain kind of cable. Figuring out how to apply a coupon that isn't the right length of numbers.
bastawhiz 8y ago
I use intercom to provide support for my service. Yes, it pops up and asks if you have questions on the homepage. Yes, it checks in on you after using the site for a week. But I get almost a hundred support requests and questions a week through it, and most weeks I get zero through Zendesk email. 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.
- ezekg 8y ago
  This is my experience as well. I mainly installed Intercom for support, but it also works great for sales. I don’t initiate chats on my home page, but I do on my pricing page and I talk to high-intent potential customers every day. I pay Intercom because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think This literally describes 90% of successful marketing tactics.
    - smsm42 8y ago
      And that's how we got the internet we have today - where venturing onto a random page without adblocker can consume all resources of your desktop and crash your mobile device, where browsers have to design functionality to shut up screaming pages and prevent sites from selling the visitor's data to the surveillance clearinghouses - in summary, where there's an ongoing cold war between the web users and web site builders trying to feed the former into the monetization machine. I wonder how many more useful things and technologies we could have if we didn't have to waste resources on it.
    - inapis 8y ago
      Even technical too. Take for example apps made in electron. HN and reddit quickly start squabbling about electron itself and quickly forget that value is perceived based on productivity or leisure. Unless and until the app is extra ordinarily egregious and the performance penalties outweigh the benefits, it really doesn’t matter. We, software devs, can be unnecessarily pedantic and nitpicking.
mariopt 8y ago
Many times when I had to use a dev platform in projects. It's super fast to ask a simple question and having someone pointing you to the right documentation page. 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.
raverbashing 8y ago
It actually works in some cases, when they have an actual person to answer and it's more reactive than just popping in your face 2s after opening the website
arkitaip 8y ago
I've been looking at various hosting solutions and getting answers in real time through chat as opposed to hunt and gather information on poorly made pages has saved me lots of time.
jv22222 8y ago
It’s like any tool, it can be very helpful or not so much. For me, in almost all cases I have found live chat widgets to be super helpful and a way to get answers and save time. 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!
- jacekm 8y ago
  uBlock Origin can do it for you, you just need to enable relevant list. Filter list > Annoyances > Fanboy's Cookie List
yangcheng 8y ago
I always prefer chat over phone all. It's way easier to share my account name, order number etc via chat. I find spell 16 digit order number over phone is a huge pain
- Marsymars 8y ago
  Since I don't use it often enough to have it memorized, I have a little printout of the NATO phonetic alphabet that I grab when I need to spell something over the phone. I've yet to run into a phone support person who doesn't know it without any explanation required on my part.
JulianMorrison 8y ago
Once I widget-chatted with an Amazon help person when I thought the thing I was expecting had somehow been mis-registered at the pick up locker (my unlock code didn't work). 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.
airstrike 8y ago
I talk to FactSet.net customer support probably at least once a week through their online chat widget Amex chat support is amazing too
lukevdp 8y ago
We use intercom for support in our Saas product. We have customers ask questions that are instantly solved by the recommended help desk articles all the time
nabakin 8y ago
I use a product called Shipt and they have a 24/7 live chat widget. When switching phone numbers on my account, a bug would persistently prevent the change from going through. When it happened, I'd go to the live chat and they would fix it in about 5 minutes.
mstade 8y ago
I’ve had much better success with online retailers’ chat boxes than trying to get someone on the phone, whenever I’ve had an issue with an order or shipment. That’s the only useful use case I’ve seen.
EamonnMR 8y ago
When the .dev domain was first available, I used it to contact GoDaddy's support to figure out if they knew when general availability was.
yaacov 8y ago
When apartment hunting I used them to ask questions about availability of units that fit my needs and to schedule visits
xtagon 8y ago
I've had positive experiences with having my questions answered using chat widgets from Codeship, AppSignal, Intercom themselves (they are a chat widget provider), Datadog, Packet.net, and more. 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.
user5994461 8y ago
Twice. Once with the British IRS for a change of situation and once with my internet provider for a billing issue.
saulrh 8y ago
My options are: * 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.
- hahajk 8y ago
  You don’t need a chat widget to chat, just a chat option. I also usually go strait to chat. I’ve used It for Amazon and Nike both but neither have the chat “widget” on their front page.
- Marsymars 8y ago
  It's unfortunate companies won't just assign the same resources to man email as they assign to man the chat widget. There's no good technical reason I can think of for email support responses to be slower than those via chat.
  - jon-wood 8y ago
    We route everything but phone calls directly into Intercom, so they get the same turnaround on responses regardless of whether the person on the other end prefers live chat or email. Anecdotally though > 80% of all our support/sales enquiries come via live chat.
pbreit 8y ago
I use chat 100% of the time when I’m evaluating SaaS product.
hawaiianbrah 8y ago
I just booked a car in Israel and needed to change it to a one way rental. This couldn’t be done online in a self-service manner. So instead I initiated a chat and it was done in <3 minutes. Boom.
bcye 8y ago
since a lot of companies use it as their only support option, a lot.
katzgrau 8y ago
Like others on this thread, I installed a chat widget (Hubspot) on my SaaS site and it's used by both existing customers and potential customers daily.
ndnxhs 8y ago
Multiple times actually. The best one was with the i3 3d printer support and I told them my printer is making clicking sounds and the filament isn't going in and they told me to open the print head side door and guide the filament in manually which worked and I was stunned they managed to know that with my description.
csydas 8y ago
My bank, Raiffaisen, has provided immediate support via the built-in chat on their website. Moreover, I'm a foreigner where the branch I utilize is based, and they had native support in English. 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.
itsnotlupus 8y ago
Got a new phone, tried to activate it through my cell phone provider, was only given worse plan choices than what I already had, used the chat widget, waited a while, was asked a bunch of seemingly silly and redundant questions, then the new phone was activated within my existing plan.
dmd 8y ago
Just yesterday. I asked the popup for Airmailapp if they supported Exchange SSO via Okta, and got a "no, sorry" inside of 20 seconds. 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.
wvh 8y ago
I've had success with all the ones that connect you through to an actual human being. It's fine with me for companies to try and find efficient ways to help (actual or potential) customers; it's a very different thing to be spammed by an "AI".
nirmalc 8y ago
Project fi chat widget - always worked for me ( at least 5 times )
tybit 8y ago
With my airline to organise a new flight after mine was cancelled. It’s so much better waiting for a message back than being on hold on the phone. I assume it also reduces wait times by allowing Customer service to handle multiple conversations at once.
inopinatus 8y ago
Our users routinely use our widget to place support requests. Adjustments to orders, changes to preferences, account issues, expectation queries. 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.
- drewmol 8y ago
  I have had good success as a user (mostly billing, asking for credits or removal of charges/fees) with chat bots. 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.
PetahNZ 8y ago
Like every time I have a support issue and the company has a chat widget, like my ISP, mobile provider, etc. I almost exclusively use the chat support in AWS.
koolba 8y ago
I’ve used a chat widget to directly communicate with a startup. Not necessarily to solve a problem but it was great for a direct communication channel that didn’t require giving any of my own contact details.
ShinTakuya 8y ago
Kind of from a different point of view but at my old job (Escrow.com) we took our chat widget seriously (powered by Olark). Most of our direct support communication occurred at least initially through the widget (moving to email for ongoing issues) and from time to time the CEO has been known to man it. As an engineer I regularly walked over to the other side of the floor and helped support with technical issues so I know first hand that we regularly solved people's problems.
shay_ker 8y ago
i pretty much only use chat widgets now for getting help
drewmol 8y ago
Verizon buries the option to order a sim card for a new prepaid line somewhere on their website, I've successfully used the widget to ask for the URL twice. 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.
franzwong 8y ago
Arrange redelivery time when I missed package delivery. Actually it is a chatbot (or simple webapp) inside IM. I don't need to install a separate app or go to the official page to find the page.
NowThenGoodBad 8y ago
1. Applying for a credit card and confused about something that was part of the conditions. Had an answer in less than 5 minutes. 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.
Angostura 8y ago
Loads of times. A couple of days ago I had a quick question about a print job I was a submitting to a printer. Got an answer in about 20 seconds. What's not to like?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Many times. Just the other day I had a question about Skylight (which we use where I work) and I was promptly helped through the widget. Granted, this could also have been done through e-mail, but it is pretty convenient to have it on-page. 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.

dec0dedab0de 8y ago

Amazon chat has helped me a bunch. Though its almost impossible to find when you need it.

majikandy 8y ago
So true. You have to google to find it, finding it on the amazon site directly is much much harder.

garmaine 8y ago

This is the primary way I interact with my bank, and with Amazon support.

Waterluvian 8y ago

Lots of times. Banking questions through my banking app. Looking for a certain kind of cable. Figuring out how to apply a coupon that isn't the right length of numbers.

bastawhiz 8y ago

I use intercom to provide support for my service. Yes, it pops up and asks if you have questions on the homepage. Yes, it checks in on you after using the site for a week. But I get almost a hundred support requests and questions a week through it, and most weeks I get zero through Zendesk email. 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.

ezekg 8y ago
This is my experience as well. I mainly installed Intercom for support, but it also works great for sales. I don’t initiate chats on my home page, but I do on my pricing page and I talk to high-intent potential customers every day. I pay Intercom because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  because it works, regardless of what we HN techies think This literally describes 90% of successful marketing tactics.
  - smsm42 8y ago
    And that's how we got the internet we have today - where venturing onto a random page without adblocker can consume all resources of your desktop and crash your mobile device, where browsers have to design functionality to shut up screaming pages and prevent sites from selling the visitor's data to the surveillance clearinghouses - in summary, where there's an ongoing cold war between the web users and web site builders trying to feed the former into the monetization machine. I wonder how many more useful things and technologies we could have if we didn't have to waste resources on it.
  - inapis 8y ago
    Even technical too. Take for example apps made in electron. HN and reddit quickly start squabbling about electron itself and quickly forget that value is perceived based on productivity or leisure. Unless and until the app is extra ordinarily egregious and the performance penalties outweigh the benefits, it really doesn’t matter. We, software devs, can be unnecessarily pedantic and nitpicking.

mariopt 8y ago

Many times when I had to use a dev platform in projects. It's super fast to ask a simple question and having someone pointing you to the right documentation page. 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.

raverbashing 8y ago

It actually works in some cases, when they have an actual person to answer and it's more reactive than just popping in your face 2s after opening the website

arkitaip 8y ago

I've been looking at various hosting solutions and getting answers in real time through chat as opposed to hunt and gather information on poorly made pages has saved me lots of time.

jv22222 8y ago

It’s like any tool, it can be very helpful or not so much. For me, in almost all cases I have found live chat widgets to be super helpful and a way to get answers and save time. 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!

jacekm 8y ago
uBlock Origin can do it for you, you just need to enable relevant list. Filter list > Annoyances > Fanboy's Cookie List

yangcheng 8y ago

I always prefer chat over phone all. It's way easier to share my account name, order number etc via chat. I find spell 16 digit order number over phone is a huge pain

Marsymars 8y ago
Since I don't use it often enough to have it memorized, I have a little printout of the NATO phonetic alphabet that I grab when I need to spell something over the phone. I've yet to run into a phone support person who doesn't know it without any explanation required on my part.

JulianMorrison 8y ago

Once I widget-chatted with an Amazon help person when I thought the thing I was expecting had somehow been mis-registered at the pick up locker (my unlock code didn't work). 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.

airstrike 8y ago

I talk to FactSet.net customer support probably at least once a week through their online chat widget Amex chat support is amazing too

lukevdp 8y ago

We use intercom for support in our Saas product. We have customers ask questions that are instantly solved by the recommended help desk articles all the time

nabakin 8y ago

I use a product called Shipt and they have a 24/7 live chat widget. When switching phone numbers on my account, a bug would persistently prevent the change from going through. When it happened, I'd go to the live chat and they would fix it in about 5 minutes.

mstade 8y ago

I’ve had much better success with online retailers’ chat boxes than trying to get someone on the phone, whenever I’ve had an issue with an order or shipment. That’s the only useful use case I’ve seen.

EamonnMR 8y ago

When the .dev domain was first available, I used it to contact GoDaddy's support to figure out if they knew when general availability was.

yaacov 8y ago

When apartment hunting I used them to ask questions about availability of units that fit my needs and to schedule visits

xtagon 8y ago

I've had positive experiences with having my questions answered using chat widgets from Codeship, AppSignal, Intercom themselves (they are a chat widget provider), Datadog, Packet.net, and more. 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.

user5994461 8y ago

Twice. Once with the British IRS for a change of situation and once with my internet provider for a billing issue.

saulrh 8y ago

My options are: * 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.

hahajk 8y ago
You don’t need a chat widget to chat, just a chat option. I also usually go strait to chat. I’ve used It for Amazon and Nike both but neither have the chat “widget” on their front page.
Marsymars 8y ago
It's unfortunate companies won't just assign the same resources to man email as they assign to man the chat widget. There's no good technical reason I can think of for email support responses to be slower than those via chat.
- jon-wood 8y ago
  We route everything but phone calls directly into Intercom, so they get the same turnaround on responses regardless of whether the person on the other end prefers live chat or email. Anecdotally though > 80% of all our support/sales enquiries come via live chat.

pbreit 8y ago

I use chat 100% of the time when I’m evaluating SaaS product.

hawaiianbrah 8y ago

I just booked a car in Israel and needed to change it to a one way rental. This couldn’t be done online in a self-service manner. So instead I initiated a chat and it was done in <3 minutes. Boom.

bcye 8y ago

since a lot of companies use it as their only support option, a lot.

katzgrau 8y ago

Like others on this thread, I installed a chat widget (Hubspot) on my SaaS site and it's used by both existing customers and potential customers daily.

ndnxhs 8y ago

Multiple times actually. The best one was with the i3 3d printer support and I told them my printer is making clicking sounds and the filament isn't going in and they told me to open the print head side door and guide the filament in manually which worked and I was stunned they managed to know that with my description.

csydas 8y ago

My bank, Raiffaisen, has provided immediate support via the built-in chat on their website. Moreover, I'm a foreigner where the branch I utilize is based, and they had native support in English. 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.

itsnotlupus 8y ago

Got a new phone, tried to activate it through my cell phone provider, was only given worse plan choices than what I already had, used the chat widget, waited a while, was asked a bunch of seemingly silly and redundant questions, then the new phone was activated within my existing plan.

dmd 8y ago

Just yesterday. I asked the popup for Airmailapp if they supported Exchange SSO via Okta, and got a "no, sorry" inside of 20 seconds. 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.

wvh 8y ago

I've had success with all the ones that connect you through to an actual human being. It's fine with me for companies to try and find efficient ways to help (actual or potential) customers; it's a very different thing to be spammed by an "AI".

nirmalc 8y ago

Project fi chat widget - always worked for me ( at least 5 times )

tybit 8y ago

With my airline to organise a new flight after mine was cancelled. It’s so much better waiting for a message back than being on hold on the phone. I assume it also reduces wait times by allowing Customer service to handle multiple conversations at once.

inopinatus 8y ago

Our users routinely use our widget to place support requests. Adjustments to orders, changes to preferences, account issues, expectation queries. 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.

drewmol 8y ago
I have had good success as a user (mostly billing, asking for credits or removal of charges/fees) with chat bots. 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.

PetahNZ 8y ago

Like every time I have a support issue and the company has a chat widget, like my ISP, mobile provider, etc. I almost exclusively use the chat support in AWS.

koolba 8y ago

I’ve used a chat widget to directly communicate with a startup. Not necessarily to solve a problem but it was great for a direct communication channel that didn’t require giving any of my own contact details.

ShinTakuya 8y ago

Kind of from a different point of view but at my old job (Escrow.com) we took our chat widget seriously (powered by Olark). Most of our direct support communication occurred at least initially through the widget (moving to email for ongoing issues) and from time to time the CEO has been known to man it. As an engineer I regularly walked over to the other side of the floor and helped support with technical issues so I know first hand that we regularly solved people's problems.

shay_ker 8y ago

i pretty much only use chat widgets now for getting help

drewmol 8y ago

Verizon buries the option to order a sim card for a new prepaid line somewhere on their website, I've successfully used the widget to ask for the URL twice. 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.

franzwong 8y ago

Arrange redelivery time when I missed package delivery. Actually it is a chatbot (or simple webapp) inside IM. I don't need to install a separate app or go to the official page to find the page.

NowThenGoodBad 8y ago

1. Applying for a credit card and confused about something that was part of the conditions. Had an answer in less than 5 minutes. 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.

Angostura 8y ago

Loads of times. A couple of days ago I had a quick question about a print job I was a submitting to a printer. Got an answer in about 20 seconds. What's not to like?