I’m at LivePerson right now trying out this live support thingy. Gotta admit at first I was genuinely afraid to initiate this conversation – maybe I’m just too shy.
Interestingly they let you choose from among four different “operators” – there must be some interesting psychology behind who chooses a male or female or what the names mean to people.
Here’s the (reversed) conversation (the second session. The first time I tried to enlarge the window and my browser crashed):
Tracey: Hi there, Victor. What can I
help you with today?
Victor: sorry – browser crashed. So I
was asking about how you like this form
of support vs. a phone call.
Tracey: It is easier to talk with a group
of people.
Tracey: And you can handle more
volume efficiently .
Victor: ahhhh, I see – you can keep a
few conversations going simultaneously.
Do customers get frustrated by the time
lag?
Tracey: No. We haven’t had any
complaints that I know of.
Victor: Do you think the questions
people ask are more or less descriptive
as a result of having to type them?
Tracey: Some questions can be very
specific…
Tracey: Most of the times, they are
short and to the point.
Victor: Are you typing or using speech
recognition?
Tracey: Typing, but some of the
answers are preformatted…
Tracey: Preformatting is useful for sake
of time.
(said goodbyes and hung up)…
OK, so I’ve gone from thinking that was silly to thinking it’s darn useful. But I’ve yet to use it with an actual sales or technical problem.