How would you like being "invited to chat?"

[JPC-Les]

I frequent many technical forums and stumbled upon a thread about this and I wanted to bring the subject here and see what our client base thinks.

Some sites (thawte.com comes to mind) have a feature where they can push a live chat (via php I believe) request to someone browsing their site.

Do you like this level of interactivity or do you feel pressured by it and leave?

[jason]

I've never used those features on any site, but I think they can be helpful. As long as the site user is the one to initiate the chat, I don't have a problem with it. I maintain a site that is hosted with one of the big name hosts and they have such a feature. What I don't like about it on their site, though, is that if you stay on their site for a certain amount of time they automatically try to contact you. After 30 seconds or so a window pops up with "Hi I'm so-and-so, how can I help you?" It is very annoying when you are just trying to search their support documents or whatnot.

--Jason

[tank]

I wouldn't like being invited, but I would like the ability to chat with a sales rep.

[JPC-Les]

I do want to clarify that we do NOT have a working plan to implement this on our site. I was indeed only reading a thread that sparked the idea to post this thread.

Some may remember Jag had a php chat up once and that is in the works for a full time return. If this thread starts to look like having chats pushed to visitors is then "who knows" however that was not this threads intent.

[Julian Muñoz]

A live chat would be nice in my opinion because I as a client, can find an answer to my doubts almost immediately, instead of opening a support ticket or sending an email to sales and wait for hours for a reply.


It could be implemented for the sales dept. here at jag...

[Sara]

I was on a certain other hosts website after having seen mentioned on WHT how they pused their Live Help to everyone and their grandma.

I don't like it and think it's rude. As a potential costumer it would be one thing that would put me in favor if not going with any company I'm thinking about doing business with. It reminds me too much about pushy sales people.

[Joshua Clinard]

I would definitely be in favor of a user initiated chat help system. It would probably get more users to sign up with Jag, particularly users who have sales questions, since they probably wouldn't have to wait as long for sales to answer their question. It would need to be staffed regularly though to be effective. A staff initiated chat could be good too, if done right. Something like: You have been on this page for 10 minitues. Is there something you are looking for, that I can help you with? But if it's too short, it would be annoying.

[Spathiphyllum]

I could understand the implementation of this type of "push" support in an attempt to accomodate yet another type of client personality, and your forward-thinking query for input illustrates yet another aspect of Jag that separates it from other web hosts.

Personally, when I'm "shopping", I prefer not to be bothered until I'm ready to be bothered and any intrusion is considered an annoyance, the degree of which is determined by the persistence of the help. I gather information slowly and it takes a while to mentally compile that which is presented. If I feel rushed to make a decision, and there is no way for the support to know when that appropriate span of delay has elapsed, I'm more likely to leave. Further, if I'm not rushed but my questions roll out slowly as I process presented information, I am tying up the valuable resource that is sales/support labor. Concomitant result: webhost labor costs increase are necessarily passed on to my webhosting fees.

One alternative where it might be useful would be an "emergency live chat" whereby people enter an exclusive chat area (and not an entire support forum) with the expectation of live, I guess, help. Labor costs notwithstanding, this might be a reasonable balance of dynamic interaction and minimized costs.

[prattboy]

I personally like it when a chat is pushed to me, as long as I have the option to decline and as long as it doesn't crash my browser. Other than that, I have no qualms. I like the fact that someone I may buy from is available to answer any questions I might have.