Just dawned on me today when I got a very fast and lengthy reply. Of course they can.
~Max
That, or the “support” you’re talking to is a bot. Or is a collaboration between a bot and a human. One reason companies use typed chat for support rather than phones is so it isn’t obvious when you’re talking to a bot.
This one’s a human so far as I can tell. I had to go through a bot to get to her, and she’s been troubleshooting me for a while.
~Maz
While your problem may seem unique, it may be the 10th time today she’s seen it. It’s quite possible they have canned responses ready to go. Whether that’s a formal part of her chat software or she just has a word doc open with 5 or 10 of her ‘usual’ replies & copy/pastes the appropriate one into the chat
Some of them, yes. Not every business uses the same chat software.
It’s not working, Maz.
If there are common steps to troubleshoot something, they may have canned responses. I staff chat for a library and we can see that you’re typing but not what until you submit. But we have a set of canned responses that we can use when needed.
There aren’t enough hours in the day for that to be true.
~Max
"Of course I’ve fucking turned it off and on again, stop wasting my time and get to the real stuff. Yes I know where the damn power button is, do you think I’m a total moron?
Thanks I’ve done that now, what is the next step?"
As a customer, I usually pre-type my problem description, attempted fixes, order numbers, etc. before I even open the chat. As a worker in an unrelated field, I have a file of frequent documentation statements so I can copy and paste quickly.
I wasn’t saying anything nasty, but lol
~Max
Hmm, how does that usually work out for you? My experience:
"I have issue X.
- I know this problem usually arises because option Y is selected. I cannot unselect option Y because it is grayed out
- I have already applied patch 259485"
“Thank you for contacting us about your problem issue X. This is a common problem and I can help you with it today. Please deselect option Y and your problem will be solved. Thank you for contacting us. I have now closed this ticket.”
“As I said, option Y is grayed out.”
“Thank you for contacting us about your problem issue X I now understand that you cannot deselect option Y because it is grayed out. This problem is solved by applying patch 259485. That patch can be found on this web page: xxxxxx Thank you for contacting us. Have a great day. I have now closed this ticket. If you have any other issues I would be very pleased to help”
Depends how persistent I am about escalating and evaluating. Typing it out beforehand makes it easy to cut and paste in as many times as necessary.
True, that
I don’t do realtime chat, but I do provide technical support in a forum and by a ticket system.
I have about 20 text files open at all times, with text I’ve written to address the ~90% of reports that are known issues, or are actually not our problem and best dealt with by others (either in or out of our organisation).
If there’s an expectation that each response ought to be custom-written for that user, well, that would just be a massive waste of time and mean I helped fewer users in a day. I do of course amend the text as appropriate for particular circumstances, although “the game is broken” doesn’t leave much room for that!
She may seem human, but don’t be fooled; and whatever you do, don’t fall in love.
Great. Now I have Fee Fucking Waybill in my ear.
[goes for a Q-Tip …]
Better than Quay Lude!
If you really want to figure out whether or not that’s happening, you can open the developer tools in your browser - in Chrome or Firefox you go to the dropdown menu, then More Tools, then Developer Tools. If you go to the Network tab you can see the communication between your browser and the web server. If there are messages going back and forth as you type, then it could be sending your keystrokes.
I remember hearing that phone support can hear you even while you’re on hold, and the similar case that the “quality assurance” recording is ongoing while you’re on hold. In other words, the customer has an open mic, even when there is hold music playing.
Web pages can gather mouse position and key presses, including letters typed and then erased from fields. This very one I’m using right now is reading my keys as I type them (it’s nice enough to show them to me). I just have to trust that when I use backspace, those letters I erased are condemned to the bitbucket, not saved for some reason.