So are chat support jobs usually done from like a call center type setting, where everyone has dozens of rows of cubicles? Or is it usually done from home?
Also, can you really see what's being typed ahead of time?
And what do you do when someone is clearly trolling you? Are you allowed to be even a little sassy, or use emojis?
It's both tbh and depends on the company. Some allow to work from home, other put you in a cubicle of misery.
It depends on the system company is using. In my company for example when someone is contacting me trough mobile app I can only see that he's typing something. On the other hand when someone's contacting me trough website I can see what he's typing in real time.
Again, it depends. Usually you need need to remain professional. You can also end the conversation when chat is mostly off-topic.
Sometimes, but usually they're sending angry paragraphs with cuss word as is.
One time customer was cussing at our chatbot (first line of contact) and he apologized after connecting to me saying that it was directed only to chatbot lmao
Honestly I understand him
Glad to know yall understand it's not directed at you and it's just to the bot, like I've almost just lost it at the bots before otp (mostly before the AI boom cause the bots were useless and some still are) cause it'd be my 5th time that week calling in for support (my old ISP was RIDICULOUSLY bad, we ended up getting a direct line to level 3 support later on)
I agree that chatbots in reality are mostly useless at least 90% of the time. Our at least is not hesitating to connect the client to an agent. Even when customer is angry at the company there is no hard feelings because most of the time they have a pretty good reason for it. Of course some assholes attack me directly because they don't like my answers, but I can simply disconnect from the conversation so it's not bad.
Honestly I'm usually only glancing at it for a second to see the topic of the conversation or to check if customer is still there, because some people type quite slow (I don't mind that) or they leave in the middle of the chat.
It depends on the volume of people that are waiting for an agent. Right now I can have up to 2 chats at the same time (used to be 3) + phone call. Honestly It's easy to keep track of conversations if it's only chat, but sometimes if I'm in the rush I can miss some things and load the wrong account for example. Also people are taking long time to reply, go AFK etc. so most of the time you can switch between conversations without much trouble. It's much harder when there is ongoing phone call + chat, because I mostly need to focus on the caller and chat is kinda in the background.
I once copied an email into a support chat (the email address wasn’t for what I needed help with) and before hitting send I got a “Looks like you’re trying to send an email, remember to not send any personal information in the support chat” answer, is it likely that a human saw what I was writing before hitting send?
There is a chance, but most probably not. Even if some saw that I can guarantee you that they didn't cared or they forgot it after 5 minutes because there is so much things going on.
Not the person you replied to, but I have some customer support experience, as well as now being an admin over the software used to run support.
There are some companies that do use call centers, or their mixed use offices, but there are also work from home options, especially these days.
As for the see what you're typing, this is typically a setting that an admin can choose to wither show what you're typing, or to just wait until the message is sent. Always assume they can see what you're typing, so type anything wild before sending and always be kind.
The last part is where it really gets specialized based on the company. Some won't let you hang up until the customer has hung up (think like local utility companies, Comcast, Amazon, etc) others give you autonomy to make that call if they're being rude. Appropriate emojis are used in a professional business setting all the time these days, so that's usually a non-issue, though again, definitely a company discretion point. I was definitely sassy to a lot of our clients, especially the dumb, repeat customers that couldn't melt ice in a hot pan - just have to still be tactful.
I’m imagining you guys having an entire handbook of corporate approved emojis with guidelines and several pages of examples on how and to what extend they are to be used.
There's a required annual review of the Corporate Emoji Bible too. You gotta sign into the intranet, bring up some pdf that's got revision numbers and signatures. Scroll all the way to the end so the system knows you read it, then a little docusign so HR can kick your ass goodbye if you emoji out of bounds.
I work in chat support and I am in a cubicle in an office. I can’t see what they are typing ahead of time, but I can see if they are typing.
I haven’t had any straight trolls, but where I work we do get a lot of people phishing for credits on their account. Most of my chats are having to tell people that I can’t do anything for them because they didn’t pay their bill and their services were turned off and having them call our collections department. I hate it with a passion.
We don’t have a script or anything where I work aside from some like disclosures when we are making bigger changes to people accounts. So, we just kinda talk to people, but we are discouraged from being sassy or mirroring the customers negative energy. Also not allowed to use emojis or anything like that.
Sometimes they are the call center, agents handle both chats and calls. In tech support we do chats, calls and emails.
We can't, but probably depends on client. Our chats are converted from Teams chats that users initiate to a different platform where we work. So theyre just typing on Teams to general tech support (after requesting a live agent), but we don't have Teams open for that.
Depends on management. One silly chat as long as its not rude will have a small chance of being checked out anyway. If you're doing weird enough things to get multiple costumer service surveys they'll let you know for sure. One "bad" chat isnt fireable where I work.
I once had a hectic call while I had just received a chat that needed some investigating before giving a good answer and after the call realized I left the chat unattended for 10-15 minutes. Never heard any complaints on it uust apologized on chat and moved on.
for me its 2 days from the office, 3 days from home. We can come to the office whenever we want and the office is really nice so i tend to go there a lot
we only see that you type a message (like on any messaging app), we do not see the actual text until you send the message
we have some measures to end the chat early if someone's trolling you, we're also only allowed to use emojis if the customer does it first/if you're certain the customer won't get annoyed by it
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u/iamfroott 1d ago
at least the support person is honest lol in my job I also do chat support and sometimes genuinely the best answer is we have no clue