Is there anything more annoying than live chat customer service?

[buckeejit]

I know it will be annoying but is the customer service level just lower in comparison to e.g. a phone call?

I've just been on another one of these for a missing robot vac & there is a note at the top of live chat saying the rep may be dealing with more than one query at a time. How is that ever efficient? And I find it really rude as I'm then left there sitting waiting for them to respond for 3-5 minutes when it's a simple query they've not answered at the start, so it takes 30 minutes for something simple!

Any advice on coping with this frustration would be great! Perhaps I need to stop shopping online totally

My experiences with it are generally quite good.

I think they should have to declare if they have specific people for live chat or outsource to people who are dealing with multiple companies.

Agreed, I'd much rather just send an email but it's becoming impossible to find contact details for bigger companies lately. Amazon claimed they didn't have an email address when I was on live chat with them 😒

i much prefer live chat, i hate talking to companies on the phone

Lots of companies dropped email support when COVID hit. Some even dropped phone support.

You can try this email but I can’t guarantee they will respond:

cs-reply@amazon.co.uk

You could also try Twitter

I like WhatsApp ones and I can just send a message and then get on with something else, rather than staying online and waiting. Also like being able to attach screenshots (of bills with reference number on, for example).

@buckeejit sadly not, if we ask to reduce the number of businesses we do at once they increase the number of chats we have to take! We have very little say in these things, and I suspect it's to reduce the amount of staffing we need over busy times of the year. All good fun!

Trust me, myself and nobody in my team would wander off for a brew and ignore you we are targeted on how long each conversation takes too, anything above 10 mins between our first and last message isn't acceptable and can result in a performance plan. We can also see what people have scored us on the chat survey afterward, nothing kicks you more than feeling like you've got on well with a customer who then only gives you a 50/100 or even a 0 because they are pissed off with the business - you can get performance plans for consistent low scores on that too!

I like it, and appreciate the agents have more than one conversation going, so I dont mind the gaps - I would only enter a live chat if I had plenty of time available and had something else (Netflix/work/mumsnet) to keep me busy whilst waiting.

The thing I dont like are the cut and paste (more probably F2, F3 etc) platitudes you get "We realise how frustrating this issue is and we will do out utmost to resolve this for you today" when I haven't been displaying any frustration at all, just asked a question!

The Amazon one has been great. I recently found out about it and sorted out a couple of issues in no time at all.

Argos was also fab! I wanted to cancel an item off my order (found it on offer at less than half price somewhere else!) and honestly, took around 3/4 minutes in total. I was pleasantly surprised

I prefer live chat, recently a product arrived faulty so I was able to upload images to the live chat to show the fault, a replacement was ordered and I received a £50 as a good will gesture.

Love live chat. As someone mentioned I take screenshots.
Far easier than telephone conversations and I make sure I do them when I’m not in a rush because I know they’re probably dealing with more than one person.