CHAT - still lots of opportunities for improvement

[#1]

I sought to undertake the simplest of tasks via CHAT this afternoon, indeed a task most suited to the good old ticketing system so sadly demised in favour of the one-size fits all CHAT service.

The task was to obtain an update report on email storage utilisation having received a "bad boy" report for the 3rd week running ... and today finally got around to doing some major house keeping.  Setting aside the quality of the support agent, which I'll deal with elsewhere, here are the issues I encountered, which I suggest need improvement...

1. There is no problem option for email - does that mean CHAT agents are not skilled / trained to address email issues?
2. Having filled in the other CHAT fields, including "what's your question" there is no obvious "SEND" or "START CHAT" button - just hitting enter seems to start the process - not overly intuitive!
3. When the CHAT window refreshes whist waiting for an available agent, it grabs screen focus such that any typing taking place in another window (during the long wait) gets captured into the question field
4. Having connected to the agent, the originally typed question is not delivered to the agent
5. The date and time stamps on the agent's messages do not match those on the user's messages - see screen grab
6. The "What would you have done if CHAT was not available" question offers the option "Sent an email / raised a ticket" - oh if only, yes please can we please have tickets brought back?

Agent date is 25 June UK local time, but User date is one month earlier in a different time zone

[#2]

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@Townman wrote:
here are the issues I encountered, which I suggest need improvement...

1. There is no problem option for email - does that mean CHAT agents are not skilled / trained to address email issues?
2. Having filled in the other CHAT fields, including "what's your question" there is no obvious "SEND" or "START CHAT" button - just hitting enter seems to start the process - not overly intuitive!
3. When the CHAT window refreshes whist waiting for an available agent, it grabs screen focus such that any typing taking place in another window (during the long wait) gets captured into the question field
4. Having connected to the agent, the originally typed question is not delivered to the agent
5. The date and time stamps on the agent's messages do not match those on the user's messages - see screen grab
6. The "What would you have done if CHAT was not available" question offers the option "Sent an email / raised a ticket" - oh if only, yes please can we please have tickets brought back?

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Sorry to hear of the problems you encountered, however thanks for flagging up things you felt could be improved.

1. I'll flag up the missing email option on chat to the relevant people.
2. Admittedly I'm not entirely sure how it shows when going through these options on a PC as the link to start a chat is blocked internally at work, however when checking on my phone there was a submit button after filling out the details you've mentioned, however from what you've said it does need looking in to.
3. I'm sorry to hear that, however I'm not sure if this will be a functionality we'll control or if it's built in to the chat software we use. Either way, I'll pass the feedback on.
4. I'm sure it is, or at least it certainly used to be. However I've seen the transcript from the chat in question and understand the advisor you spoke to said otherwise. I'm going to speak to some colleagues over on live chat before I pass feedback on regarding this subject (Although if I find that advisors can still see the initial chat reason that the customer typed out, feedback will be passed on regarding the advisor)
5. That does seem strange and as with most of the other points, I'll pass feedback on for that to be looked in to.
6. While I'd like to say I'll pass feedback on, I'm afraid this isn't something that's likely to come back like it used to be.

Apologies that most/all of these points have been met with a "I'll pass that on to the relevant people" however I'm afraid that's all I can do in regards to most of these points.

[#3]

Harry,

Thanks for picking this up. I have no expectations that the social / community team can fix any of this, but I'm sure you will chase those who can. The point about feedback is that it can / should influence positive change.

Kevin