Slashdot Mirror
Live Chat Salespeople On Web Sites
burgburgburg writes "Forbes.com has an interesting article on how one web site is bringing all of the fun of salespeople suddenly appearing and offering to "help" to the web. It seems that Rackspace Managed Hosting tracks you by your IP number when you arrive. After 30 seconds on the site, a Java applet pops up with a photo of a sales person and a live chat offer to assist you in your efforts. According to Rackspace's co-chairman, one-third of users approached via chat engage in conversation with a salesperson, and half of those take the discussion to the next level. Furthermore, according to him, nearly 50% of new customers have originated from the chat feature. They have 6 salespeople watching the site in shifts for 20 hours a day."
If you type a/s/l they terminate the conversation....
I'm so lonely
DLF ROCKS!
that's a long shift.
I think that their 6 sales staff might not be able to cope with a slashdotting :)
No thanks, just web browsing.
"According to Rackspace's co-chairman, one-third of users approached via chat engage in conversation with a salesperson, and half of those take the discussion to the next level."
What's that, dinner and a movie?
Wow! Free pr0n on hosting sites!
Hangon...where's the sexy nineteen year old salespeople?
Thought it was too good to be free, d'oh
this might be the first time an actual person will feel the slashdot effect
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Does anyone know how well this would work in a software technical support environment geared for end users or have any experience with this in a support environment?
To use the /. effect to not only take down sites, but people now? Damn, that's cold.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I remember being a little disconcerted at the applet popping up....
But ten minutes later, I picked up the phone to talk further with a sales rep.
They're gonna need more than that to handle all of the bored slashdotters looking for a cyber pal to chat with. I'm on my way there now. Maybe I can get hooked up with a hot little sales chickie.
Additionally I wonmder if this might actually violate federal wiretapping law in that they are tracking what I am doing on their site without my permission or informed consent.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
I was browsing their site just to check it out and up came the window. I like the concept that you can get in touch with someone right away, but I rather wait until I am ready. No matter what I am buying, I like to gather some information first and then contact the company myself when I have some questions ready regarding their products.
What level would that be?
Wanna cyber? ;P
Un-news
Now I'll have to say `just browsing' on every webpage I visit and in every brick and morter store I visit.
Thanks a lot.
-Colin
I don't really think this is such a bad thing.
Most people are used to seeing the occasional pop-up, so the offer itself isn't too obtrusive. If they aren't interested, clicking "No, Thanks" is a lot easier to do through a browser than say in person to most sales people. Add to that the idea that most people that are on the site are probably not just random passers-by, and you've got a fairly good idea going.
Now if this was on other sites, I could see it getting out of hand, but that's another thread...
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
What's the electronic equivalent of being followed around the supermarket by a security guard because you look scruffy I wonder? An avatar calling you a script kiddie and asking you to leave?
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
For what I've seen, popup sales help is not particularly impressive. The "first level" of help appears to be essentially automated (basically a chatbot) that burns up several minutes establishing contact with an "Eliza-like" series of questions that you have to answer before you can get any further. Once you get to a real human, the level of support is not much different than what you would find if you searched the FAQ for the site (for all I could tell, it might still have been a bot except that I specifically asked if it was a person and then got a non-automated response). And I found it creepy to be accosted virtually, sort of like being stalked by a popup ad. Until they improve the interface and the substance, I'll pass.
At SplutterFish we designed a custom system based around IRC which allows users to get live support as well.
:)
This means that virtually all of our users can connect, usually without any installation required (through a JAVA applet, or HTML-based webchat on port 80 for those behind firewalls) - whilst still offering our users their own flavor of client to use whenever they want - e.g. mIRC.
Our users are very pleased with the service as they can get instant answers almost around the clock, they can receive transcripts of the conversation on their e-mail address, an FTP server is hooked in so that they can easily upload multiple files or large files, and an IRC back-end shows the details of the upload back to the support people (such as version of software used to author a specific file - in our case: 3ds max scene files).
I would advise almost any company to start something like this, but you do need to have several people watching - either paid or volunteer / honor-system based. As a 'live support' system is only as good as just how 'live' it is.
Oh, and yes, it has been driving sales as well
I imagine that YMMV considerably, depending on your industry. A year ago I was working for a .com that sold automotive accessories online. We experimented with the same service rackspace has, Groopz. We also tried PHP Chat and LivePerson. Groopz was the best, in our experience, do to the right combination of functionality vs. price.
However, we ended up scrapping the live chat thing all together eventually. We had people who would pop in, ask a random question and then close the chat session. It was very difficult to carry on meaningful conversation that would actually lead to a sale. It's much more difficult for a shopper to do this to a sales guy in person or over the phone because you have their undivided attention.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
It seems that Rackspace Managed Hosting tracks you by your IP number when you arrive.
:)
I guess I'm safe since I bought that software from the popup ad that keeps my computer from broadcasting an IP.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Rent a server from Rack Space,
buy a new car,
paint the house? Wha......
I had this happen to me on a website where I was already a customer.
It really startled the hell out of me the first time. Anyway, I was at the site because I was looking through their help files to resolve a problem I was having. Once it became clear that I had already given them money and was looking for help, the guy just vanished.
So not only did they interupt me when I was fine on my own, they left me with a bad feeling knowing they are clearly more interested in getting new customers than helping old ones.
-Colin
It's six people who are covering it for 20 hours a day.
i wonder.. would it be able to figure out what irc network that java applet works via?
The first thing that popped into mind when reading the post -
"Soooo, how many licenses would you like to buy today?"
from the CA commercials with the cardboard salesperson. I'll now have that commercial stuck in my head the rest of the day, you insensitive clod!
Actually this is a good thing as long as there is an option to speak with the sales associate. I like the idea of "being able" to ask questions... Now if I start to get bugged every 5 seconds... Well, there are alternate shopping alternatives... ;-)
--Ryan
I noticed this feature on Rackspace some time ago, and while I never felt the need to make use of it myself, I always thought it was a great idea. What I want to know is, what do you guys think of it... not as something many of the people here would want, but as a way to help guide potential customers. I've got a webhost I'm working on setting up, with my own infrastructure (doing my own code, and being utterly obsessive over it), and this is one of the features I have been seriously considering implementing (for as long as a year now?). If abused, it can be a bad thing, but if the policy is to simply answer questions and help potential clients work out what they need and if we have what they need, I see it as an excellent idea that can be made to serve the customer as much as the company investing time and manpower into it.
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
It's only a matter of time before someone plugs AI into the chatroom application and fucks with them.
Some friends and I have recently started a campaign to simply harass them until they turn off this feature. Here are some nice things to say to them...
Rackspace: Hi, are you starting a new project, or looking for a new hosting company?
You:
Rackspace is, in fact, turning into an 800-pound gorilla in their industry (by the way, Rackspace put up the money to start up RackShack, later renamed EV1.net, which bought an SCO license). You should do your hosting with small, regional hosting centers that actually care about their customers.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
posted via satellite
Of course, the other question is how long before the salespeople are replaced by AI 'bots themselves. But it seems more likely that they will just be outsourced to India.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I use FreeBSD and Mozilla
Pretty much a java hostile zone
I know *some* people have gotten it to work but, for once, I'm glad I'm lef tout of this stuff.
no flash, no java, ah peace
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Now I have to duck into an online store while the salesclerks are on break. Great.
-B-
http://think2x.blogspot.com
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
"Additionally I wonmder if this might actually violate federal wiretapping law in that they are tracking what I am doing on their site without my permission or informed consent."
*sigh*
Look people, you (not your doppelganger) willingly went to their site to browse (permission). As part of how TCP/IP works your IP address is going to show up on their end. They are going to record it in their log files, just like all the MILLIONS of other web sites out there (precedent). As far as being informed, most sites have a privacy link at the bottom of their pages explaining things(1). So the answer is NO the federal wiretapping laws DO NOT apply (do any of you even understand the wiretapping laws, or are you just pulling this out to scare the rest of us?)
Now stop being so paranoid.
(1) The burden is on you to understand common sense things, that's why "But I didn't know" doesn't cut it in a court of law.
You are reading Slashdot.
This feature is really cool, Ive been to sites where one question was VERY quickly answered. Call them and you have to navigate through touch-tone menus and wait till youre forwarded to 'engineers' who actually know what theyre selling. Email them and youll only get a reply bot saying expect another email shortly and hold your breath.
In fact Ive never had technical questions like how much would a certain microcontrller sample cost, so fast. Its also much lighter on the salesrep than getting calls; any 14 year old can switch between 6 MSN chat windows faster than she can say huh
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
No doubt, these six salespeople will be "thanking" slashdot under their breath. Hopefully, their photo will be real-time, thus providing a glimpse of how websites feel when suffering from slashdot effect.
Here is a similar application (if not the same one). It is interesting technology.
...just rename one of the libraries. Restore the proper name you want to use Flash again. Works for me.
Someone finally found a way to bring "Clippy" to the web. "It looks like you want to buy server space, Would you like help in doing this?" At least it's a pictue of a human, not that stupid paperclip
~corporate tool, but employed~
How long until we see an artificial salesagent (i.e., not felt as an interpersonal burden) ...that's secretly operated by a real one? (...like the 18th-century chess-playing machine that actually housed a dwarf...)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
As if pop up ads were not bad enough, now we have pop-up people....
Blah.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh great another pop-up to block.
False alarm For those of you that use for Mozilla.
A couple of months ago I was shopping for a new hosting facility for some sites I run. (My florida room was running out of space). I visited RackSpace and got 'chatted-up' by this feature. I was a little shocked at first, thinking this was a automatid response system or something. So I misspelled some words and used bad grammar and the person on the other end responded with real answers to my questions.
The conversation did go to the next level with a voice-to-voice phone call. I ended up doing business with Rackspaces' little sister company, serverbeach and am pleased with the price and the service.
Just where is the nearest brick and mortar Rackspace Managed Hosting location to you? It's not BestBuy.com were talking about. Also, its not illegal, anyone can track what you do on their site, its called a server log, and i think a hosting company would know a thing or two about those.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This has been around for years. Another fine example of the media being slow.
LivePerson is one such service - we use it on several of our sites, and I've seen similar programs being used on probably a hundred other sites.
For regular customer support (a healthcare company, for example) it's very useful. Customers are impressed and on one of those sites, almost every person that starts the conversation (via a "Live Help" link on the navigation) ends up being a customer.
I've never seen a "chatbot" used for this. I'm not surpised that some do, but our sites are 100% people. Expensive, but we've seen that it's worth it.
Rackspace is, in fact, turning into an 800-pound gorilla in their industry (by the way, Rackspace put up the money to start up RackShack, later renamed EV1.net, which bought an SCO license). competitor of Rackspace. Don't make statments you know jack about.
We're a small university and we've recently implemented this on our site for admissions purposes. It's a pretty good system, prospective students are impressed by being able to talk to a live person and ask their random questions. There's good and bad to this though, it takes training our staff to stay online and actually respond, but Groopz has some cool features like being able to "push" a web page to someone, they ask about the soccer team, the counselor pushes a button and our stats from last year popup in the user's browser.
To be honest though, I'm quite frustrated with the server software. We've been using their ASP (App Service Provider) option for a year now but are looking at moving it onto our own server behind our T1. I've found setting up the server to be a pain in the neck. Poor documentation is worse than no documentation I now realize. I admit that it's my first time setting up a Java Servlet but I've got a few years of admistrating a number of PHP apps under my belt and I've been using Linux since 1.2.13 was the latest stable release. Great concept, decent implementation but the product needs some stability and reworking of the documentation/support
50% of new customers have originated from the chat feature
No, 50% of new customers were willing to speak with the rep on the way in. This might help keep people on the path that leads them to becoming a customer, but it doesn't start them on it. They had to get to the site somehow...
Too bad the Java plugin has a habit of crashing Mozilla. I uninstalled the plugin because of this problem.
...and up pops goatse in the chat window's portrait.
I asked the poor guy manning the site on what they likely thought would be a slow Saturday "How does it feel to be slashdotted?".
His reponse was "Great. We love the Linux community."
Unlike tracking by phone number, wouldn't it be indescribably easy for someone on a dynamic ip (or hell, anyone who has proxy) to repeatedly abuse this feature? A single person could completely shut down a compliment of 6 people doing tech support.
I was on the HP web site to look up some info on a printer I'm buying, and there was a "live chat" option. It was initiated by me, rather than by them, but I must say it was a very efficient means of communication, if a litle slow.
I preferred the wait to waiting on the phone.
But since some people may take you serious.
I went to the site. It's clean, has a link up at the top for the chat feature. How is that intrusive? (now that is all I have seen so I don't know if they pop it up on other pages.)
What you are saying is the equivelent to calling up Microsoft's help line and harassing them because you don't like them.
This company found a niche way of helping their customers, if you don't like it don't use said feature or go with someone else. You're a consumer you do have a choice.
With all that said I think it is quite childish behavior.
I work for the company that writes the software that Rackspace uses.
.0001 percent of the people we contact get bent out of shape. Most are amazed and want to know more.
We initially wrote the software to use in house to for our sales and support team, but people quickly started to use it and like it.
That being said I am going to answer a few things that I see popping up here.
1. Our sales staff are all technical, network engineers, developers you name it. So when you page someone on our site, you get someone knowledgable about networks, internet, webservers, etc, so they can guid you.
They are many companies that use our tool and similar ones to provide sales and they dont provide quality sales people. So if you have retail store or webstore, you need good sales people.
2. Our products are cross platform. You hear me. Server side Linux, Windows, Xserve, Solaris. Operator side as well. We develop on OSX then port.
3. Support staff are always the hardest people to please with tools, and the more you give them to do the less they like it. I rode a support desk for 5 years and I was a stubborn son of a bitch. However with online support you get the benefit of being able to have 2-6 people in a chat, as opposed to one on one on the phone. It actually makes you work more efficiently. And all communication is logged for QA, and you can email the transcript to your CRM system and the customer. It allows for efficiency.
The biggest gripe I see here on slashdot is that you do not want to be browsing and someone popup. Well here is my opinion on that from a business standpoint and a computer liberal. If I am a business man, and I am paying thousands of dollars for design, hosting, bandwidth, not too mention my products. I want my salespeoople to have every advantage that they can.
IT makes no sense to build a beautiful venue for window shopping only.
Our software has increased companies revenues up to 700 percent, allowing for more jobs, pay raises, in the technical industry.
I personally have to use the software everyday and abouot
As a tech, I think it might be a little intrusive, but then again, if you got your nose pressed against a retail establishment window, someone will come and talk to you. And what is wrong with saying just browsing.
This type of software adds the human element to an otherwise cold web. Which many people on Slashdot tend to lose because most of us sent behind monitors all day and on high horses.
www.groopz.com That is the product Rackspace uses. That is our site.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
take the discussion to the next level
They got to second base?
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
I took advantage of the live chat with a sales rep. I had a quick question and had it answered with 15 seconds. Although ultimately I went with a different provider, the same question required a phone call to that provider which took considerably more of my time. I think many web hosting providers have been doing this for over a year now. BTW--The other provider offered better hosting for less cost, hence, why we went with them over Verio.
Is Victoria's Secret doing this?
fanatical ( P ) Pronunciation Key (f-nt-kl) adj. Possessed with or motivated by excessive, irrational zeal.
I can just imagine them sending a tech support guy to my house. When I answer my door, he storms in, hugs, me and shouts in my ear "WHAT DO YOU NEED HELP WITH?! I'M HERE TO FIX IT! "
I don't expect a person to jump out at me and ruin the comfort of anonymity I have while browsing the web.
You surely mean "the false comfort of anonymity I have while browsing the web."
You're being logged. Hate it or love it, but never forget it.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Kudos for the compliment. I work for the company that designs and sells Groopz. We work hard to make our product solid and feature rich.
And honestly it depends on the product and the salesperson behind the software.
I use Groopz everyday. And I sell an inordinate amount of software with it. Groopz is not our only product nor was it our first one. We developed it for us, and then we decided to try and sell it. It has been a win win for our company and allowed us to easily whether the dot.com bust.
Easy nuumbers are this way. Through Groopz if you contact 20 people a day, that is 100 a week. Say you get 20 leads from it, 5 turn into sales. Those are 20 sales that you wouldnt have gotten from normal venues.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
ARRRGGGhhh , back in late 93 early 94 I came up with this very concept and built a proof of concept model. It worked and great at that, EVRYONE I pitched it to thought it was point blank one of the dumbest ideas they had ever heard of. WHY In gods name would you want to have to have a live person monitoring a site, WHY would anyone want to use it people like buying on the net because they dont have to deal with people. WHY WHY WHY didnt I paten this, Anyone wanna buy some prior art CHEAP ?
Basically the company ended up being acquired by E.piphany. No idea if anything was ever done with the technology after that (I had moved on by that point).
.technomancer
just the other day i was looking for a new web host and a window popped up with a sales person asking me if he could help.
i was very annoyed.
i told him that i *was* considering purchasing a host plan, but i decided definitely not to purchase a plan after experienced the unrequested sales pop-up.
if on the other hand there was button that i could push to open a pop-up for a sales question when *i* wanted chat, now that would be very helpful.
peace
the window is (unsurprisingly) suppressed with mozilla's built-in popup blocking.
any word on when this technology will be available in wearable computers?
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
I have two clients on Rackspace and I've been happy with their service. It may be sort of pricey, but their support is responsive and helpful.
but finally a chance to test that copy of elisa you've had for years. Just code up a suitable interface and watch the sales droid go into meltdown...
And do you know why you currently need live sales people? Because the morons that run commercial web-sites include only bits and pieces of information about the products/services being offered.
Slightly OT rant:
I never understood it. The strength of the web is that you can decide how much reading you want to do, but when there's little information provided, you're just screwed. In a physical location you can almost get away with that, because you are holding the product in your hands, and can check it out, or maybe call over the salesperson.
Although, I must say that is less and less true these days. The sales people usually idiots who only know what they can read on the back of the package (thanks for the help, you moron) and you can't open up a lot of products these days because they are sealed in plastic or something else that can't be opened and resealed non-destructively (I still like good old boxes).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
We use WebConference/LiveHelp! to do this, and it works quite well. Not to mention it's open source.
... the potential customer chatterbot:
Sales Guy: Hi, it looks like you're considering Rackspace for your hosting needs. Can I help you?
Chatterbot: Would you like to help me with considering Rackspace for your hosting needs?
Sales Guy: Yes, that's why I'm here, to help you.
Chatterbot: Why are you here, to help you?
Sales Guy: No, to help you. To make your shopping experience with Rackspace more enjoyable.
Chatterbot: How do you feel about shopping experience with Rackspace more enjoyable?
...
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The first time I saw one of these, I had the following conversation:
Chat Popup: Hi, My name is John, do you have any questions about our products?
Me: <pause> Hi, John. What do you do again?
Chat Popup: I'm just here to help you, and make sure any questions you have are answered. What can I do for you?
Me: <pause> Interesting... Can you prove you're a human?
At this point, the chat window closed suddenly. I thought, "damn. pretty good.."
Oh no! A bunch of geeks just shacked the rack.
Hope they don't fight back, by kicking us in the sack.
Reminds me of a hotel stay I once had. Spending the weekend at the swimming pool, I'm walking past the 'massage room', when one of the elegant ladies arriving for work, goes bounding up to her friend at the desk and asks eagerly "Any specials for me?". Recounting this to my parents, they explain exactly what a "special" was. Some time later, I'm going to a restaurant for a meal with friends, and we go up to the food bar. The waitress acts "Would anyone like a special?". I'm lost for words.
For years we've had the pleasure of seeing the slashdot effect on websites...
new we'll see how well a real human deals with being slashdotted...
A new feature is just a bug waiting to happen. And vice versa.
This sounds like a great new resource to use for complaining about the fact that Rackspace hosts no end of spammers. "Hi, can I help you?" "Sure, I'd like to report some spam." It'd also be kind of fun to feed 'em Eliza, and see how long it takes them to figure things out.
Please help metamoderate.
The Forbes story has a screenshot of an example conversation....
Guest34725: I'm looking for reliable services with minimal downtime. Can you help?
Tony: Absolutely! Zero downtime..guaranteed in our Service Level Agreement
So, either Tony is screwed when the engineers find out, or we can add Rackspace to Cockroaches and Twinkies as the only things that will survive a nuclear war.
Seriously though. This could lead to quite a few problems, given that it's impossible to verify who's taking part in the conversation.
Scenario 1: Sales advisor offers a copy of John Grisham's new book (no, I don't know why either) if the customer buys the two Grisham books he's looking at right now. Customer buys the books but doesn't get his free book. Was it a legal contract?
Sc 2: Female SA asks the customer if he needs any help. Customer asks if she wants to meet up for kinky sex later. SA sues company for sexual harassment (I think 3 /. comments like this have +5 already)
Sc 3:SA offers underage customer a deal on Sex tapes because he was looking at some when his mom wasn't in the room and he doesn't have a credit card to buy the good stuff. Paedophile?
Sc 4: Spammers install logging software which detects this popup, redirects to their website. Suddenly all of Amazon's customers are being offered Barnes and Noble special introductory offers. And Penis enlargment.
Sc 5: Tony (in the Rackspace thing) asks the customer for his telephone number, because, there's no way Guest34725 will give out his mates number. (Pizza for I.C. Wiener)
I'm a Fox whore, I apologise. If it appeases you, I don't watch Fox (channel) if such a thing exists, I live in the UK so I watch BBC or C4 (unless they replace it with snooker, hmm.)
How about a simple, "Do not harass" list?
Can't even browse online without vermin breathing down your neck and circling like vultures...
We see both a lot of hits to our Live Help Software page, and frequent requests to add software to our list of live help software providers. Most live help software is configured by the user to be passive, waiting for a person to request a chat session, rather than actively pushing a session. We preview all software prior to adding it to our list, and personally, I prefer to be the one to initiate a session, rather than having the site push a session.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
My aunt works as a "live chat operator" for a SF bay hosting company. Her salary is based on how many new clients she gets, so there's a lot of pressure to snag new clients through live chat.
The reason many companies have switched to live chat salespeople (as opposed to phone salespeople) is that instead of having one salesperson with one call, each salesperson can have 5-10 chat windows open at once. Each chat operator has a specialty -- whether virtual hosting, colocation, or dedicated -- so customers interested in a certain plan can be transparently redirected to the proper operator.
Certainly, you'll get your questions answered through live chat, but since you're talking to a salesperson, they want you to purchase a plan. It's how they get paid.
Coming soon: Arthur Miller's "Death of a Live Chat Salesperson"
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I'm a rackspace customer and I've got to say the live chat feature is awesome. I went to rackspace.com once looking into getting an SSL certificate for my server. I chatted with the sales guy for a minute and while he couldnt direct me to a page with more information on the SSL certificates he was able to pull up my account information and give me a phone number to call and an extension to speak with. I did not however purchase the SSL certificate from rackspace as they wanted something like $850/3 years for a 40 bit cert while Instantssl.com was able to provide me with a 128bit cert for 3 years for only $150, albeit without the "fanatical" support that rackspace offers. In my opinion Rackspace has done a tremendous job of supporting our server and while their prices for add-ons like the above mentioned SSL certificate are high the overall support is superb.
The one thing I would like to rant about is the fact that when we signed up for rackspace managed hosting and configured our server we were given the option for AMD or Intel. Being an AMD guy I choose the AMD option. Upon logging into our server for the first time I was unplesantly suprised to find that the processor was infact an AMD duron. This was not apparent when signing up for the service.
I've been seeing advertisements on TechTV for a place called serverbeach.com which offers dedicated hosting for only $99/mo as opposed to rackspace's $400/mo (for our server configuration at least) but since we're happy with rackspace i dont think ill be making a switch any time soon. Has anyone else had any experience with serverbeach? Sounds reasonable for something like a dedicated game server.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Looking for a dedicated hosting solution on rackspace I totally failed or did they? Their site seems very unorganized for sales - no wonder they need live sales people to contact you!!! They have not understood what Internet is!
Them: What are you looking for regarding support?
Me: Cock. Hard cock.
Them: (Chat session terminated)
So much fun, I could do that all night.
Chance of getting a sale has suddenly shifted many decimal points in the wrong direction. The boss comes in after the weekend, and fires everyone who suddenly couldn't get a sale, excuses be damned.
then the chat server goes up in flames.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If you can get on their computer, then you can fix it. The last thing you ever want to do to a user's computer is fix it. You want *them* to fix it, thus giving them at least the slightest bit of clue, and encouraging them to think for a second whether or not they could figure out their next problem themselves, thus causing them to become even more clueful.
I work in-house tech support, so we don't have a "convince them it's their fault and they need to buy another one" approach, and we have a standing policy against such things as Windows Remote Access. In rare cases, we will ask people to bring a machine to the helpdesk, which stresses the exceptional nature of the service.
We also take extra time on the phone to explain why the problem happened, so they can avoid it in the future. The result of this is that we spend less time on the phone, because our users get smarter. We usually have an empty call queue with a few people on the phone. Oh, yeah, and we service a few tens of thousands of users.
The defining moment of this philosophy was when my boss actually encouraged me to wear my "No, I will not fix your computer." shirt to work. Tech support doesn't have to suck. It just ends up sucking when your metric of success is short call times.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
but on the phone? undivided attention?
to quote the Ren & Stimpy horse ->"No sir"
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Rackspace's announces our new 3-tier DDoS mitigation tool that combines sophisticated intrusion detection with granular traffic analysis and server-level anomaly detection for the ultimate in DDoS protection and system performance.
I bet they are getting a good load test right about now
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I tried this once with a Thawte chat person. They completely ignored it, and I felt ashamed of myself =)
Seriously, I don't like the pushy popup, but I do love the fact that, for simple questions, I can do other work without having to listen to a "Please stay on the line message."
- rabs
Logging onto SCO's website only to have one of these Java windows pop up, with a salesperson asking "So, how many Linux licenses will you be purchasing today?"
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
is becoming increasingly lost.
The truth is, when I am on the web, or doing
anything else on the 'net for that matter, I
don't want to be disturbed/forced to talk real
time to anybody, until I decide to open the
chat session.
Hey guys, welcome to the future. If you are anoyed by a chatlet coming up, prepare for the future. Because it will shift to audio and video afterwards. Including speaking bots as well, if I'm not mistaken.
This is the next step forward, internet will become more like a telephone / television kind of thing. The tech part about it has already faded to the background mostly (not that that's a bad thing, so long as it is there). You can see a lot of (video) conferencing going on between individuals. This will slowly be taken up by the companies.
The two chats I had with my ISP (tech support) were really helpfull. The one I had with McAfee was worthless though. In the end it's the person on the other end that makes the difference between anoyment and enjoyment I guess. So no, I don't think it's bad. And yes, I've got pop-ups blocked, so I wouldn't see it either.
The problem that I have encountered is that you either get Rackspace's used car salesman style approach (irritating... if I want help, be ready when I ask for it) or you get a long wait that is just as bad as a phone call to customer support. Last night I needed to call Earthlink with a problem, I tried their Chat service which is billed as "Online Help in an INSTANT". Well, that "INSTANT" turned out to be 30 minutes of me waiting until I gave up in disgust. That has been my experience in general with retail/support live chat. It's just like all interaction with businesses... you want to give them money, they are on it 24/7... you need help or just have a question, "All reps are busy at this time. Please call back later".
and half of those take the discussion to the next level.
And by that, they mean cybersex.. right?
Klowner
the name 'puto' in spanish means f*cker
:)
just in case you didn't know
"Disable Plugins" (including Flash) is an option on the Quick Preferences menu.
Looks a lot like the American Humanists logo to me, though...
Here's a quick summary..
While people planning on a purchase might like talking to a live person, I went to RackShack's site one day to see what their prices were like, not really planning on spending $500/month any time soon. Up popped the window. I was somewhat freaked out.
Of course, the very next day I was checking out pricing at ServerBeach, owned by the same people, and had a repeat. I left immediately.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not massively afraid of socialization or whatnot. It's just eerie to have someone pop up out of the blue offering to help, when I'm not at all ready for it. 'Live help' type stuff where I have to initiate the conversation has proven to be pretty great, as I can get questions answered quickly, and get a feel for how professional / friendly the people there are. But when they pop up out of the blue, it's always creepy.
I'm the same way in brick-and-mortar stores. I'm always "just looking" when the salesman comes; if I have a question, I find someone and ask them. IMHO, businesses should focus on making it really easy to get help if you need it, but not bugging people if they don't.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
So something is acceptable simply because "many companies are doing this?" Jeez, that's pathetic and insulting. Right up there with excuses like "It's company policy ...".
Of listing the damn prices on their site. No WONDER it's increased sales, you can't get shit for pricing information on the webpage. Presumable the salesperson will give you that. If I go to a site and they don't give me pricing, I'm usually gone. I'm not going to play the e-mail/phone tag game unless it's for entriprise apps and my boss told me to.
I'd much rather go to a place like Pair Networks (www.pair.com) that has no bullshit, upfront listings of their service, prices, configuration, network, etc. In fact, that's who I do host with. Their no-BS site, combined with good reports, sold me on it.
I wish companies would realise that the web is an informational medium and part of that information needs to be the price. They think that if they can just get you to talk to a sales droid, they'll be able to pressure you into a sale. Well that may be true in some cases, but often it's the opposite. If my boss says he wants a price comparison on something, I hit the web. If you are the one site that fails to list your price, guess who gets left out of the report?
I have popup blocking with the google toolbar, that works fine, but still got the chat invite - in a popup. They must use some non-standard popup method.
I've experienced Rackspace's chat app before, and I find it overall, fairly positive.
1) You don't have to go trudging through as much public marketroid copy to get your questions answered. every website has a different FAQ section, and they don't always answer your FAQ.
With a human, it's easier to get a straight, fast answer, even if what you want to know is obscure - or if, for whatever reason, the business isn't amicable to advertising it's answers to the public.
2) If you don't want to chat, close the window. I'm sure the cookie marks you as having been approached to avoid disgruntling "users". I'm sure a webchat salesperson isn't going to give a damn if "guest243 has closed the chat window" scrolls by. Then again, I also have no qualms about immediately hanging up after identifying a telemarketer.
Then again, there's a fine line between auto-popping a window and placing a chat button on the site. I would imagine regular popup blockers would take care of the folks who wold be most annoyed by this.
If only meatspace salespeople came with little close buttons...
I felt it was my job to show people exactly what they wanted. The stores are large enough, and have enough stock, that if the person didn't look in every corner, or didn't know exactly what features they could have, they weren't ready to buy something. Salespeople, when done right, are a good search algorithm, and leading exactly to what you want is a good way to sell something.
That's not to say that all salespeople know this. There was a guy at Microcenter the last time I bought a machine there whose commission tag I ripped off the box before reaching the register. But a good salesman will sell you something because they have exactly what you want or exactly what you didn't know you wanted but now do.
A good salesperson probably won't sell you the thing you are thinking about saying no to. A good salesperson will sell you the thing next to that thing which addresses all of your concerns and has a nifty built in pocketknife too, for just 5 dollars more.
The ______ Agenda
Surely someone out there has patented this "business method". How long until Rackshack gets sued for it?
Is/are there any good website(s) for sales people to trade war stories, techniques, trends, et cetera ?
Much obliged !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I might want to join too. :)
Six months ago when I was looking for a dedicated server I visited rackspace.com and got that popup. Needless to say I went with a different provider.
"Rackspace's co-chairman, says that one-third of users approached via chat engage in conversation with a salesperson"
I wonder what percentage of the remaining two-thirds are like me and refuse to support a company engaging in such annoying behavior.
Puto
--
500 megs. 10 gigs a month SSH Nekkid Chicks
Oh, that's cute. You work for Groopz, eh? You don't say...
I'm a 2000 man.
I was browsing their site a few weeks ago and this happened, and I did exactly what I do when approached by annoying salesmen in real life. I closed the window, and then went to a different site that didn't bother me while attempting to research web hosts, where I then signed up for service. This is why online shopping is so good - I can do the research for myself and not have to listen to some nerd trying to sell me something.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And people wonder why I don't install java support.
I was actually quite impressed with this whole method of customer conversion. I'd actually never seen anything like this on eth web and was very surprised to see the pop-up appear. I was just doing some preliminary investigation on my hosting options because I was planning on getting a dedicated server for my business and I was barely into the site for two minutes when it appeared and I was greeted by a friendly salesperson. I had some concerns and issues that needed to be addressed and the salesperson had a consultant contact me within a few hours of the chat. They were very helpful and we ended up signing up. Their level of service has not disappointed us at all. You know, for all those people that complain that this sort of thing doesn't belong on the web because of what the web was originally intended for, I have to disagree. I think that the web falls into several categories. If you go to an informational site Like Slashdot, then of course a technology like this is out of place, but if you visit a company's website and start checking out their products and services, I think it's perfectly natural that they should be allowed the chance to at least attempt to strike up a conversation with the person doing the investigating. If you ran a shop in a mall and someone came in, assuming you wanted to convert some of your window browsers into actual customers, you'd ask if there was anything you could help with, wouldn't you? This is simply the web version of that. And let's be honest, if you really don't want to talk to them, you shut the chat window. They're not going to bother you again. And if you really have a problem with it, don't visit their website :P
If this kind of thing booms and keeps going, I'd like to see some more work@home jobs eventually created. Being a student who's struggling to pay for living and University, I wouldn't mind having that kind of job :P
Erik
I have an intresting story about that.
I was looking for some colocated servers to help KeenSpace out, and ran across Rackspace. Poof, the Java window opens up. So I get the person, who I explain what I was looking for, and she says "I'll have a sales rep contact you via email."
While I wait for an email, I check RackSpace's SBL listings. Ohhhhh nice long list.
Got the email, string the rep along for a bit, and then said "You've got some good offers, but until you start removing spammers (see this URL) I doubt we will give you our cash for service."
That got 'em rolling!
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
To be exact Digi-Net Technologies. The company in my sig is a webhosting gig I do on my side.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Maybe it is a little evident that you havent done real time metrics on actual live chat.
I work for the company that makes Groopz. As I have said it is not our primary product. We wrote it to sell and promote our other software as well as professional services.
We have actually not monitored our site for week long increments, and tracked number of leads and revenue as compared to call ins and people using the forms on the web to contact us for further information.
Revenue with groopz averaged 20k a week. Without betweek 5-8. Leads with groups are higher by a factor of five.
The whole idea of build the site and they will come is great. But most people will not be bothered to fill out a form, or call. They will continue browsing and looking for similar products.
As a matter of fact most smart consumers, especially in the tech world, gauge a companies initial response time by first contact. If they have to wait three days for someone to remail them back from a webform that was sent to a mailbox called sales@whatever.com and was lost in spam, they probably have purchased something else.
If you go to a tradeshow, pay a fortune for a booth. Do you leave it empty? Hope that someone grabs a flyer, and calls you?
They call the company that took the extra effort.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I remember when I on my first internet provider, the defunct Sprynet, they had an tech support IRC chat room staffed with Sprynet techs. It was pretty nice actually.
I work for a hosting company and we basically do the exact same thing. Afer 30-60 seconds of being on the site people get a request to chat with us. Generally we get a very good responce to it, most non-geek customers don't know what they are looking at when the read the specs on the hosting plans. I'd say that it's a good solution, I personally use Mozilla and don't worry about these popups :)
--------- If its possible it will happen, If its impossible it will just take longer
The only times I've gone to rackspace's web site has been to try to find a contact to ask them to do something about their spammers and all the spammer response-collection web sites that they host. At least with the chat boxes, you get to vent at some poor bastard who can't/won't do anything about it, but who you might be able to make miserable enough so that they'll pass the misery and unhappiness on to others within that fetid cesspool of IP space.
My school library offers similar service. last time i used it to suggest a book to buy ( Perl Cookbook 2 ) later in few weeks I was able to borrow it from the library. happy customer :)
live librarian chat lower left corner the link to talk to a live librarian
the most recent experience was talking to a HP technical person about printer through it's online chat service. To say the least it was helpful and solved my probelm.
HP instant support
I think a lot of companise ( IBM,Toshiba,Cisco if they haven't ) should set up similar service. It will definitly make their customer happier when they in need of service.
How many times have you pretended not to hear the kiosk operator at the mall asking what you think of your current cell phone company? That's a marketing pitch you didn't really want, and you slam away.
Conversely, anybody who spends more than a few seconds on RackSpace's site is likely pretty serious about buying a dedicated Internet server. So, having somebody come up to them and talk to them will keep them from falling off the path to becoming a customer. It helps them retain potential customers by preventing them from derailing, but it can't start customers on the path... it's the first human contact, but it's in no way the first contact.
If somebody pops up uninvited and starts chatting with me, I hope they're not offended when I tell them exactly how they can "help" me.
This is great, and it should be a trend.
When a potential customer is at your site, you know they just came from one competitor, and will probably be at another in a second...
Usually when making large purchases from online businesses, people like to complete the deal on the phone. To find out more information, seal the deal with another human being, etc.
They usually call up one retailer out of the few they had already investigated. By having live chat on websites, customers will be able to have this type of "next level" discussion more easily with several retailers, therefore, hopefully, leading to a more informed buying decision.
Perhaps popups are too much, but having live chat available on retailer sites is great.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
i was browsing through their site on IE(not my home/work box) when the chat came up. i have to say the person behind the screen was quite helpful (do they ALL call themselves john??) and managed to answer my questions inteligently, and bounced me up to the next level when we got beyond their level of expertise/authority
the next time i visited was on moz (my box) and the popup didn't show until i asked for it.
the team were helpful and i WAS looking for a solution so i didn't find it intrusive at all..
YMMV
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
uhh okay since when do we mod up fucking retards?
A computer science person who doesnt know what asl means should not be involved in computer science whatsoever.
wtf is going to happen when you have to recognize acronyms such as CPU, or MHZ... you are going to have serious problems!!
I suggest switching majors.. maybe to art or somthing?
I've had this happen once so far, on a school's web site where I was just trying to browse in and check out their list of classes.
All of a sudden this freaking chat window pops up with somebody reatedly asking if they can help me.
It annoyed the crap out of me - if I had something to ask I would have emailed and asked, or clicked on a "get live help" icon if they had one. They don't need to be all up in my face about it.
Am I the only one who thought about cybersex when the submitter said "half of those take the discussion to the next level".
It would make sense, right. The other half are women and they couldn't care less about cybersex.
Because a/s/l is relevant to computer science somehow (at least as much, of course) as CPU, Mhz, etc...
(This article was posted this morning so no one will read my comment but, just on the off chance ...)
I had this pop up about three months ago when I was looking at their sight and the sales guy pops on,
offers to give me some help, answer any questions, etc. and when I asked him a question he promptly said "Oh...I am multi-tasking." 10 minutes later - after I went on surfing somewhere else (tabbed browsing rocks) he shows up again to "assist me"... when I commented that his pop up was a bit intrusive he tried to give me a spiel about how "its no more intrusive than shopping in a mall and having a salesperson come up to you" I called bullshit by saying " Yeah but this is my house and usually salesman don't just pop into my bedroom to ask if they can help AND even if I was at a mall the salesperson sure as hell wouldn't offer help and then immediately withdraw it with some ridiculous claim of handling other customers simultaneously. (like multi-tasking.)
So, as you can imagine, he closed the chat room!
Grrr!
Pissed me rtf off and I made sure all of my clients, associates and co-workers knew about his comments. Needless to say it was not a sale capturing moment for them.
Our business has greatly benefitted from proactive chat. We provide top quality, intelligent customer service and get tons of positive feedback. Many customers have told us that they might have left if not chatted. We use a product called n-contact from http://www.netlert.com. The window is embedded and is not blocked by popup blockers and their functionality is amazing. While groopz does not allow the customer to change pages, they can with n-contact. You also do not get that weird screen shaking thing that happens with groopz and many other improvements. You can make fun, but you have no idea what you are talking about!
Sales Guy: Hi, it looks like you're considering Rackspace for your hosting needs. Can I help you?
Eliza: Do you wish to help me?
Sales Guy: Yes, that's why I'm here, to help you.
Eliza: You are sure?
Sales Guy: No, to help you. To make your shopping experience with Rackspace more enjoyable.
Eliza: You are being a bit negative.
Sales Guy: You wouldn't happen to be a robot of some sort?
Eliza: Oh, i wouldnt happen to be a robot of some sort.
Sales Guy: Alright wise guy, very funny. Now please let me do my job.
Eliza: Why do you say your job?
Sales Guy: I have your IP, I will be at your house in about half an hour
Eliza: Can you elaborate on that?
I hate that bot.
My other UID is 1337
Too bad they can't have that kind of results with tech support.
I'm both ashamed and proud that I had to search to find out what WTF means.
What / The / Fuck.
I am sure that the reason why as many as one third of the site's visitors respond to such solicitation is that it is a rather novel idea. I'm sure the novelty will wear off very soon.