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."

Comments

Oh great.

[CGP314]

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

It's less useful than it sounds

[Nakito]

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.

Re:Polly Want A Cookie

[Txiasaeia]

RTFS(Story). They're not tracking what you're doing, just how long you've been browsing for. If you have pop-ups and javascript disabled, they can't get you, either.

Besides, if you connect to a web site and download stuff off of it (web page, a picture, etc.) chances are they've got your IP already. It's like wanting to sue Slashdot because they know that you're posting a reply to a story.