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

It's very intrusive.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I find this very intrusive. When I connect to a web site I don't expect a person to jump out at me and ruin the comfort of anonymity I have while browsing the web.

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:

• Actually, I was just looking for the latitude and longitude of your data center so I can program the nuclear missiles.
• hAHA d00d A/S/L?
• Actually, I was looking for metal shelving.
• Where can I buy some "Frank's Red Hot" sauce locally?
• No, I was told I could find goat sex porn here.
• Will you be my friend?

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.

Spam reporting

[SuperBanana]

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.