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Customer Service Agents Might Be Able To See What You're Typing In Real Time (gizmodo.com)
Gizmodo is warning that some customer service agents might be able to see what you're typing in real time. A reader sent them a transcript from a conversation they had with a mattress company after the agent responded to a message he hadn't sent yet. From the report: Something similar recently happened to HmmDaily's Tom Scocca. He got a detailed answer from an agent one second after he hit send. Googling led Scocca to a live chat service that offers a feature it calls "real-time typing view" to allow agents to have their "answers prepared before the customer submits his questions." Another live chat service, which lists McDonalds, Ikea, and Paypal as its customers, calls the same feature "message sneak peek," saying it will allow you to "see what the visitor is typing in before they send it over." Salesforce Live Agent also offers "sneak peak."
This particular magic trick happens thanks to JavaScript operating in your browser and detecting what's happening on a particular site in real time. It's also how companies capture information you've entered into web forms before you've hit submit. Companies could lessen the creepiness by telling people their typing is seen in real time or could eliminate the send button altogether. So if you don't want to be monitored or send secret messages to agents, put your phone on mute while on hold and copy/paste messages from another document to your customer service chatbox. And in general, be nice to customer service agents. It's not their fault.
This particular magic trick happens thanks to JavaScript operating in your browser and detecting what's happening on a particular site in real time. It's also how companies capture information you've entered into web forms before you've hit submit. Companies could lessen the creepiness by telling people their typing is seen in real time or could eliminate the send button altogether. So if you don't want to be monitored or send secret messages to agents, put your phone on mute while on hold and copy/paste messages from another document to your customer service chatbox. And in general, be nice to customer service agents. It's not their fault.
Those few seconds can really eat into profits when you add it all up.
CSRs are not doing one chat at a time. They are handling a dozen or so simultaneous chats. While you are typing, they are responding to another customer.
They also have automatic pattern matchers to scan your text for strings related to common questions, and then pre-fill the reply. The CSR just needs to give it a quick glance, and click "send". But that was a few years ago, so the state-of-the-art today may be to just auto-send. This may have been the cause of the "instant reply" mentioned in the summary.
It is all very efficient, and there is almost no dead time waiting for the customer to type.