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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.
I used to work in a technical support role. We used a chat service provider called comm100 which does show the agent what you type in real time. At first, I felt dirty like I was invading their privacy, but it does help efficiency considerably. It's invaluable when it comes to de-escalating clients that start to type out a giant rant, then slowly edit it to be more civil... eventually they just chicken out and delete their entire whiny post when they decide it's not worth it. It feels bad and dirty, but also consider that the support agent is usually multi-tasking between clients, so being able to know what you are typing as you are typing it is a real time saver. The worst is when the client has typed out part of a question which you know the answer to and have a full response typed out, then you have to wait for them to hit the 'send' button before you can continue answering the question or solving the problem. Sometimes you have to wait a LONG time.