Comments on: Why Companies Shouldn’t Use Robots In Chat

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:41:16 +0000

Hi, my name is Sarah and I am an analyst at Balestriere Lanza PLLC, a trials and investigations law firm in New York. We have been investigating eFax’s potential misconduct and would be interested in hearing more from you — and all of those who have commented on this blog and might read this comment — about your experience. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience at sarah.goodman@balestriere.net or at (212) 374-5400 x 132.

By: hemiz

hemiz — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:00:40 +0000

Got tired of the constant price increases, so I solved my efax problem by going to Ringcentral Fax, 1/2 the price at 2x the service.

By: PHILLIP

PHILLIP — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:53:44 +0000

My vote? ROBOT, without doubt
Guess eFax should really upgrade their customer service huh? In fact look what i found here: http://www.dumbshoppers.com/internetfaxing These guys are actually recommending US or Canada citizens to NOT take up eFax services… must be a reason huh!

By: Darin

Darin — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:57:41 +0000

This is a human. She is probably not really named Amy (if it is even a woman), but Amy is a non-threatening name so it is probably everyone’s psuedonym at efax.com. She is probably responding to at least four other chats simultaneously and is not able to keep up with exactly what is going on with each customer. When I managed training for a contact center at Royal Caribbean we had a lot of agents who simply forgot what was going on in the call. It is natural and normal because you are responding to contact after contact after contact all day long every day. It starts to get a little blurry. ‘Amy’ is definitely told what to ’say’ and is picking scripts. She is getting a bonus if she can recapture potential cancellations and her matrix only gave her two ’saves’. It looks like it did not work our for ‘Amy’ this time around…

By: Janet

Janet — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 08:59:16 +0000

I had almost the identical “conversation”. I’m sure they are real people using canned responses.

Here it is:
http://newspapergrl.wordpress.com/2006/08/24/canceling-your-efax-service-what-a-pain/

I blogged about it again today when I noticed how many people are finding my blog when they search for “efax complaints”.

I recommend Faxpipe. http://www.faxpipe.com. They’ve been really good to me and are not corporate. Good customer service to (I’m not affiliated with either company, just my experience).

Best,
Janet

By: David G

David G — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:02:28 +0000

It was definitely a human Rob, the following are most likely;
1) From the grammar, it’s clear this person is a 2nd-language English (speaker),
2) From the made-up launguage and faux-formality used (affirmitive confirmation etc.), I’d guess they were in India
3) The delay you encountered was due to the fact that this agent has been asked to maintain (probably 3+) simultaneous chats – and is taking some time re-orienting themselves in the context of the conversation before replying
4) 80%+ of their response is scripted (canned)
5) The agent is not ignoring you, they are following policy and trying to hit their numbers when they repeatedly offer you specials – you most likely ruined some-one’s “win-back” metric for the day

This entire experience could have been much better using the same agent if eFax just adopted more customer-friendly policies – mixing sales and support is one of the most common mistakes firms make in customer service.

Lastly, chat is the least efficient service interface, especially for support – I wish web companies would wake up to that.

By: daniel s

daniel s — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:08:29 +0000

I think it was a human following a set script. Just like the way people in call centres do it.
They probably have specialized chat software where they can click to get standard responses to be inserted. The long delays were probably because they were also managing several other chats, or were even on the phone at the same time.

By: Anonymouse

Anonymouse — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:30:57 +0000

Domon arigato Ms. Roboto

By: g0thikac1d

g0thikac1d — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:50:17 +0000

Nah nah, she just a dumbfuck h0.
aint n0thin th0.

i woulda slapped her bitchass up th0 if i g0t the chance

By: juicynotecom

juicynotecom — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:21:56 +0000

I work with CRM software what you had there was an agent that actually is only allowed to speak with pre-scripted phrases. This is quite common in live chat support because the incidence of someone mis-speaking (typing) can be quite hi with Chat. Most places will allow the agent to type some of their own response but the general idea is that 90% should be scripted responses approved by the company. It is the agents job to follow these scripts. They’ll work multiple chats at one time basically doing the work of the a bot but there to step in live in case the script would fail or you say something out of grammar.