Previously we have discussed live help on web sites – chat boxes users can initiate when they have a question about a product or service. But are these online tools just gimmicks that tie up valuable staff resources? Let’s find out…
The answer, as far as yours truly is concerned, is a definite no. And what better way to prove the point but a real life example of where live help lead to:
• greatly informing a purchasing decision
• stopping the user clicking out of the site to try elsewhere
• and closing the sale.
As true life case studies are more compelling than hypothetical situations, I therefore share with you an insight into my latest online purchase – a chimney cowl.
Recent high winds had finally put paid to our aluminium chimney can, 70 mph gusts wrenching it from its moorings after several years of service. Since a chimney can, or granny as we used to call them in Ayrshire, isn’t the most obvious of online purchases, I first tried the various builder centres in town, but with no luck.
So it was I found myself entering “chimney cowls” in Google and heading straight to the number one result, fluesystems.co.uk.
Now, you would think buying a chimney cowl would be straight-forward, wouldn’t you?
Apparently, not. There are static ones, rotor vent ones, cowls made from aluminium or terracotta, and much mention of downdraughts, updraughts and ventilation. Plus some cowls are designed for oil and gas only and some that are suitable for all fuel types. Yet others are galvanised cowls with a choice of eight or nine inch spigots. What I couldn’t spot was a chimney cowl that even remotely resembled the one I had retrieved from the garden.
At this point, I was nowhere near buying anything. And I didn’t much relish clambering up onto the roof with a tape measure to find out if I needed an eight or nine inch spigot chimney cowl. I was in danger of packing it all in, when I noticed the Live Help link. I clicked it in the hope of some enlightenment on the spigot issue and what type of cowl I actually needed. A box appears on the screen with a message about being in a queue. It all sounded dishearteningly familiar thus far until Paul picked up the conversation which I reproduce here below. Obviously, this is without all the pauses, but it clearly demonstrates how Live Help converted me from trolley abandonment to credit card wielding.
We'll be right with you. You are number 1 in the queue. Your wait time will be about 0 minutes and 23 seconds.
You are now chatting with 'Paul'
Paul: Hi, how can we help ? (type your message in the box below and click "send")
Taylor: What is a spigot
Paul: it is the protruding outlet from a boiler or stove
Taylor: Ah, are these types of cowls not suitable for a conventional chimney?
Paul: which cowls are you look at please \/
Paul: ok, the spigot on these cowls is the bottom sleeve section that slides into the pipe/stack
Taylor: Right, so I need to measure the chimney diameter then? It's solid fuel
Paul: are you fitting this to a metal chimney system ?
Taylor: No, an ordinary chimney for an open fire
Paul: ok, do you have a masonry chimney pot ?
Taylor: Yes, and a problem with down draughts
Paul: ok, the two revolving cowls to look at are these:-
Paul: (inserts links to cowls)
Rotorvent Revolving
Chimney Cowl
Paul:
Roto Cowl BS715
Chimney Cowl
Paul: If you dont want revolving (which are the most efficient), you should look at something like this:
Paul:
Colt Top
All Purpose
Taylor: We are on a hill and subject to a lot of high winds, would the revolving ones be best?
Paul: they are always more efficient, as they move. The colt tops are great however, we sell 1000's of them with very little comeback.
Paul: we would suggest you try the colt top 1st
Paul: it has a money back guarantee
Taylor: That's great. Thanks a lot for your help :)
Paul: No problem.
Paul: Bye for now. Thanks for using the live help desk.
Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.
After calling the missus through to take a look, she pointed out our main chimney problem wasn’t so much downdraught (wind forcing smoke back down the chimney) as too much ‘draw’ burning the fuel up rapidly. She was right. As usual.
Anyway, we took a look at the rotating cowls first and from the descriptions and linked in Knowledge Base articles, it was clear a rotor vent cowl would actually make the draw in our chimney worse. It was therefore appearing to suggest the Colt Top All Purpose cowl, which vaguely looked like the one we had, was the cowl to go for.
To double check, I clicked on the still open chat session box. No dice, however. In order to handle as many enquiries as possible, and not have agents stuck in long winded debates, what opened was a message box to email a supplementary question. In here, I added that on second thoughts the main problem was ‘draw’, was there a chimney cowl specifically designed to combat this or was the Colt Top All Purpose the best bet?
I could have closed my web browser, cleared the files and cookies, gone back to the site and initiated another Live Help chat. But by now, I wanted to see how long it would take them to get back to me via email, having only had to wait a matter of seconds to chat to Paul.
Within minutes, I received my reply saying that there is no chimney cowl specifically designed to reduce ‘draw’ and that the Colt Top All Purpose would help with our downdraught. Since this cowl came with a money back guarantee and was retailing at a price I was happy to pay, it was a no brainer.
Interestingly, throughout this whole episode I hadn’t wandered off to other chimney cowl sites as I might normally have done. Getting help from a real live person – even via a chat box – makes online shopping less clinical and detached and much more of a personal and customised shopping experience. And anything that can do that and bag more sales for web site owners is worth investigating very closely.
