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Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

gizmodo.com

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Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#81

Post by julienreszka »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #61
Jerry2 wrote: post #47

Another thing people don't realize is that if your browser/extension prefills/autofills certain fields (say, name, email, address, etc), those things can be easily sent to the website even if you don't press the submit button. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/browser-a...

Had this happen about 2 weeks ago when I was booking a hotel. This was not a chat window, like the article, but a hotel booking form. I had a few tabs open and filled in the booking information but found something a little more convenient. So, I did not submit the form and closed the tab. About 2-3 minutes later my phone started to ring. It was a customer service agent from that incomplete booking website asking if I…

This is old news. It's fairly easy to implement and most often done with simple google sheets.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#82

Post by geoid »

lolc wrote: post #72
laumars wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually ok with this. It's a good way of getting more reliable subtext about a persons emotion. You'd gather that from someone stumbling their way through a real time voice conversation on the phone or in person - as well as the nuances in vocal tones and body language - but all that is lost in a text only interface. So this at least gives you an idea. eg are they ranting then delete it for a more composed messa…

It's ok if both parties know what's going on. If visitors are left with the expectation that a message becomes visible on the other end when they send it then it is not ok at all.

Agree. Both parties should be able to see the other typing, or neither should. I feel deceived and foolish that I never knew about this. It's creepy like a one-way mirror.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#83

Post by laumars »

lolc wrote: post #72
laumars wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually ok with this. It's a good way of getting more reliable subtext about a persons emotion. You'd gather that from someone stumbling their way through a real time voice conversation on the phone or in person - as well as the nuances in vocal tones and body language - but all that is lost in a text only interface. So this at least gives you an idea. eg are they ranting then delete it for a more composed messa…

It's ok if both parties know what's going on. If visitors are left with the expectation that a message becomes visible on the other end when they send it then it is not ok at all.

People give off all kinds of messages they don’t realise; from facial expressions and other forms of body language to the tone and volume of their speech. We are forever communicating far more information then we ever intend to and people who deal with customers are trained how to read those tells so they can better handle customers temperament as well as their spoken requirements.

You lose so much with typed text which makes good customer services a lot harder. Thus as long as any pre-posted text isn’t stored anywhere (I fully expect posted chat logs would) then I don’t see an issue with support operators using real time text as a glimpse into the customers mood.

[edit]

To the people who voted me down: I get that you disagree with me but I have been on courses regarding just this (which is weird because I couldn't be in a less customer facing job....) so what I'm talking about here isn't just some random junk I've invented off the cuff. It's what I was taught how customer services (the good ones anyway) work.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#84

Post by lolc »

powercf wrote: post #17

I don't have any problem with this. It highlights a lack of user education, if they expect their typed input to a website to be private. It reminds me of the "talk" (and ytalk, ntalk) programs, where all parties can see in real-time what the others are typing. It's a cool technology that, unfortunately, is not used on the web.

> It highlights a lack of user education

Education in what? That they shouldn't trust companies because they eavesdrop on them? Please don't blame deceitful practices on the victims.

> if they expect their typed input to a website to be private.

Most chat apps work that way. Others only see what you typed once you send it. Just because the now obscure `talk` worked differently is no excuse.

The deception starts where the agents' responses are not relayed as they type! I don't see how you could explain this asymmetry in innocent terms. It clearly benefits the shop without them being open about it.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#85

Post by lunaru »

Before rolling out this exact feature in our own chat product we resisted doing so because of the concerns being echoed here. However, it was becoming obvious from the demands from our users that this was make-or-break feature in a modern chat system.

After rolling it out and enjoying this for ourselves as we handle our own customer support using our own software, it's become a "why didn't we do this earlier?" type of thing.

Overall, there's already a ton of asymmetry of information when a customer contacts a support team (e.g. our product pulls in order history, subscription details, stripe transactions, etc) that streaming a text preview is really just a drop in the bucket, and it's actually a win-win for both sides since it leads to faster answers.

Also keep in mind that any questions you ask may be used to feed machine-learning systems, like chatbots, which is true for our product as well. Just something to be aware of, that I think is a fair tradeoff for better customer experiences long-term.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of https://reamaze.com

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#86

Post by jrockway »

mooman219 wrote: post #5

At work, the assumption is that every non-corp web site has a key logger built in. A corp extension monitors (key logs) all input on non-corp sites, checking if any credentials are accidentally typed. If they are, you're notified immediately on the last key press and have to change your credentials within 7 days of the incident. I think this is a reasonable idea for security, and helps prevent some phishing schemes.

Said extension is basically this:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/password-alert/noo...

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#87

Post by colemickens »

Has anyone had any chat-based experience that anything more than a complete waste of time recently? (Amazon being the usual, consistent exception.)

I contact support when something is broken. There is a critical bug, or there is something down, or there is a physical defect. Every single time, it's just me getting jerked around, often times for an hour or more.

Just in the last week: an hour with Google Support with them insisting that I factory reset my phone for a hardware failure (hours of work to re-setup), or my ISP insisting that the "limits are set in the lines" and that a technician would have to come out to inspect their own modem so that they can determine why I'm being throttled to 10% of my paid speed, rather than 90% which is what I'm apparently entitled to. I hate that I have to get pushy/mean and insist that, Google, either send me a replacement or start processing a refund. I have no idea what to do with my ISP, they seem incompetent at every layer that I have any way to contact and they have a non-compete negotiated with their competition so I have no other options; their technician based had nothing to suggest and agreed with my conclusions.

I have also never had a chat experience where I didn't feel like I had to very carefully word my sentences to make myself understood, or where I wasn't waiting an exorbinant amount of time for the other side to read/reply. I can't fathom how peek-ahead would help any of these custom service experiences.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#88

Post by baroffoos »

ct0 wrote: post #11

This is nothing new. When i worked for a shady video game repair company in the early 2000's, the (male) boss would play 3 (female) customer service roles and know exactly what they were typing even back in the early days before facebook.

I think customer support people who have foreign names get their names changed to more local sounding names while doing support because it makes customers feel better.

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#89

Post by shpx »

noxToken wrote: post #33
sbuttgereit wrote: post #10

I'm confused why this is news or surprising? At least for the audience here. I remember plugins for various IM clients would do the same thing in a chat window some decades ago. And I remember my days as a sysop in the good old single line dial up BBS days. You could watch users browse and type all the way back in the mid-80's and I'm sure this has existed about as long as multi-user computers have. If you're typing…

The older IM clients (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, et al.) could tell you if someone was typing or entered unsent text, but it never previewed what had been typed. At least that wasn't a default option back then.

The history of real-time text probably goes back to at least the 1960's on the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software) if you're on macOS, you have this command installed

http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2002-De... (click on "Previous message" a few times too)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_text

Re: Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time

#90

Post by ploxiln »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #70
dpkonofa wrote: post #29

I wish that it was more prevalent for people to just assume and know that any website, regardless of whether or not it has a chat function, has the ability to record what you're saying (read: typing). Everyone out there should act like everything they type into their web browser has the potential to be seen by, at the very least, the website they're typing it on and, at worst, by everyone online. If you really need t…

I don't think anyone is surprised, but it is still good to call out bad actors from time to time. Whenever there's a story like this every hn response is "always assume you are being watched at all times!" - but nobody can maintain that kind of hyper vigilance forever, and it isn't a healthy way to live.

It's healthy to not use autofill, and to not have your password manager integrate with your browser, and to use an ad blocker that blocks analytics stuff including intercom, segment, etc.
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