Work as a live chat agent? What is it like, and how do I find jobs?

husseinHr

I've had the thought multiple times now that it could be a good work from home job. 

I expect I'd have to get some training and familiarise myself with the information required for the role, but I'd like to get some insight from those with experience to better gauge whether this is a good idea.

So far I've also found it relatively difficult to find these jobs, so any good advice regarding that would be appreciated as well.

Thank you

elsien

A lot of the live chat customer service roles seem to be outsourced abroad, going on the times I’ve tried to resolve issues using the chat function. 

Jude57

At my former employer, live chat was only a part of an adviser's duties. The rest of their time was spent on telephone advice and the required follow up. Advisers had to be fully trained (12 week Academy) and have passed the compulsory mentoring period (up to 3 months) before being let loose alone on live chat. In practice, it was the stellar employees who fared best on live chat as they were best able to think on their feet and work outside the standard response scripts while delivering consistent best advice. None of the above could be delivered remotely until the adviser had substantial experience.

Job vacancy ads at my former employer still don't make much mention of live chat although it's now a substantial part of the role of an adviser.

Marcon

Googling on 'live chat jobs' will get you plenty of links to sites offering such jobs.

Diamandis

Jude57 said:

At my former employer, live chat was only a part of an adviser's duties. The rest of their time was spent on telephone advice and the required follow up. Advisers had to be fully trained (12 week Academy) and have passed the compulsory mentoring period (up to 3 months) before being let loose alone on live chat. In practice, it was the stellar employees who fared best on live chat as they were best able to think on their feet and work outside the standard response scripts while delivering consistent best advice. None of the above could be delivered remotely until the adviser had substantial experience.

Job vacancy ads at my former employer still don't make much mention of live chat although it's now a substantial part of the role of an adviser.

Similar to this, we recruited people for telephony customer service, if they seemed like they would be good at other things they were then moved into live chat or social media response roles. 

74jax

Our live chat wasn't wfh. Each person took an hour on it. You would deal with multiple ones at a time (hence why you sometimes don't get an immediate response).  It was part of customer service and only after you had been there a considerable amount of time could you go on the rota. 

Grabs39

In a previous role I did it, within a rota, alternating with telephone, social media, post etc. 

It can be stressful, you would typically talk to at least three or four customers at a time so there's a lot of juggling thoughts and you'll sometimes send the wrong response to the wrong person if you're not careful!  When we first started doing it the computer system was quite basic and would not stop customers coming through if you were busy, so if there was problem out there you might have sixty or seventy customers flashing up on your screen!  Hopefully software like that isn't used anywhere anymore and it holds customers in a queue.

Depending on the organisation, the customers can range from passive-aggressive to outright threatening and abusive.  They will speak in a much worse manner than you generally find in in-person or even telephone roles.  Whilst many might think "they're just on a screen, I can ignore this" it can have an impact on your mental health when it's dozens of times a day - I have seen it happen.

When I did it it was a 100% office based role with strict clock-on and off and break times.  It may now have moved to more remote working, I know my company has a hybrid model now.  Personally I would have struggled to do it from home due to the above; on a bad day it's your team-mates who look out for you and keep you going.

That said, if it's for a good organisation, and you are within a good team it can be a decent way to earn a living.