My husband and I are upgrading to smart phones. Up until this point, our cell phones have been, er, not smart (to say the least). We are also combining our single plans into a shared family plan, something that’s long overdue.
So we’ve been on the Verizon web site a lot, without a lot of luck. We found the phones we wanted, but we couldn’t figure out how to get the online discount on both at the same time. And we couldn’t access the family share plan with those phones selected, but we couldn’t figure out why. After a reconnaissance mission to the local Verizon store, we confirmed with their salesperson that our desired combination of phones and plan was a possibility. But as we would save 300 bucks buying online, we left the store and decided to have another go ourselves.
And we almost didn’t make it. Until a friendly chat box popped up – “Can I help you?” And “KaylaK” did, very well. She explained that we first had to upgrade on our single accounts and buy our phones, and then we could combine our plans. She walked us through this, step by step. She stayed online 26 minutes after their customer service lines closed to help us finish. Sure, some of the responses were obviously canned, but they were also thorough and that was good enough for us. Our new phones will arrive in one to two business days.
The more I am exposed to site design and optimization, the more I realize there is no “perfect” web site. While you can provide good paths and clear navigation for your visitors, they are still human and unpredictable. Site visitors are like water in your basement, they will always find the cracks in your foundation. Sites change and evolve constantly as products are added and processes are tweaked, and something in the user experience inevitably gets bumped or shifted. So the answer is to fight humans with humans – provide a real live person who can answer as many questions as your site users can come up with. Live chat is an effective, easy and cheap way to add an element of human interaction to your web site. Because, like Bruce Springsteen says, “I just want someone to talk to, and a little of that human touch.”
In an increasingly plugged-in world, don’t we all?
Krista G.