Suppliers Online help always Offline???

[JBTX1]

I guess I'm a little confused as to why most every suppliers website that offers an online help application is always offline. I have yet to find one single suppliers site that is ever online. Now I understand the economy being what it is and everyone is working with a skeleton crew. I agree most company's can't afford to pay someone just to sit around and stare at a screen waiting for questions to come in.
What I can't understand is why even offer it you you are never going to use it. Seems like it just makes the page load slower and it is also is very frustrating. I know I have left numerous messages on several of the suppliers websites and have yet to ever have any of them respond back to me. My question is, why have it if you are not going to use it? Why make your website slower for the customer to manuver around on.....Just food for thought.

 

[candre23]

Many distributors use cookie-cutter storefronts, and those templates have the feature built-in. Even the ones that get a "pro" to build their site usually get sold on live support as a great feature. They probably think it makes their site look more professional, even if there's never anybody on the other end. Some probably build in the feature in the hope that eventually they can afford to pay somebody to answer questions all day.

If you have a question, send it in an email. I've directly emailed at least half a dozen retailers with questions, and I think the longest I had to wait for a response was half a day. Most get back to you within an hour or two.

 

[StormFinch]

Candre is right on the cookie cutter thought. I've surfed a number of e-cig web sites here lately and a lot of them look eerily the same short of color combinations and that includes that live help button in the lower right hand corner.

I did find someone on live help from the LeCig site the other day though. I was having a cart problem and was actually looking for an email link when I noticed they were online. A short conversation and 10 minutes later I had a replacement order confirmation email. They're great to deal with.

 

[Abe]

I was using my chat thing for a while, I must admit I haven't turned it on in...ages. I think because the one I have requires me to log in to a browser and I simply forget. We use mebo. If there was one that just jacked right through to my skype then I really would always be around

 

[JBTX1]

That makes sense. Cookie cutter programs. However you would think there would be a administrators option to deactivate the feature so it would not take so long for the page to load. Thanks for the insight folks.