Community Live Chat

[PCS]

We are currently trialing some new software which allows visitors on our website to ask questions to each other and you can see other visitor's questions. PCS staff can answer as well as website visitors, and this means that visitors can get answers to questions 24/7.

You can see this by browsing the main website on our configurators, such as here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-skylake-pc/

What does everyone think to this idea?

 

[Stephen M]

Looks interesting, I prefer these fora for longer more detailed questions and answers but anything that helps with communication is worth trying and this certainly has potential, especially as it could provide quick responses.

 

[Rakk]

What does everyone think to this idea?

Not sure yet

It may end up being useful as long as people do reply and answer the questions - though given you can't see how others have replied you don't know whether your answers will be helpful, repetitive or whether they just conflict with previous answers

Personally whilst at work I'm not that likely to be answering questions on there as the main PCS page definitely does not look work related whereas forums often can do (as a software dev, Google is my best friend for findings answers/forums to help with whatever I'm doing).

So yeah, not sure (says the pessimist)

 

[steaky360]

I think its a good idea in principal however as Rakk mentioned I think it would be better if it could be integrated across the forums too - I spend more time on here than I do on the PCS main page (by far).

How does it track your responses or is it just anonymous? I notice it said something about getting 4 helpful/thanks votes.

 

[ubuysa]

Undecided at the moment. I've answered a few questions but many (most?) of them would be better asked on here I think. Perhaps an option to say "you'd be better off asking this on the fora" would be a good idea?

In addition, you only get to see it on the main PCS pages, I spend 99.99% of my PCS time on the fora. Should we have it here too?

 

[Oussebon]

I can see the appeal to PCS in that it helps engage with potential customers who might not bother with the forum registration process.

But as above you can't see what others have said and the format isn't as good for complex answers/ info. If I give someone advice I generally like to back it up with links/pics so they can check it for themselves. Also I like advice I give to be public (I usually refuse to give advice in PMs) so if I make a mistake or there's a better idea, someone can put me right or build on what I said. Quick-fire opinion-based answers can lead to some proper garbage or people just giving their personal preferences as advice.

Also you can get latched on to by individuals who lack confidence, are somewhat needy, or in some cases are just timewasters. Keeping things on the forums is a shield against that.

I'd second the suggestion of some kind of integration with the forums. Or some other kind of wall-type feature where you can see all Qs and As. And where you can see who said what.

I think PCS staff are going to have to be a lot more active in terms of responding to people with the chat system unlike the forums which can mostly be left to provide free customer support.

Edit:
e.g. I'd be very interested to see what people, especially PCS, had to say to the questions on the GTX 1060 model and the quiet case:


Also the "Can you help?" box has now appeared at the bottom of the forum page near my task bar and try as I might I can't get rid of the flipping thing.

 

[PCS]

The chat box has been added to the forums as a trial - let's see how this goes.

This is not intended to replace the forums of course, it's just another way that customers can get in touch.

I'm 50:50 about whether the forums is the right place for this.

 

[Rakk]

I think that the replies need to be visible to a certain extent, cos for instance one question that hasn't been there long is 'what brand is the 6GB GTX 1060 you use?', now on the forums you'd be able to see the answers and in general the answers the forum users will generally give is 'Palit or Zotac, but neither is guaranteed', however some random visitor could answer 'MSI super overclocked mega-variant' (ok, I dont think that's an actual card but you get the point) on the current 'Ask a Question' chat box and no-one would know what the 'answer' was and therefore no-one could say that it wasn't correct, which may cause issues if the question asker based their buying choice on that answer.

 

[Tony1044]

Yeah...no. Not for me, thanks.

I'd prefer to have my answers visible and where I can find them for later reference.

I also prefer to be able to see what others have said and be able to either agree or occasionally disagree.

And it's useful for others to follow the full conversations.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I think it's a great idea for a quick answer. I would always use the forums for big questions, but for on the fly queries I think it's a great tool.

 

[Rakk]

Though it will need moderating 24/7 unless it doesn't allow swear words and such

Also someone just posted 'gdgdf sad as ds ?' as a question

 

[SpyderTracks]

Though it will need moderating 24/7 unless it doesn't allow swear words and such

Also someone just posted 'gdgdf sad as ds ?' as a question

I would have been able to answer that if I'd had more beers!

 

[Oussebon]

Also there's a user called Thomas from Toulouse (with quotes in French on his mini profile) on there who has helped 3302 people. Is this chat system part of a network / linked to other sites?

 

[Oussebon]

For pity's sake...

If you click in the window where you've already typed stuff - e.g. to fix a typo - it wipes out everything you've typed. Got done twice by that. Needs fixing.

Edit: Someone sends you thanks and it pops up a window over what you're typing. So you need to click to make it go away. Wiping out what you were just typing as above. Lol.

 

[Rakk]

Also there's a user called Thomas from Toulouse (with quotes in French on his mini profile) on there who has helped 3302 people. Is this chat system part of a network / linked to other sites?

Well you can sign in using the evil Facebook so it looks like it is, which I'm not sure I really think should be allowed

 

[Oussebon]

That explains it. If PCS don't want advice on competitor products as alternatives given through a medium they operate that's not really very smart.

 

[Oussebon]

Actually I wonder if it's not the facebook login, it seems to be the TokyWoky network. Used also by L'Oréal and patrolbase.co.uk who seem to sell military supplies. I went on the patrolbase website and it opened up the same "ask a question" window as PCS have, with me logged in already and with my little 1 Blue smiley face and 1 gold star. So I could grind rep here and then pretend to know about perfume and army things.

http://www.tokywoky.com/

There's also a French PC vendor that's part of the network as well. And in addition to Thomas we have Jules qui n'a "pas de préférence AMD / Intel-Nvidia" who is giving advice. It's nice to have additions to the community I guess. As long as they're not directing people to the other vendor I suppose.

I'm trying to see if there are other ways the chat/question window can integrate with the websites, e.g. whether it links to forums in a way that you can put questions and answers in either the forum or the chat and have them visible in the other, or whether there are more advanced features and so on but this basically seems to be it, looks pretty well the same on all the sites I've checked it out on.

I haven't even found a function to search messages yet.

 

[Rakk]

There's also a French PC vendor that's part of the network as well. And in addition to Thomas we have Jules qui n'a "pas de préférence AMD / Intel-Nvidia" who is giving advice. It's nice to have additions to the community I guess. As long as they're not directing people to the other vendor I suppose.

Yeah, I know I certainly can't see any conversations which I suppose makes sense given it claims you can chat in private but does mean there's no way to tell - at least for my level of permissions.

 

[Oussebon]

So, I've just made coach. And yes, in your Coach area it seems to display all questions from across the web. PCS dominates the Qs in the last few hours but if I scroll down far enough I get a Q about the gun shop place. That's so stupid.

As a coach you can see all the answers to questions however. (Edit: not true it seems, you can only see the answers of other coaches. Non-coaches remain hidden it seems, so I can't see Visitor answers or things Spydertracks has said for example).

 

[Rakk]

So, I've just made coach. And yes, in your Coach area it seems to display all questions from across the web. PCS dominates the Qs in the last few hours but if I scroll down far enough I get a Q about the gun shop place. That's so stupid.

As a coach you can see all the answers to questions however. (Edit: not true it seems, you can only see the answers of other coaches. Non-coaches remain hidden it seems, so I can't see Visitor answers or things Spydertracks has said for example).

Hehe, I'm still not a coach - mainly cos I haven't signed up though as on my work machine I have 1 'thanks' and on my home machine I have 2 'thanks' and a silver star (whatever that means).

But the mod in me wants to see all the replies so I can delete/remove stuff that shouldn't be there - but since coaches can't see visitors/non-coaches replies that doesn't really help.