Originally Posted by MaxVO

I tried a chat window as an alternative. But somehow, the only way for me to type in the chat window (or even get a cursor in there) was to hold a mouse pointer in the chat window while typing with the other hand. Alternatively I could type a response in a Note pad, then cut & paste it into the chat window.
The above problem was equally experienced in Firefox and Opera browsers so far. There have been no other websites with such a weird issue.

As far as the agent's response, it was the same/faster than using SM.