American Express (USA) replaces Email (SM) with Chat
 

While chat has a role in online customer service it should supplement, not replace, email. Many issues cannot be resolved in real time, and there needs to be a way of interacting with American Express which combines the accountability of written communication with the facility to research or refer an issue to a specialist. I don't see how this will be done in a chat model.

The website is already pushing users to chat, but when I asked how to use email I was given this link:

www.americanexpress.com/messagecenter

...and even though the process starts with the same dialog I was not forced into chat.

Looks interesting. I wonder if this will happen in the UK as well.

I tried out the chat feature and its beyond stupid. If I want to waste 15 minutes going back and forth I would call. The beauty of SM was that I sent a message , went my merry way and it got done.

This is besides the huge cost they will incur by requiring people available at all hours to chat instantly.

I HOPE they will keep the option to SM for people that have a life.

I would imagine that complex issues would be handled by chat in the same way that they are handled when you phone: they open a ticket to whatever department needs to handle the issue that does not speak to customers directly, and it gets handled offline.

I can see why they'd want to move to this model. Anyone that's been on the receiving end of customer service emails knows full well how woefully inadequate many people are at writing them. Well over half of the ones I see leave out crucial information that prevents the matter from even being looked into. The interactive nature of chat vs email solves that problem.

How is the customer notified of the outcome? How does the customer continue the discussion from that point?

I tested a chat session today. Asked the guy when done how could we save it as proof of our discussion. He replied "print it":rolleyes:. I pointed out the waste in doing that , he then suggested I cut and paste to my PC that way I could reference it later.

Back and forth got him to ask his supervisor . Bottom line they dont have a way of saving it that we both could reference it!!!

Just tried it today also and experience is not good.

1) There is no indicator for me or the agent typing.

When I entered chat, I was typing my questions for about 15 seconds and the agent send, I assume a canned message, saying that they didn't hear anything from me and do I still want to continue to chat.

I copied what I typed before sending a "Yes, I do" , but I can see someone will be frustrated if they were cut off before they finished typing their question.

2) It took almost like 15 minutes of interaction and at the end for the agent still having to send the request to the account services team for an answer. Like what whynotnow said, I prefer to spent a message and go on my way while the request is being processed.

I agree with OP in that it should supplement the 'official' emails. However, I needed an issue resolved the other day and it directed me to chat. Was a very quick fix (under 10 min) and I was happy and on my way.

I would much rather chat than to send an email off to the ether. Perhaps Im of the instant gratification generation.

I'd rather have things documented. If I want to "chat", I can always pick up the phone.

Exactly , if its that important that I need it done now and I have the 20 minutes to wait while he asks his supervisor...I would pick up the phone!!

this chat thing is awful, takes 20 min of back and forth to get something done that would take 30s with SM :td:

well so much for that, the chat rep just told me I would need to contact SPG to add my SPG number to my AMEX SPG card

In order to better serve you, we now offer Live Chat with a Customer Care Professional as an alternative to Email. If you send us an email between now and August 30, it may take up to 72 hours for you to receive a reply. After August 30, the option to Email Us will no longer be offered.

They couldnt wait to do this bonehead move until Aug 31st at least :rolleyes:

I was on the website today and I didn't see that.

Sprint Nextel did the same thing, and I absolutely hate it. You start out with someone who knows less than you do, and then you have to wait for them to ask their supervisor. It's like they are chatting with more than one member at once.

I plan to complain (by e'mail!!). I hope the rest of you will too.

Because the rep stuck in India is involved in decisions! If anything write or email Corporate

Does the Live Chat now permanently replace the ability to send SM?
 

I have not used this function for a while. Tried to use it today to verify the new SPG card sign up bonuses due to the confusion on Existing AMEX cardholders. However I found the Compose Secured Message function does NOT come up even I chose No for the silly question whether the popped up Answer to FAQ does not answer my question. Instead, it asks me to do Live Chat.

The Live Chat took a good 15 minutes or more for the agent to answer the very basic question of exactly what sign up bonus offer attached to my card. Agent did not seem competent to begin with and when she finally seemed to find the answer, her answer was not to the point - the first answer she finally came up was, "You would get the points after $5000 spent in first 6 months." But no mention of how many points - the most and foremost important answer. Upon prompting from me, she came back in a couple minutes to say 30,000, but failed to realize the 30,000 is a total of 10,000 after 1st purchase and 20,000 after $5,000 spend. Totally incompetent.

Is the Live Chat is what we have to live with from now on? Any way to get around this and still get to compose / send a SM on AMEX site?

I could not even get around this by going to the reply function of SMs still in my inbox - when I clicked Reply, the FAQ and Live Chat went up, no way for me to compose anything.

I could not believe AMEX would replace the SM with Live Chat other than to get rid of the written documentation what SMs would have preserved. Quite a questionable motive it so seems.

Yes, and I have moved your post into the separate thread discussing this sorry decision.

Thanks mia. I just returned from a lengthy trip in Europe and was not up to date for the latest development to the worse. There is no way to circumvent it as of today's experience.

A survey immediately popped up once I clicked End the Chat. I rated the experience at 5 and also 5 for the possibility to recommend AMEX to others. Then in the comment section I voiced my dissatisfaction of the service and how it is a huge waste of time for both the customer and the rep. AMEX thinks this may save cost, at the end, it would probably the other way round as it would mean more calls to the phone reps when chat could not resolve issues.

I still think AMEX's motive is to do away the documentation so can get away with accountability of what its reps said in SM. :td:

Amex continues to be terrible. I continue to question why folks laud them so much. Backdating is the only perk they provide. I like chatting, but I want to message so I can have documentation. I'm not impressed.

I dont like the chatting option as well, email was much better and efficient. Email reps were more "powerful" to take decisions and then reply back, while chat representatives are completely unhelpful.

...
 

Just another example of Amex downgrading their customer service. I am really disgusted with the last few interactions with them...all my cards are going into bottom of the safe until small business Saturday, and as each annual fee comes up they get cancelled......give us CSR's with brains and options we can use, or stay on the bottom of the credit card pile.

I wish NYT or WSJ would do an article about this. E-mails been the easiest way to communicate and most customer friendly. I'd like to see their executives "chat" with CSR's to get anything done.

I understand most emails end up at a service center in India - and I assume the same people dealing with those are now being moved to chat.

lol you guys were being fobbed off. I get the odd Indian for emails but most of the emails sign off with their name and location as Fort Lauderdale.

I had my first forced chat experience last week and was not happy about it, nor impressed with the result. It wasted a good 15-20 minutes of my time when I could have written an email in less than a minute and been satisfied with a 48-72 hour turnaround to get a response.

If I have something more time sensitive or complicated, I will phone.

I hope they change this and reintroduce email as an option.

Used the chat option myself a couple of times today, and I agree it's completely worthless. As has been aptly stated, it keeps the company from having a rep say something that is incorrect, and then have to back up that (documented) error with miles, points, etc.

Does anyone know of an e-mail address to which we can send inquiries if we refuse to use chat?

Is there anyway around this? Today I requested that I be given an e-mail of what the rep told me about a CC upgrade, but the rep said that wasn't possible. I'd have to call and request it!?

Go back to calling.

Once management sees the call volume spikes ( and the associated cost increase ), they will figure out the chat functionality is not the right business decision and will either bring back Secured Message or improve Chat to make it like-able.

Then come up with a solution that improves the situation but doesn't alter the service level. That's NOT what Amex did. The feedback here makes it apparent their new solution is full of incompetence and service degradation. We need to voice the dissatisfaction loudly back to Amex. I say make it well known to their social media customer service - which I have done - which is usually more effective than traditional channels.

I love it. I think, if implemented correctly, this will be a good feature. Netflix has not had email for a while now, just live chat. If employees are trained correctly, empowered to make decisions, there is a good escalation workflow strategy in place, this can be a home run. Lots of 'ifs', but long term this is the way to go.

I haven't noticed this about Netflix, but then have not had a reason to contact their customer service. I would venture a guess that people's Netflix issues are far less sensitive and complex than issues one needs to contact AmEx about.

Go back to calling and on survey comment put down request to bring SM back!
 

I ended up using phone calls for now and I voiced my disappointments to the reps based at Salt Lake City. On each and every Survey email AMEX sent, I wrote my disappointment and request to have the SM function back as one of the options.

We customer can choose which option better suit our needs at the time we need to contact AMEX to clarify something / resolve an issue.

Secure Message Center Not Working?
 

I haven't been able to send a secure message to Amex for the past couple days. Am I missing something, or are others experiencing the same thing?

Secure Messaging was discontinued at I believe the end of last month.

It was replaced with secured chat which is supposed to pop up from my experience. My experience with the chat is awful as the chat reps have no power to do anything.

It is better to call now.

Thanks, guess I missed the memo.

I was using chat line to cancel 3 Amex card yesterday and the process was easy, each took less than 5 minutes. the only thing i don't like is Chat line is base in India or somewhere......it's always offline. I live in East Coast and it isn't online until 4pm eastern time.....

I have found it is very hit or miss when the chat icon pops up which is very inconvienient. I wished they brought back secure message.

I just used the chat to order an EMV PRG card and it worked great.

Used secure chat to cancel couple cards (mine, wife's) last week. Worked fine. No issues. Request to cancel was instantly honored. Whole process took less than 5 minutes each time.

Anyone who has cancelled by chat -- have you received any retention offers?