Finally! United.com "Chat with us" option plus NEW SMS option
 

Needed to call UA, and was looking for the number when I spotted this.
As someone who hates to be on the phone, this was amazing! Super fast and easy.

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/contact.html
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ba9a61d1fa.png



Still needs some work as the page did time out on me, but the chat window remained open and active.
Hope this eventually gets pushed to the app for in-flight support!

Looks like a virtrual chat, not a live person -- is there a way to get a real human?

or is Alex back?
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cont...al-expert.html

That's what I thought at first or that they would just tell me to call, but It is a live person and I was able to get my issue resolved completely over chat.
I was connected to Mailyn D., but scrolled up to the top for the screenshot. Those are just the options like the phone system.

In general, I've had good experiences using the chat option on United's facebook page.

Sometimes there are chat agents logged on, sometimes there aren't. The website won't let you get into queue if there aren't agents to take your 'call'.

I was thinking: "Wait, didn't we have 'Ask Alex' way back at the merger?" :D

I have had reasonable luck with Twitter DMs and response time, but if this offers more real-time responses when available, it could be an improvement. I still prefer calling the 1K desk, but that's not always an option.

Around 15 years ago chat was "the thing" in the call service industry, but everybody soon found out is was really expensive and many dropped it. Problem is there is a long turn around around between replies. Even with agents handling a few concurrent chats it still slow compared to voice.

Email and twitter and much better from a cost perspective

"I think you're trying to get a ticket reissued. Would you like help with that?"

But back on topic: yes, it would be great if the domain that this runs off of (if not united.com; I haven't checked) is whitelisted for free access on UA inflight wifi. It would be great to have a text-based way to solve problems while in the air (without paying for wifi service).

I second that !!!! that would be really convenient ...

Yup, still buggy. The page actually timed out on me while I was on the chat, but I could still send and receive messages.
I find that I'm often just waiting on the line while the agent is working on the issue, so chat seems like an ideal solution.

Would be great if they can add this as a feature on the app like amazon does so you can just get a push notification when the agent replies.

The issue with Chat function for customer service is how many simultaneous chats the agent is expected to work. If they are handling one or two at a time, it can work OK. But bean-counters want them to handle more, and then it gets frustrating and not effective. And they also tend to want off-shore / ESL agents to handle them, as there is no voice accent issue, which is OK if the agent has the necessary language skills. But Chat tends to bring out acronyms and internet slang, which can be a struggle.

It could be a great niche for in-flight assistance though.

If United is rolling this out, it is due to some perceived cost savings for them and not as a customer service enhancement.

As someone that used to work in a travel call center, the above information is critical. Chat agents must handle multiple chats in order to make it cost effective. For simple requests, it can work.

If you want the undivided attention of an agent, always call.

Not if they are chatbots ... most of the basic questions can be easily answered via "digital assistants".

False. That is a quick way to make people curse the chat function and swear to never use it again. The systems are not that smart.

Trying to disguise FAQ functions as a chat is not the right approach.

Same.

The thing I liked most about this was that I did not need to constantly monitor the chat window. I sent in my issue, was answered about 10 mins later, then they came back another 20 or so minutes with the issue solved. All the while I had dinner and watched a movie on the plane.

You are assuming people are calling with agent-worthy questions. I bet some huge percentage of calls to the United call center are for flight status, "can you bring XXX through TSA?", etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if its some sort of AI assisted chat where responses are suggested based on the context but a real human is in the mix. You are likely already interacting with AI chat (text and voice) bots and may not even know it. AWS Lex is fairly widely deployed both in fully autonomous and semi-autonomous contexts.

I wonder if status level affects how quick you get a response.

Certain things like removing instruments cause then to put me in hold for half an hour. Doing it on chat would be more convenient as long as it doesn't time out

It would also be nice for trying to rebook or get protection while in the air when the captain announces a holding pattern or diversion.

That's assuming these chat agents have the same power and ability as the people on the 1k line

Oh good, I can chat with UA and ask "u up?" when I'm jetlagged at 2am from a recent Polaris trip. :D

Without giving too much away, I can say this "you are dead wrong" :)

I believe they're using liveperson.

It would be ironic if they used some sort of bot to interact with customers and then had to have a real person interacting with the booking system in the background!

Just used chat to remove a waitlisted RPU from a segment. Much easier than calling, although a bit slower.

Likely AI, as that's sweeping through lots of companies right now...primarily as a way to reduce head count.

IIRC, California just passed a law requiring any AI to identify itself as not human when you interact with it.

I'm extremely skeptical of that - TTS is nowhere near being able to pass as a human voice. Most companies have an automated system or phone tree, but it's pretty obvious when you're on that versus an agent (although pre-recorded sentences sometimes trick me for a little bit :) ).

I've tried to use this, but I'm asked for a username and password. Nothing works for me. Anyone know what to enter? Thanks.

United offering texting (SMS) with CS
 

Called UA reservations about 4 times* last night trying to change a reservation for today... Two of the times I got a "We are now offering the ability to use text messaging with our agents, if you'd like us to send you a text at this number..."

Intriguing concept I guess but apparently my "no" was dripping with enough incredulously that my wife asked what was wrong...maybe it's just me but I really prefer to have an audible conversation with most reservation-related changes, especially when I'm trying to do something odd.

[In other news all four agents genuinely thanked me for being a 1K we're quite personable and at least three of them seemed of above average competence...one trying to do what I wanted 3 different ways and calling a lead]

(*-first one found the inventory but couldn't do what I needed because I was checked in on LX and I needed to figure out how to undo check-in -- on lufthansa.com of all things -- second one could only find one seat and told me to wait a bit because it looked like someone was sitting on inventory....)

"Chat" doesn't seem to get much resources for fixing things
 

Didn't think this thread would go so long without an update! So... here we go. United dinged me 8x30,000 miles for upgrading 4 future flights, instead of 4x30,000. Tried calling; the automated system suggested I should chat. So chat I did. Started at 4:42pm PDT. Now on my 3rd real person at 6:12pm PDT, and just got a message from her that she's having difficulty getting through to the right place and she's now 7th in the queue. I'd used chat previously to change a flight in the middle of an itin, and that wasn't the greatest experience (they told me they'd changed the flight, they gave me the new record number, but in fact nothing had changed, which I discovered when I went to the gate for the next fight).

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? But this seems like a pretty easy thing to handle, right? Ah, she just updated me, says I'm 6th in queue now! :-) 6:16pm PDT.

Now that I dropped my Vonage (crazy taxes and fees), I started using Chat with various providers since I don't like to talk on the mobile phone.

It almost seems the chat agents are multi-tasking so any transaction / conversation just takes that much longer. While it is good you can frequently get a transcript at the end, I think I still prefer to talk to a human. You can also gauge better their competency level in this day of inexperienced employees....

I think I do prefer the chat if anything so they can get the spelling of my name and details right. Also appreciate being able to make changes via SMS while I'm in the office so I can still take calls and such.

My chat session that began at 4:22pm finally ended at... 7:15pm! The final message from the FIFTH person I dealt with was this-