This Is What It’s Like To Deal With YouTube’s Online Chat Support
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August 5, 2022
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August 5, 2022I felt so bad this morning for all of our tailgaters.
If you’re unaware of the Chicks on the Right Tailgaters (also affectionately known as the Outsiders), it’s a fantastic group of folks who gather each weekday morning in the online chat section of our livestream placeholder on YouTube. YouTube, to its credit, is the only platform that we know of that features the ability for our community to chat on a livestream feed BEFORE the livestream starts. This amazing community literally pre-games every morning, and while I’m gathering video clips to share and otherwise prepping for the show, I can see their conversation unfolding. I generally stay out of it, because it’s THEIR time, and they don’t need me butting in. 🙂 It’s such a great community, and I love that YouTube has that feature.
Today, however, the live chat wasn’t working. I started it up at 6am ET as I usually do, and the chat window was open and looked normal, but by 6.10 when there wasn’t a single comment, I knew something was up. I put a test comment in, it posted momentarily, and then disappeared. I tested it a few times, and nothing worked.
So, I reached out to the YouTube support team, using their live chat function. I have tried contacting them with various issues before, and it’s never particularly helpful, but it’s legit the only resource available, so I tried it. And the conversation made me absolutely crazy. I thought it might be worth sharing with you how utterly useless this “support” is – my responses are italicized.
BEHOLD:
Chat transcript for case: 5-9547000032788
Aug 5, 3:29 AM (Pacific Time)
3:29:06 AM Roxy: Roxy joined the conversation
3:29:07 AM Chicks Ontheright: Chicks Ontheright joined the conversation
3:29:08 AM Roxy: Hi my name is Roxy, how are you doing today?
3:29:40 AM Chicks Ontheright: Hi there - I am starting a live stream at 7 and typically the live chat option works for people. No one is able to comment today even though the window is open. I tried a test comment, and it allows me to type and enter it, but then it disappears
3:30:02 AM Chicks Ontheright: here's the link to the upcoming showhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laPXHuaipBk&ab_channel=ChicksontheRight
3:30:25 AM Roxy: I appreciate your time and effort contacting us today. I just want to confirm my understanding that you're concerned today about your comment on your live stream.
3:30:55 AM Chicks Ontheright: thank you
3:31:04 AM Roxy: May I know who I'm chatting with please?
3:31:11 AM Chicks Ontheright: My name is Miriam Weaver
3:31:23 AM Roxy: Thanks for confirming Miriam.
3:32:49 AM Roxy: Thank you for the link that you've sent.
3:32:53 AM Roxy: To help you better with your concern, I'll go ahead and check this matter further on my end. Is it okay if I place this chat on hold for a few minutes while I look into this? It takes 4-5 minutes, please stay connected.
3:32:58 AM Chicks Ontheright: sure
3:37:25 AM Roxy: Thanks for patiently waiting. I'm still looking into this for you. Will it be fine if I ask for a few more minutes?
3:37:34 AM Chicks Ontheright: sure
3:43:14 AM Roxy: Thank you for being patient so far and I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
3:43:31 AM Chicks Ontheright: it's ok - can you tell me what's happening?
3:44:20 AM Roxy: I really understand the urgency.
3:45:12 AM Roxy: You can check our Help Center and found this article.
3:45:20 AM Roxy: Moderating your live chat makes your community more welcoming and healthy. YouTube gives you tools to help prevent harassment and make everyone feel safe.
3:45:20 AM Chicks Ontheright: I don't need a help article
3:45:26 AM Chicks Ontheright: I KNOW all that
3:45:30 AM Chicks Ontheright: I need a fix to THIS issue
3:45:43 AM Chicks Ontheright: which is not typical, isn't normal - I know how a live chat works. The problem is it's NOT working
3:45:44 AM Roxy: If eligible, you can make live chats only available to your subscribers, and you can specify how long viewers need to be subscribed. This setting can be changed before and during your live stream or Premiere.
3:45:55 AM Chicks Ontheright: it's up and running, and yet it's not allowing people to comment
3:45:56 AM Roxy: When you turn on subscribers-only chat, your audience will be notified that it’s turned on and how long they need to be subscribed to send messages.
3:46:00 AM Chicks Ontheright: Please stop feeding me general info
3:46:09 AM Roxy: Slow mode and subscribers-only chat can be turned on at the same time. Members-only chat and subscribers-only chat can’t be turned on at the same time.
3:46:18 AM Chicks Ontheright: STOP - you are not listening to me
3:47:28 AM Roxy: To turn on subscribers-only chat:
1. Go to Live Control Room.
2. From your live stream, click Edit.
3. Click Live chat.
4. Under “Who can send a message,” select Subscribers.
5. Optional: Choose how long viewers need to be subscribed before they can send live chat messages.
Click Save.
3:47:41 AM Chicks Ontheright: YOU
ARE
NOT
LISTENING
TO
MY
ISSUE
3:47:50 AM Chicks Ontheright: stop copying and pasting information I already know
3:48:09 AM Chicks Ontheright: There is a problem with the live chat's normal operation. It is up and running and yet will not allow people to comment.
3:48:25 AM Chicks Ontheright: Please address that and stop sending me help articles with general information
3:48:32 AM Roxy: I'm so sorry if you feel that way, I am providing first the question that you have provided to me.
3:49:04 AM Chicks Ontheright: No - you're not. My issue is that the chat is up and running and is not allowing people to comment. I use this every single day without issue. Today it's not working
3:49:33 AM Roxy: I understand where you're coming from.
3:49:47 AM Roxy: I hope to provide you with the most accurate and precise solution. This particular issue will require me to escalate this matter to our internal team. Will it be okay for you if I send you an email? Rest assured that we will notify you once we get their update.
3:50:03 AM Roxy: Before I proceed may I have the email address we can best reach you at?
3:50:11 AM Chicks Ontheright: Will the email simply be more copy/pasting of information in your help articles or will it address this SPECIFIC problem?
3:50:31 AM Roxy: I'm afraid we won't be able to push forward with the next steps in the process while we are on chat. Since I am very respectful of your time, I want to be direct in saying that I can only offer limited assistance over chat. If there is a need to consult with a higher department, I can only do so over email. It is important that we continue this conversation over email for me to proceed in doing more for your issue. May I convert this conversation to email now?
3:50:32 AM Chicks Ontheright: my email is chicksontherightrule at gmail dot com.
3:50:40 AM Roxy: Thanks for confirming your email.
3:50:53 AM Roxy: It is always my pleasure to help you! If there's nothing more, again, my name is Roxy and thank you for contacting us. Take care! Have a wonderful day!
3:50:56 AM Roxy: Roxy left the conversation
So, I can tell you right now what is going to happen. I’m going to get an email from YouTube very politely thanking me for my patience, and then I’m going to get a copy/paste of the exact same crap that Roxy copy/pasted in the message above, because this exact same thing has happened every single time I’ve ever contacted YouTube support. At this point I have no idea why I keep trying, except as I said before, it’s the only resource available, and I’m an eternal optimist.
But these are the same kinds of conversations I have with Facebook support too. It’s like their service people are all trained to be total drones with no actual ability to problem-solve or appropriately troubleshoot. They’re all as polite as can be, but at the same time I get the sense that they’re all absolutely cracking up at how unhelpful they actually are, KNOWING full well that they’re not helping, and just trying to kill us all with kindness while they make us crazy.
14 Comments
Are these actual people? This ridiculousness is so common I can only believe (hope?) these are bots. Because otherwise we are DOOMED.
Mock, Roxy didn’t seem to be considerate of your time when she kept you waiting for more than three hours before getting back to you. Hope you got your issue resolved.
I really, really loathe the computer people. One hint for calls where the computer wants you to answer verbally. Usually, if you announce “fish” they will eventually hand you over to a human, assuming its a tech problem. Also, if you announce it when they pause for your answer you can tell quickly that it is a computer, and hang up. If something calls or messages me and asks me to wait for a person, I’m gone.
I can definitely relate to this type of issue.
There’s also Twitch. Obviously it has the common view of being a game streaming platform, and it is. But more and more “talk” type of streamers are popping up. The Young Turks (shudder) have one. And the chat functionality is always live whether you’re broadcasting or not because it’s a feature of your page, not something you turn on and off manually.
We are gonna try livestreaming to Twitch at the same time as all the other platforms starting tomorrow. So curious to see if anyone tunes in there!
Same thing happened to me recently trying to change a flight home. Online chat kept needing to bump it to higher authority and long waits. Finally went to bed. It was the middle of the night when they rang off. No resolution. Tried again in the morning. Problem resolved in about 10 minutes. Overnight folks, what can I say??
Mock….these tech/support people, if they are in fact people, do not have the ability to think outside of the computer screen. They read from the script and do not know how to troubleshoot. Thank you for your efforts to ensure that we, the Outsiders, are able to gather and tailgate. You and Daisy are Chicktastic!
Just a bot, spewing …
seriously though, it’s like calling the DMV because the DMV TOLD you to call a certain number and the message keeps telling you to visit the website that told you to call the number.. it’s a circular firin’ squ@d..
I am thinking they are all law school graduates that did not pass the bar. As everyone who matters knows, you can ask an attorney a question and they will talk for hours and not tell you anything useful.
Those responses don’t sound like an actual human being. My guess is that you were talking to an AI; either that or it was a liberal, who, as we all know, generally don’t qualify as human beings. 🙂
I’m convinced chat support is really bots that regurgitate all their unhelpful tips in their FAQ sections. It’s one way for corporations to block conversations with actual people…kind of like those $&*# robo phone answerers. Meanwhile, YouTube is probably purposely screwing with your channel because they don’t like your content. Yeah, I’ve got my tinfoil beret on this morning.
I love the ones where I am asking for the offered discount to be applied to my account, and then they ask me why I think I should get the discount they offered. LOLOL
Notice how as soon as your podcast began, YouTube opened up tbe comments? It’s as if they didn’t want us tailgating. We just took it over to MeWe, then came back.