Thanks for the feedback, I’ll try to tone that thing down a bit. The thing is, some people LOVE the chat widget. Especially for those users who don’t want reveal their real email address but have a quick question. I’ve had at least 3x more chats on there than support emails.
Chat is awesome. Personally I love it. You get to talk to someone in real time. What's not to like about it. I'm not sure why the OP is so revolted by it. Maybe remove the sound but leave the popup and chat.
Except it’s not real time until a support person is notified and responds minutes or sometimes hours later. Chat pop ups feel like a lame trick these days every time I try to use them; they pretend like they’re going to be fast and then make you waste your own time waiting. The last one I used the other day made me wait more than 10 minutes, so I did something else, and when the support person responded and asked a follow up question and I didn’t answer in 5 seconds, they closed the support ticket, making me start over. I’d rather use email.
Maybe just have a chat button or a link to the chat on your support page? I'm in the strange position of both liking the chat approach (I've used it on Dell's site, probably others), and also very much disliking chat popups. It feels like it's really there so that someone can convince you to buy something. It's even worse when there's a fake initial message - "Hi there, I'm Jen. Can I help you?" - it seems especially imposing.
