No more Community Chat

[moonlight-rhapsody]

From this week's Community Chat thread, for anybody who only goes there when they've got a problem so may not have seen it:

Based on the feedback we received from the community this will be the last weekly chat in this format for some time. We are working on something a little different and hopefully more in line with the suggestions we have received from you all. 

It will take some time to work out but we will be back later in the year.

It does beg the question why they don't keep the Community Chat going until the new format is ready to launch.  For all its flaws, it was at least SOMEthing rather than nothing.

Shame on me for having cynical thoughts about the tantalising promise of "something different later in the year", but I'm afraid ebay's conduct over the last year or so has made me very wary  🙄

[cobwebcottage]

I see where you're coming from...

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why would they bother to continue to interact with the community?
Frankly the chat is a waste of time anyway, it's all cut and paste responses, with no real answers to anything.
So whatever the new format is, it will make little difference unless they actually communicate properly and MEANINGFULLY!  Which is highly doubtfull.

And yes, very cynical of it all.

[cee-dee]

I'm afraid the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing because after the Red font , further down the page they said:-

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat! 😀😁

[suelel1968]

Yeah! I gave up on it and don't even read it now. I would give Marco his due thought he has been interacting with more threads even without prompting and that is a positive.

[department28]

'Shame on me for having cynical thoughts about the tantalising promise of "something different later in the year"...'

Will be interesting to see what they come up with... hopefully not 'meet eBai, your new community chat agent...' 🤖

[messier44000]

Hopefully, there will be less I hear where you are coming from, its working as designed ,  

will pass on to the team, and will be replaced by less copy and paste answers with a molecule 

of empathy . I guess with the falling number of questions, its finally sinking in. 

I could go on 

[thesmokingrunner]

No more Community Chat? Oh no!

How will anyone know when to clear their cache and cookies or try another browser?

[jonatjonatjonat]

I think that might be the first time they've claimed to listen to feedback.

[vinylscot]

It's been on the cards for some time.

It's a vicious cycle. The chat was purely cosmetic, with very few solutions ever posted, so it became less popular, sometimes with only a handful of participants. As it wasn't being used, there was little point in continuing it, so it makes sense to end the feature.

Many of us have been saying that's what they intended to do for quite some time. eBay always denied it, assuring us that it was a valuable feature. It must just be a coincidence that they're closing it now.

[varl131]

Perhaps e-bay are planning major changes later in the year.

One thought is e-bay.com plan to franchise out the name to individual countries. allowing them to run their site within guidelines,and empoying local staff. in return for royalties paid to e-Bay.com.

E.Bay.com could then reduce the number of staff employed,increasing their profits.

[ett1954]

'Shame on me for having cynical thoughts about the tantalising promise of "something different later in the year".....'  - Stand by for the AI community chat.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Somehow I can't see that one happening.

What your actually saying there, is that Ebay.com will be charging more than they are making now as a franchise fee to increase their profits.  That is after all, the way a franchisor makes money.  Unless they are actually supplying goods, where they are bought directly through them.

Really doesn't add up to a good deal for a franchisee, does it?

[lucy_farmer]

'Shame on me for having cynical thoughts about the tantalising promise of "something different later in the year".....'  - Stand by for the AI community chat.'

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Or the end of these boards as well.

Obviously, as there are now so few of us on here, they're totally unecessary right? (Only so few of us because the boards are now so bloomin difficult to find.... which is obviously a co-incidence. 🙄 )

What do you humans need to speak to each other for anyway? A.I will answer all your needs....🤖

[tommystrezures]

"I'm here to assist with your buying, selling, and account questions. In a few words, let me know how I can help"

"I'm having trouble understanding that. Please rephrase or add a few details about what you're trying to do."

It would be a great AI chat...... NOT!!!!!

[dave@ebay]

Hi All,

We have been considering how to better utilise the Weekly Chat for some time now, as many of the questions we repeatedly received were outside of our scope to help with. As you know, we are not a customer support channel so it is limited on any action we can take. This is partly why the team made the decision to retire the chat for now.

In the past for example, we did connect some of our posters to the shipping team. With this connection they had the opportunity to connect with them via phone and email and have conversations where they could outline issues they were seeing relating to shipping and also receive education from the team where applicable. I don’t know that we will be able to provide that level of support in the future but, we are looking into ways to focus the chat in a similar way.

We've read some posts about using other teams for possible Q&As on different subjects and it's something we are looking into. Again, I don’t know if it’s possible, but we will be reaching out to our contacts across the business to see what level of support they can provide us. This will of course take some time to set up as unfortunately, it’s not as straight forward as asking someone from another team step in and answer questions. We would also be asking them to take time away from their own work and possibly adding to their workload.

We also have some other options that we're looking into, but they will take time to implement if they are indeed possible.

We will of course share any updates we have on any of this as they become available.

Thanks,
Dave

[the_book_seekers]

ebay could do more to boost numbers on these boards. The sense of community has long since gone, but these boards remain a valuable resource of information when customer services are so poor. 

[department28]

Yes - it is customer services that could do with being improved. Stands to reason if people were able to get the answers to their queries from a really good cs department, they would not have to come here in an exasperated state, looking for help from their fellow eBayers, or from the Community Team. 

[1956glyn]

And years ago before you left for California  you did a brilliant job responding on the boards generally and actually getting involved and  helping with issues 🙂 

[lucy_farmer]

'ebay could do more to boost numbers on these boards.'

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Yes, but I'm not sure they want to.

After all a lot of time on this thread is spent calling ebay every (asterisked out) name under the sun, and most businesses don't like people being nasty about them, do they? 😭

And having to have *human* moderators must cost ebay a bit; a bit they'd probably like to give to shareholders instead! 

Not sure A.I. moderators could cope with the intricacies of human manners 😇, or lack of them 👺.......