
Show HN: We've been working on this idea, would love feedback - tonysusername
http://userealtalk.com/
======
chrissnell
Here's my take. I grew up in my parent's brick-and-mortar retail business: a
four-store bicycle shop that's one of the largest and busiest in the nation.
We were an early pioneer on the Internet, one of the very first to sell
bicycle parts online back in 1995. These days, they don't do much e-commerce
but brick-and-mortar business has grown a lot and the management is still
tech-savvy.

Here are the problems that I see:

1\. Employees are busy. In the bike shop, you're constantly running around,
helping this customer and that customer, answering the phone, taking in a
repair, doing a demo, etc. It's going to be very hard to get someone on a
computer or iPad to do live chat. If an employee is typing on a computer
within sight of a customer, the customer will assume that they aren't busy and
will interrupt them with a question. The problem is so bad that when my father
would go out onto the sales floor to fix a computer, he would put on a fake
badge that said something like "DataTech Computer Repair Services" so
customers wouldn't think he was a shop employee and interrupt him. Perhaps a
speech-to-text interface might work but how is that better than a simple phone
call?

2\. Non-technical employees (most brick-and-mortar employees) are slow,
inaccurate typists. Back when my parent's store was heavy into e-commerce, we
quickly found that we needed dedicated guys to take online orders over the
phone because most of our guys couldn't touch-type. If your interface requires
a lot of typing, the employees and the customers using it aren't going to be
happy.

~~~
alaskamiller

      answering the phone
    

That's what this is.

~~~
chrissnell
Not according to the video demo on their landing page right now.

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alaskamiller
The video demo is fine. Text is phone these days and answering a text is
exactly the same as answering a phone call asking for more info. A 20 yo
retail associate at American Apparel will take to this and figure this out in
an hour.

~~~
chrissnell
I understand where you're going with this now. Employees tap out responses on
their smartphones. Put yourself in the shoes of a customer now: you walk in
and see an employee looking down at their phone and tapping away. Most people
won't assume that they're conversing with a customer. The phone conversation
doesn't have the same "hey, I'm busy with another customer right now" effect
that an audible phone or in-person conversation has. Customers will assume the
worst: that they're being ignored for the sake of some employee's personal
texting.

~~~
alaskamiller
Floor staff are trained to be proactive rather than reactive. When the
customer has already voiced their intent and it doesn't necessitate more
interaction you can switch to another channel queue.

Obviously if that's not the dynamic of your shop then this isn't the right
tool.

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RaphiePS
I don't think anyone has mentioned this: in my mind, the whole point of
calling a business is getting an _immediate_ response.

Most of us are conditioned to treat text as a fundamentally asynchronous
medium. Texts aren't something you have to reply to _now_ \-- you should get
to them eventually, but they don't demand attention in that moment. Much like
email, the sender really has no idea when, if ever, the receiver will respond.

Phone calls are different in that they're totally synchronous. The receiver
responds immediately, and you're not left in the dark wondering if they're
busy. Even if you're put on hold, someone usually answers the phone first to
let you know they'll be with you soon.

Phone calls are comforting -- you know for certain that you've been heard, and
you get your answer right away. I can't think of a way for text to provide
this, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

~~~
chrisBob
How old are you? I am 32 and I agree, but my younger siblings consider a text
to be similar to a phone call that demands an immediate response.

I you aren't in a hurry you send a similar message over email.

~~~
RaphiePS
17\. At least in my social circles, it's polite to respond to texts (and
Facebook messages) within a couple hours. Texting definitely carries more
expectations than email (for example, I'd consider it rude to text back the
next day, yet emailing in the morning is A-ok), but it's certainly not on the
level of calls.

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laoba
A complaint about the site: I like to move my mouse near the section I'm
reading, but it keeps fading out the part I'm trying to read.

Also, I still don't really understand what does this do? You only give me a
form but no additional information.

~~~
tonysusername
Thanks for the tip.

RealTalk will enable you to communicate with businesses on your smart phone.
Picture a messaging layer on top of your old phone book, but in your hands.

~~~
halisaurus
That description is a big turn off. I don't need RealTalk to communicate with
businesses on my smartphone. I already have a phone, email and web access on
it. Maybe even a dedicated app for that business.

Why not just say "RealTalk lets businesses handle customer service via SMS"?

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chrisBob
While at work I regularly use the live chat on websites to get information,
and I strongly prefer that over a voice call for a number of reasons[1].

The problem I have with the chats is that they usually lack the ability to
escalate an issue. Even tech support chats have you communicate with a single
rep for the life of the chat. _Will this app have the ability for the
employees to transfer the thread to another employee?_

[1] I don't like talking on phones, loud calls distract my office mates, I can
copy and paste detailed information, and the wait times are often shorter.

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malchow
Love your initial presentation. The business side console looks a ton more
useful than [https://talktothemanager.com/](https://talktothemanager.com/).

Might need to find a way to mesh into existing Twitter back workflows for
larger enterprise customers. These guys have spent a lot of dough building
distributed Twitter workforces. Need to make it ultra facile for them to come
over to your more intimate product.

~~~
tonysusername
Thanks! Thats on the roadmap.

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2D
Hi I'm not sure if this is useful but here in China realtime chat function for
buying stuff is commonplace. I heard a stat that something like 40% of all
sales on Tmall are closed via chat - be it wechat or aliwangwang. In terms of
location based and in app purchase they have moved fast too.

If you need to look at consumer behavior (which for many comments here seems
to be a question) it might help to look at what they are doing.

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rolleiflex
Very cool idea! I am not comfortable giving my phone number to anything that
is not a non-corporate person, though. I can't see how you would need to have
my phone number, so I'm ambiguous on how it would improve my experience.
Everything you'd want to do with SMS could be done with push notifications,
and it would be both faster, cheaper, and with higher fidelity.

~~~
tonysusername
we won't need your phone number.

~~~
jnorion
Wouldn't the fact that the customer sends an SMS from their phone mean that
you now have their phone number? How are you going to respond to the request
without having their phone number?

Or is it not using SMS after all? Not sure that's clear from the presentation.
The tag line says "Find and text any business in your area." The term "text"
is generally synonymous with SMS. If that's not what this is you may want to
change the wording.

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mynd
Nice presentation and solid idea. Initially I don't see the advantage over
just directly calling the business. Traditional land line phones are loud, and
are quickly answered. A messaging app can easily be silenced. If the user
wasn't exactly sure what he/she needed I think speaking to someone is much
more efficient than describing via a message.

~~~
rahatm1
Biggest advantage is that phone calls are traditionally inaccurate. Names are
spelled incorrectly and completely wrong requests are performed often.

~~~
tonysusername
^ Agreed

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rorydh
Kind of like [https://www.intercom.io/](https://www.intercom.io/) but for real
life?

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fouademi
I see great potential for this with small businesses, I understood from the
comments that employees can answer customers using smart phones - which is
great, but you need to highlight that value in your presentation, the
computer-only screenshot is a bit turn-off. The video is great but it should
be skippable in my opinion.

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loupereira
I attempted to create a similar service a few years back, but my concept was
more targeted at users searching for local products and services, and not
targeting a specific business. We would submit the user request to all
matching local businesses. Maybe something to also consider, best of luck.

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kiwidrew
I'd pay good money for a Whatsapp number that I could use for my business and
feed directly into our inbox/CRM tool/whatever; when given the choice our
clients seem to overwhelmingly prefer Whatsapp messaging over any other
contact method.

I'd write it myself if I had the time.

~~~
Adi_
What kind of business do you have? Are you clients mostly under 30-35?

~~~
kiwidrew
Yeah. I'm running a small accommodation/guesthouse business in Hong Kong and
our demographic is 18-35 expats, mostly European. First contact method is 10%
voice / 20% on SMS / 70% on Whatsapp.

~~~
Adi_
Interesting. That's quite a ratio in favor of WhatsApp. We looked into
building a WhatsApp hook via OwnerListens but since it's not that popular in
the US (where most of our current customers are) we couldn't justify the
resources. We'll revisit as we expand internationally. How much would you be
willing to pay for such a service.

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obaid
Interesting idea. Any real customers yet? I am still not sure how would it
work for me as a customer? Would I download an app and then communicate with
the businesses? If so, why can't I just tweet to them?

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_nullandnull_
Cool concept. My main hesitation around using this product would be companies
signing me up for coupons/spam via text messages. I can't imagine how annoying
it would be to filter out text message spam...

~~~
tonysusername
They wont have access to your phone number. And only consumers can initiate a
message. Filters will be built in.

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arms77
It is a good idea. you may want to better understand why customers may contact
a business and make the messaging experience much smoother for instance by
having sample text message ready to be used by users.

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mrmch
I don't see the business side of this being super interesting, but the
consumer side is awesome.

An app where I can make any request to a business, through my phone, and you
sort out the details? That's awesome.

~~~
tonysusername
Doesn't sound like you own a business who does lots of customer service/
inbound sales inquiries/ requests from consumers?

~~~
mrmch
I think they are two different problems. Either you're helping my business
respond to customer requests more efficiently, or your making it dead simple
for me to ask questions/order/talk to a business.

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ljd
We use LiveChat[0], which even looks like that.

People go to the site, open live chat, ask questions and get real answers
immediately.

[0] [http://www.livechatinc.com/](http://www.livechatinc.com/)

~~~
rahatm1
If I understand correctly, this is livechat's model:

I need to ask if the Levi's store at Kanata has a Midnight black 514. To do
so, I have to download Levi's app first, use the chat option (that integrates
with live chat) and chat from there. The problem is I don't know when I will
use the Levi's app again, maybe once more this year? I don't want an useless
app to clog my phone.

Here's the RealTalk scenario:

I only have one app "RealTalk" that connects me to Levi's for jeans, Diesel
for my shirts and J. crew for my sneakers.

~~~
ljd
Actually, it's not on the Levi app, it would be on the levi website. Where
most people are already at if they have questions about the brand.

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osamet67
Sounds a lot like ownerlistens.com Same consumer facing SMS functionality
(masks your number) or an app if you want to avoid fees Backend more fully
featured + has an API and supports iBeacons

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jellicle
What percentage of businesses have someone available to answer text messages?
My feeling is the answer starts with 0.0 and then may have some more zeros
before a non-zero digit occurs.

~~~
anko
What percentage of businesses have someone available to answer the telephone?
This seems more convenient than that.

But it also seems like twitter.

~~~
tonysusername
How do you message a business that doesn't follow you privately?

~~~
anko
#businessname blah blah blah message blah

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tabrischen
Love the presentation and as someone who prefers communications over text
messages over a phone call, this has real potential if you can get businesses
to respond in a timely manner.

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buckbova
How does the user find the business?

This seems like something that can be done with a facebook personal message or
something.

~~~
tonysusername
We aggregate business data similar to Foursquare.

Not many businesses are sitting behind their facebook pages to use it as a
communication channel for customer service/ sales inquires/ etc.

~~~
fblp
Not many brick and mortar businesses are sitting behind the computer either.
What market is this a burning problem for?

~~~
tonysusername
Most business owners have smart phones & so do their employees.

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banderon
How is this different than TalkTo? What is the business model here?

~~~
tonysusername
TalkTo did not integrate with third party services.

~~~
jeffmorrisjr
To the consumer, this functions pretty damn close to TalkTo.

My question is: how many times do you actually call a business to find out
about inventory, etc.

I remember doing this in the early 2000's, but in the age of Amazon and
transparent inventory on sites like Apple, it's a very rare use case.

From a business perspective, I love the idea of providing better customer
service, and if this is a feature that customers actually want, then maybe it
will work.

Onboarding businesses will be a huge pain in the ass. But you probably know
that already :)

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ggurgone
Do you guys have an API?

~~~
tonysusername
We will yes.

