3175: Website Task Flowchart

Website Task Flowchart

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Title text: Tired of waiting on hold? Use our website to chat with one of our live agents, who are available to produce words at you 24/7!

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Explanation

This is one of 53 incomplete explanations: This page was created by a live agent producing words at you. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This is a flowchart comic. It ostensibly shows how to accomplish a task on a generic website. With the improvements to web infrastructure, accessibility, and user experience research over the decades, one might think that this would be simple. And sometimes, indeed, everything just works as expected. However, the flowchart indicates that this system often fails to handle error states gracefully and can completely shut down when the smallest dependency breaks.

The first step is to try to access the website. This includes pulling it up, and possibly signing into an account. Websites may have legitimate or nefarious reasons to profile their users. Either way, it is often another step in the way of the user's goals.

The very start of the process can already fail if the website doesn't load, you enter an incorrect username or password, or the website's authentication service is having problems and rejecting legitimate credentials, for example. Issues at this stage are often out of the user's control, and can kneecap your productivity if you rely on that website, as was recently discussed in 3170: Service Outage. The flowchart provides no specific troubleshooting guidance, as the exact steps will vary greatly depending on the specific problem, and readers may have their own troubleshooting process similar to 627: Tech Support Cheat Sheet. It could involve visiting another website like "Is It Down Right Now?" to see if others are having the same issue, double-checking your login information, or looking up any specific error messages the site gives. You may simply have to wait until the broken service is restored.

If you can enter the website, the next part of the flowchart asks if you finished your task successfully. If you have managed to both log in and do your work (perhaps eventually), it simply congratulates you for finishing your task. Failure here could be because of other issues with the website, such as bugs, or service outages in the middle of your work, or simply because the site doesn't have the tools to accomplish your specific task. You may have to use tools that are available in alternative or creative ways to accomplish what you need to. This might not be an option if your data or workflow relies on a specific site, or if alternatives are sketchy or paywalled.

As the flowchart suggests, troubleshooting a website can be a major deviation from your goals, and can involve following many false leads for hours on end. There's a chance that the issue resolves, putting you back on track. But in the meantime, you're trying to find a solution on your own. According to the chart, talking to tech support is a last resort.

If your troubleshooting fails at either stage, the chart guides you to call the website's customer service line, which is framed as admitting defeat. The flowchart reckons that an automated phone system will put you on hold and a prerecorded message will then suggest trying to use the website instead of calling directly. While this would be helpful for someone calling the support line before trying the website, it assumes that the site is working properly and that the task can actually be accomplished there. It's like kicking you when you're already down to hear that "advice" after spending hours trying to use a website that simply would not work like you need it to.

From there, the flowchart predicts that you will be so frustrated, you'll throw away both your computer and your phone into the sea before even listening to the rest of the on-hold message. This would be a drastic and non-trivial way of responding to the situation, as it would destroy those devices. (It would, at least, formally end your attempt to use the website.) The flowchart presents this as an inevitability as a form of hyperbole.

The title text is another part of the presumed hold message, perhaps for anyone who had not followed the flowchart as faithfully. It encourages the caller to visit the website's live chat function, a fairly recent development that combines the best and worst aspects of both online and phone-line support. It can be ambiguous whether the "live agent" is zero, one, or many people. You may reach a qualified staff member with all the answers to your questions. Or, the conversation may be passed around between various less-than-knowledgeable staff who are merely following a script with a flowchart process (hopefully more useful than this one) to let them give more expert advice than they might be capable of. Or, increasingly since 2024, you may connect to a chatbot that processes your queries, follows a similar script, and may be more difficult to reason with or escalate the issue. It may triage your initial responses before 'bothering' a real human who can help you with your request, if it is able to transfer you to a human at all.

The claim that the agent can "produce words at you" (rather than "talk", "speak", or "communicate") implies that their responses won't convey any information, or perhaps even basic understanding of the problem. If the live chat is open 24/7, you may reach a human agent elsewhere in the world who doesn't speak English natively and struggles to understand you. This could also be a blatantly honest admission that you will converse with a potentially inexhaustible large language model AI, where the words you receive might demonstrate even less understanding of your problem, as merely being able to send even vaguely logical sequences of words might be worse than useless. Additionally, giving random vague sequences of words would add to the user's frustration, strengthening their urge to throw their laptop into the ocean.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Caption above the panel:] Doing a task using a company or organization's website:

[Below this is a flowchart, starting with "Go to website, try to log in"]

[Box 1 (start):] Go to website, try to log in (go to to box 2)

[Box 2:] Did it work? (Yes/No)

• Yes: Go to box 3
• No: Go to box 6

[Box 3:] Try to do your task (go to box 4)

[Box 4:] Did it work? (Yes/No)

• Yes: Go to box 5
• No: Go to box 8

[Box 5 (end):] Nice! Done!

[Box 6:] Spend hours troubleshooting account/login (go to box 7)

[Box 7:] Did it work? (Yes/No)

• Yes: Go to box 3
• No: Go to box 10

[Box 8:] Spend hours troubleshooting website (go to box 9)

[Box 9:] Did it work? (Yes/No)

• Yes: Go to box 5
• No: Go to box 10

[Box 10:] Give up and call customer service (go to box 11)

[Box 11:] Hold message: "Did you know you could do all of this more quickly and easily on our website? Just go to W-W-W dot..." (go to box 12)

[Box 12 (end):] Throw phone and laptop into the sea

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Discussion

> who are available to produce words at you 24/7!

Is "produce words at you" an AI reference? -- Dtgriscom (talk) 19:40, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I think it is likely an AI reference. —theusaf (talk) 19:46, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but it does say "live agents" earlier so it could also be a reference to live but non-native language speakers in a foreign call center. 47.248.235.170 20:24, 1 December 2025 (UTC)Pat

Real-time bots are live but not alive. 64.114.211.79 21:26, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I feel like for some certain definition of 'alive' bots could be considered alive. They are (kind of?)sentient, which just means they can think. 'sapient', on the other hand, means that he/she/they is self-aware. While it is generally considered that bots are not live, this may not always be true. Depending on how advanced AI ever get, (most probable answer: not very) they may one day be able to evolve and reproduce. They already perform metabolism and homeostasis (power and fans). They have structure, they are made of computer chips (im not a computer nerd, so this probably isn't accurate). They react to stimuli. Honestly, all that needs to let them be considered 'alive' is for them to be able to make other AI and for those AI to be slightly different, which they kind of already can. Besides being made of metal, there is no real reason to claim that an AI isn't 'alive', that's just what mainstream media claims. --Kirinhatchi (talk) 01:05, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

They're certainly live as in "live TV" and/or a "live electricity socket", as in active/functional/doing-what-they-are-designed-to-do. 78.144.255.82 01:44, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

wow second commenter --LazyTiger0203 (talk) 19:45, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Is Randall just now finding out about this?!? What sequestered Internet space has he been hiding in? I want. Of course it's probably gone now. 205.175.118.2 20:20, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I have fixed several spelling errors. RadiantRainwing (talk) 02:49, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I would replace the "Throw electronics into sea" step with "As soon as the call is no longer on hold, say the website the hold message suggests is not working". Throwing devices into sea causes e-waste. 2001:4C4E:1C14:9800:F167:89F7:6CCE:353B 08:30, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Who cares about that, when the big problem is still all those Titanics to watch out for? 82.132.237.203 16:25, 2 December 2025 (UTC) ;)

Companies can't seem to understand that literally the only reason people call their customer service line is because *THEY NEED TO TALK TO AN ACTUAL HUMAN BECAUSE THE COMPUTER IS INADIQUATE*!--136.226.7.187 20:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

But think of the glorious profits we can make by firing humans who need our jobs to survive! --DollarStoreBa'al^Converse 20:44, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I always try to solve problems myself before calling the helpdesk. This involves applying the most obvious fix, then the next most obvious. When these fail (as I expected), I call.

"Hello, Service Desk, ** speaking, how may I help you?"

"I'm having trouble trying to do *** on your website. But I've already tried the most obvious solutions, so don't bother suggesting them."

"OK. Have you tried #1 *** ?"

"Yes, I said I've tried that."

"What about #2 ***?"

Why do they insist on suggesting solutions that I've already told them don't work? Beechmere (talk) 02:43, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Because you haven't? They may or may not have a script to follow, or actually know their thing, but (unless you've abbreviated your introductory description) they've got a voice at the other end only saying "the most obvious solutions" have been tried. But are these the obvious solutions to the actual expert (or the maybe-'experts' who wrote the support-workflow script), or just have skipped the real First Action Points entirely. They probably have to deal with many misconceptions from every (self-professed) 'technicaly-adept' voice on the end of the line. (Or, if script-led, don't recognise your more homegrown terminology as it relates to what they only know from what they've occasionally had described to them on their on-screen 'expert flowchart'.)

And they've really got to (e.g.) ask whether you've actually plugged the printer in (in times past, Parallel Port; these days, USB or even network cable; unless it's a wireless connectivity of your choiceñ) because all the rest of the checks (and which driver/config redo to use) isn't going to help much if there's no way that the thing that's supposed to be talking can be heard by the thing that's supposed to be listening.

(Notwithstanding the old "yes, it's definitely plugged in!", which can sometimes be resolved by "but have you tried plugging the cable in the other way round?"... Occasionally a bidirectional cable or a symmetrical plug actually works one way round when it won't the other (though I'd suspect cable/connector damage, in such cases, and that's a temporary fix at best), but amazingly it sometimes works(!) with an asymmetric connection (whether D-Sub, USB-pre-C, etc). Because the know-it-all who was adamant that it was plugged in only actually checked when asked to fiddle with it, now plugs it in the 'other' (i.e. one and only) way round and then happily/resentfully accepts that it's started working.)

That said, as a tech-type myself I do groan at being dealt with by people for whom my 'obvious' and tech-grounded explanation of the steps I've tried so far seem to be heard as nothing much far from "one of cross-beam's gone out of skew on treadle!", just because they can't match my words to the equally descriptive words from their script/training/experience, and so we may have to bounce around a few terms to find common ground (ethernet cable or patch cable, etc... you know, RJ45 ends, etc, and if it's a crossover one I'd tell you) to get onto the same (early) page in the troubleshooting handbook.

When I've been the tech-support (internal, only, so not the same kind of anonymous desk-drone as alluded to above), I've been at the receiving end of a wide range of 'incoming expertise', and a wide range of how complicated the error actually was. From the "Fonzi" repair (Repair Manouevre Number One: Hit it! ...works surprisingly often) and the "Roy" (Repair Manouevre Number Two: "Have you tried turning it off and back on again..?") to the truly weird (the reason why one particular line-printer wouldn't print off one particular client's reports on one particular day... we worked out why, but as the problem wouldn't arise the next working day we didn't change the deliberately obtuse thing work, just suggested those printouts could wait a day, and made an internal note in case any other client's work on any future day stopped printing on any other printer due to a similar confluence of issues). Plenty of them were at least partially PEBCAK issues, though some of those users really did pride themselves over having tried "all the obvious fixes", despite being proven otherwise from a thirty-second desk-visit after the five minute talk-through over the phone hadn't gone well at all... 82.132.237.210 15:27, 3 December 2025 (UTC)
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