I posted this earlier on the New England forum, but thought this was worth a broader audience.
It seems Tesla is quietly rolling out live chat as an additional method of interacting with customer support. I discovered this today when I found the need to seek assistance with a drivers door latch mechanism failure on my X. The national support number 877 798 3752 had a 40 minute hold time (typical these days it seems), but mentioned in the initial message was the ability to use chat as an alternative. The instructions for gaining access to it were unclear, but I found the following method worked for me:
On a desktop browser, go to the roadside assistance page Customer Support & Roadside Assistance. You will see in the bottom-right corner a circular chat icon that when clicked will initiate a Live Chat session with customer support. I should note that testing after the session suggests this functionality is not available on mobile devices - just desktop browsers.
When I initiated this, I was connected with a Tesla Customer Support representative within a minute. It was not a chatbot. After about 5 minutes of chatting, we quickly concluded a repair was required and she worked to setup a service call with Watertown MA, and also with the mobile service team (the car is not really usable as I need to crawl in from another door to gain entry to the car).
While I'm now at the mercy of service availability from Watertown or mobile service, I have the satisfaction that my issue is in the queue, and didn't have to wait for 40-60 minutes to initiate the request.
It seems Tesla is quietly rolling out live chat as an additional method of interacting with customer support. I discovered this today when I found the need to seek assistance with a drivers door latch mechanism failure on my X. The national support number 877 798 3752 had a 40 minute hold time (typical these days it seems), but mentioned in the initial message was the ability to use chat as an alternative. The instructions for gaining access to it were unclear, but I found the following method worked for me:
On a desktop browser, go to the roadside assistance page Customer Support & Roadside Assistance. You will see in the bottom-right corner a circular chat icon that when clicked will initiate a Live Chat session with customer support. I should note that testing after the session suggests this functionality is not available on mobile devices - just desktop browsers.
When I initiated this, I was connected with a Tesla Customer Support representative within a minute. It was not a chatbot. After about 5 minutes of chatting, we quickly concluded a repair was required and she worked to setup a service call with Watertown MA, and also with the mobile service team (the car is not really usable as I need to crawl in from another door to gain entry to the car).
While I'm now at the mercy of service availability from Watertown or mobile service, I have the satisfaction that my issue is in the queue, and didn't have to wait for 40-60 minutes to initiate the request.
