For many young people, even a week-long holiday to New York would be nothing but a fantasy. But Laura O’Flynn, 26, has been living there for 18 months, thanks to a relocation scheme offered by her employer.
Live chat channels can be manned by real people, but chatbots are increasingly common.
They could be involved in up to 85 per cent of all our customer service interactions with companies, according to U.S. technology firm Gartner.
Their use has become far more widespread as companies struggle to keep up with a surge in enquiries from customers during the pandemic, at a time when many have fewer staff manning their call centres due to social distancing rules.
Use of live chat soared during each coronavirus lockdown, according to call answering service Moneypenny, which uses real people to man phones and live chat services for thousands of UK businesses.