Recording what happens if you change the photos of customer support to "female" "male" "blonde beauty" "cat character"

If you are developing websites and applications, if you can contact the user directly, it will be useful for product feedback, but there is also the possibility that the person in charge will be stressed by the innocent slander. The operator of the web service is experimenting how change can be seen in the message to be received by making the photograph and name of customer support "woman" "male" "blonde beautiful woman" "cat character" It is shown that there is a possibility to drastically reduce stress by one.

Why I do not use my real photo when messaging with customers on my website · Kapwing Blog
https://www.kapwing.com/blog/why-i-dont-use-my-real-photo/

Julia Enthoven, a 24-year-old woman who is a developer and developer of online movie editing tool "Kapwing", launched a website in October 2017 and has a chat function that allows users to exchange messages directly with users Was set up.

This is Kapwing's website. A popup written as "Team Kapwing" on the right side is a chat tool. The illustration of a tiger cat is drawn on the left side of the word "Team Kapwing" ... ...

Kapwing - The Online Video Editor
https://www.kapwing.com/


Initially, it seems that Enthoven's face photo was displayed in a place with illustration.


Although it seems that it was possible to obtain useful feedback when setting up the chat function, immediately twice a day "comment on comment and slander words" "comment on Enthoven's appearance and sexual joke, invitation It seems that complaints, "unpleasant words and obstacles" and so on came to be sent.

This is the actual message. Beginning from "fuck off" ...


Messages that do not relate to products, such as "I love you" "Bitch" are connected.


Enthoven who was laughing and laughing at such harassment message for the first month, but on November 30 he said he had received seven insults before arriving at the company. So, the action taken by Enthoven was to exchange his picture with the co-founder Eric Lu's name & photo.

This is a picture of Mr. Lu actually used. The message exchange still seems to have been done by Enthoven.


Then, it seems that the aggressive messages that had arrived so far have gone out perfectly. Many messages are related to movie editing tools, content is also friendly.


I heard that one person sent a rude message out of the week.


In order to further investigate the impact of photos, Enthoven showed the photograph of a charming appearance of a blonde woman and the name "Rachel Gray" on the chat function this time.


Then I say that sexual harassment message has arrived in less than an hour from changing photos.


The harassment message that "Rachel Gray" received was more than when displaying Enthoven's picture. People invited "Rachel Gray" to date, requesting nude photos and seeking sexual behavior. Whether or not the question about the product has increased due to changing to "Rachel Gray" is unknown as it is unknown, but it seems that the number of explosions has increased as far as harassing messages are concerned.

Finally, Enthoven changed the character called "Kapwing kitten" of the picture of "Rachel Gray" and displayed the name as "Team Kapwing".


Then, although some people were irritated because the product did not work well, people said that they were contacting me friendly and respectfully compared to when "Rachel Gray" was displayed. Enthoven wrote, "People do not attack cats," he said, thanks to Kapwing kitten it did not get harassed for a while.

In 3 months after running, over 55,000 people visited Kapwing's website, 100,000 movies were edited, and 2100 messages were received. So the following graph shows the number of avatars that four types of avatars received "rude or unpleasant messages (Orange)" "Yaji and sexual harassment messages (blue)" per week. You can see that women, especially blonde women's avatars, received a lot of aggressive messages.


Of course, the above tests are not "scientific" because of different implementation conditions. However, for Enthoven who works in Silicon Valley, this was the first experience of "being treated differently when changing the gender on the Internet". The advice that Enthoven says to the website owner is as follows.

◆ If the woman is in charge of the chat box, you may use a pen name
Using company name and logo makes customer support easier and less prone to stress buildup. In the case of Kapwing, users tend to think that the person they are interacting with is male by using the name "Team Kapwing".

◆ Pay attention to the look of the support staff
The customer wants the person in charge who is "not worthy of trust" "reality", not the person in charge of "pretty" or "cheating". Regardless of the business you manage, please make sure you look as "an expert in line with the image of the company".

◆ Customer support is human
Even though you say that you have a physical distance with the customer via the Internet, you should remember that both the customer and the person in charge of the company are facing the screen are both human beings. Even though people do not know each other, they talk, bully their partner, become friends. If you make a mistake you may jump to a conclusion or it may become insensible. Users sometimes hurt you, but Enthoven says it is fun to connect directly with people using your product.