So, we've been experimenting with a live customer support feature in our tool lately. We're rolling out the live chat support on a beta basis to see how useful our users find it.

The motivations for creating it were two-fold. Our first motivation was the Mayday button that Amazon Kindle announced recently. How cool is that, right? Live support available on demand any time you want it! Ingenius.

Our second motivation for building a live chat support feature into our tool is that - while software test designers consistently tell us that they find Hexawise's features to be really easy to use - new users will often encounter test design questions as they start using the tool. We wanted to be available instantly to collaborate with them - and help them address questions in real time, like: "How should I be thinking about different ways of defining equivalence classes?" "Given what I'm trying to test in my system, how much detail is too much in this context?" etc. We wanted to be there to help users answer them. We're obsessive about customer service. Having the opportunity to have our expert test designers be a click away from every user of our tool every time they encounter a question. That's just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Early indications of how useful this service is to users are extremely promising. Users are telling us it is an amazingly helpful service. And, while we were worried that we might start to feel too stretched with tons of user questions to answer, we haven't felt that way at all. Interactions have been at manageable volumes. We've found them to be really positive. Many of the interactions have helped us learn about ways to improve our tool and/or how we can make certain test design concepts easier for Hexawise users to understand. Often, customers will click on a "call me" button to talk through questions live by phone rather than by typing back and forth. I'm glad this next conversation was done with keyboards.

This conversation happened about 45 minutes ago. Everyone at Hexawise headquarters is still smiling broadly. It made all of our days and stands apart from the rest. Enjoy!

(17:15:25) Visitor Hi

(17:15:40) Sean Johnson Hey

(17:15:44) Sean Johnson What's up?

(17:15:51) Visitor Hi Sean!

(17:15:57) Visitor Hey, I created 308 test cases

(17:16:02) Sean Johnson k

(17:16:02) Visitor out of a possible 18 trillion

(17:16:07) Sean Johnson nice!

(17:16:11) Visitor I consolidated all my user stories in 6 sprints total

(17:16:13) Visitor to 1 test set

(17:16:14) Visitor which is fine

(17:16:28) Visitor but I noticed from test case # 100 plus to 308

(17:16:37) Visitor most of my test cases are now 'any value'

(17:16:48) Visitor I was wondering if there's an option to force hexawise to pick a value for me

(17:16:52) Visitor but I don't there is

(17:16:56) Visitor but that would be a good enhancement

(17:17:05) Sean Johnson ha! are you spying on me?

(17:17:09) Visitor for 'any value' you can have the app just pick a random one

(17:17:10) Visitor LOL

(17:17:11) Visitor Nope

(17:17:14) Sean Johnson seriously… that's what I'm working on right now

(17:17:19) Visitor NO WAY!

(17:17:20) Sean Johnson what are the odds?

(17:17:24) Visitor O M G

(17:17:26) Sean Johnson yes way

(17:17:33) Visitor I've been meaning to provide that feedback 2 weeks ago

(17:17:39) Visitor but never took the time!

(17:17:46) Visitor I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THAT FEATURE!

(17:17:49) Visitor Oh

(17:17:51) Visitor in the mean time

(17:17:56) Visitor my testers workaround

(17:18:00) Visitor is to print the test plan

(17:18:17) Visitor and just pick the values randomly from the value expansion list and input parameter list

(17:18:26) Visitor AWESOME Sean!

(17:18:31) Visitor Well let me know when it's available

(17:18:41) Sean Johnson that's really crazy

(17:18:41) Sean Johnson well… I guess I'm working on the right thing!

(17:18:42) Sean Johnson Will tomorrow be soon enough for you?

(17:18:42) Sean Johnson :-)

(17:18:43) Sean Johnson for now… it's going to be hidden

(17:18:43) Sean Johnson you'll add ?full=true

(17:18:43) Sean Johnson to the end of the URL

(17:18:57) Sean Johnson and that'll force Hexawise to fill in the any_values

(17:19:03) Visitor that's AWESOME!

(17:19:06) Visitor I will do the workaround

(17:19:09) Visitor OMG, you made my day!

(17:19:13) Visitor THANKS A TON!

(17:19:15) Visitor :-)

(17:19:18) Sean Johnson I'll send you note this evening or in the morning when it's live on [your company's Hexawise instance]

(17:19:23) Visitor I am so happy

(17:19:24) Visitor LOL

(17:19:28) Visitor Thanks so much

(17:19:32) Sean Johnson thanks for chatting! made my day to know I picked the right next priority.

(17:19:32) Visitor this will make my life easier

(17:19:38) Visitor Oh yeah, totally

(17:19:38) Sean Johnson excellent.

(17:19:58) Visitor I honestly think I'm not the only one who will appreciate this enhancement

(17:20:01) Visitor you guys are the best!

(17:20:03) Visitor Thanks so much

(17:20:05) Sean Johnson :-) we try

(17:20:15) Visitor You all do an amazing job

(17:20:21) Visitor this tool is the best

(17:20:21) Sean Johnson look for an email from me shortly

(17:20:26) Visitor will do

(17:20:27) Visitor thanks!

(17:20:33) Sean Johnson thanks!

We've been working hard for the past ~5 years building and continuously improving Hexawise so that it will be a tool that software test designers find to be extremely useful and - equally importantly - a tool that software test designers will find enjoyable to use. It is hard to put into words how satisfying it is to see an interaction like this one.