Kyle here! Founder of SA. These are all good points. As Damian mentioned we test all of these tools and they all do significantly increase conversions on our site.
It's something we've discussed internally quite a bit. I wish it were as simple as, hey we have this great product and that's all we need to have, but alas these tools are necessary to help us grow the business.
Another important thing to consider -- You have to look at our site through the lens of the travel industry. Deciding you're going to book an all day excursion or 5-day vacation is a big commitment and people have a lot of questions. They tend to revisit the site again and again before converting because there is a lot to consider. That's why we have pre-triggered chats, which BTW only trigger if you meet certain parameters. For example, if you spend more than a certain amount of time on a product page, visit specific pages where we see a lot of drop-off, or on your 2nd or 3rd session. We don't bug people at random, we bug them in a very carefully and meticulously measured way :) If we were a SaaS business for example we would optimize differently. I might even go as far as to say some (maybe not all) of what appears to be annoying to an outsider can help assist the end user.
All of that being said, I totally understand where everyone is coming from here and to be honest I don't think there is a single comment here that I disagree with. Ultimately, we have to test things and keep what works. If it doesn't work we always get rid of it, eventually.
It's something we've discussed internally quite a bit. I wish it were as simple as, hey we have this great product and that's all we need to have, but alas these tools are necessary to help us grow the business.
Another important thing to consider -- You have to look at our site through the lens of the travel industry. Deciding you're going to book an all day excursion or 5-day vacation is a big commitment and people have a lot of questions. They tend to revisit the site again and again before converting because there is a lot to consider. That's why we have pre-triggered chats, which BTW only trigger if you meet certain parameters. For example, if you spend more than a certain amount of time on a product page, visit specific pages where we see a lot of drop-off, or on your 2nd or 3rd session. We don't bug people at random, we bug them in a very carefully and meticulously measured way :) If we were a SaaS business for example we would optimize differently. I might even go as far as to say some (maybe not all) of what appears to be annoying to an outsider can help assist the end user.
All of that being said, I totally understand where everyone is coming from here and to be honest I don't think there is a single comment here that I disagree with. Ultimately, we have to test things and keep what works. If it doesn't work we always get rid of it, eventually.