Sunday, October 24, 2010

My experience working as a Guide for ChaCha

In the search for a career at home on my PC, I have come across a ridiculous amount of scams over the years. Even the few legit sites I have stumbled upon were some what crap. Survey sites that pay but only allow you to do a few survey's a month. My search for working at home seemed nearly impossible.

Finally, I came across an add for working as a Expeditor for ChaCha "The Human Search Engine" - a mobile search engine powered by real live people. Our guides work from home, or anywhere else they choose, and respond to real-time questions sent in by text message by using tools provided to them by the company.

I have worked for ChaCha for a few months now, as a side job that I work for extra cash when my other job is slow, and now I am recruiting ( Which has brought me a very nice income ).  While I have chosen to recruit new Guides, there is no requirement that you do the same.  You can just work as a Guide and never bother with recruiting, and still earn some extra cash.

First and foremost, this job does not involve ANY cost to you...period.  This is a job, not a pyramid scheme or anything like that.

What is ChaCha?

ChaCha is a company that people can call or text to ask a question and
receive their answer back to their cell phone as a text message.  Most
questions asked are things like “What is the weather forecast for
Detroit, MI”  or “Where can I buy the cheapest 32 inch TV?”.  They
are questions that are fairly easy to answer.   This IS NOT a sleazy
company or a sex chat company.  There is an abuse button that you
click if a question comes in asking for anything inappropriate.

The best part is, for customers, using ChaCha’s service is free.
ChaCha makes its money from short advertisements that are sent with
every answer that is sent to a customer.

Feel free to try their service for yourself, for free, just text your
question to 242242 (spells ‘ChaCha’) or call 1-800-2ChaCha
(1-800-224-2242) from your mobile phone to ask any question.

They don’t spam your phone with advertisements, just one advertisement
sent with each answer.  Those who answer your question do not see your
phone number, so you don’t have to be concerned with privacy.


Working for ChaCha

ChaCha has 3 different positions for Guides. Currently the positions are Expeditor, Generalist / Specialist, and a position known as a Voice Transcriber.

Generalist/ Specialist (aka GE/SP):

The Generalist / Specialist is the person who answers questions that need some extra research.  You have up to 10 minutes to find the answer for the customer, but once you are used to the system, and how everything works, most questions can be answered anywhere from 10 to 60 seconds.  You are paid per answer sent ranging from .10 cents to .20 cents, depending on the difficulty of the question.  My girlfriend averages about $6 per hour once she got into her second month and was used to everything.  Once you go through ChaCha’s training and are hired on you will be given access to the ChaCha Dashboard.  You log into the ChaCha system, and when a question comes in, it will pop up with the option to accept or deny.  You choose accept, and the question pops up.  You then open a new tab or window, find the answer. Answer the question and send the answer.  It's that simple!

Voice Transcriber (aka VT):

I haven't worked as a Voice Transcriber but many people enjoy it, and work as both an Expeditor and Voice Transcriber at the same time.  The pay is $0.03 per transcription, but transcriptions are very  short, and you can usually make a little bit more per hour if you can type pretty fast.

All you do as a voice transcriber is listen to the recordings of the people who called the 1-800-2ChaCha number, transcribe their question, and send it on to a Guide who will then research the answer.

Expeditor (aka EX):

This is my preferred role. As an Expeditor, you are on the front lines, receiving all questions from our customers. The Expeditor receives the question and attempts to quickly answer it with the tools provided by ChaCha.  These include our Previously Answered Questions (PAQs), which are answers to questions that ChaCha has received and answered before, Quick Answers, which are preloaded answers for all sorts of common questions, and Finders, which will automatically send the weather, horoscopes, and sports scores, among other categories. If the question cannot be answered successfully with these tools, then you just send it off to a Generalist / Specialist at the click of a button, and the Generalist / Specialist will research the question and answer it.  You get paid regardless of whether you answer the question or send it on.

The pay for Expeditors is $0.02 per question, but since they process the most queries, it all evens out.

All in all, the hourly pay for the 3 roles tends to be about the same when you consider it takes GE/SP Guides longer to answer and VT and EX's can answer more questions per hour.

Getting Paird

ChaCha has different methods of payment that you can set up.  You can have direct deposit into your bank account once a month or you can get the ChaCha Visa Debit card and have your money deposited onto your debit card anytime you want.  If using the debit card, you generally receive your money within a few minutes of clicking "Pay Me Now".  I use the debit card because I can access my earnings at any time.

This job may not be enough to support you as a sole source of income, but it has however, helped me through some tough times, and I can easily make an extra $150 to $200 a week just by putting in a few hours. Ultimately once you go through the training process you can take on a personalized workload that fits your schedule. The more time you put in, the more you can earn. It’s great if you are between jobs or are just wanting some extra spending or bill money!

Lastly, ChaCha also offers incentives and contests that offer the opportunity to earn even more money.

 Interested?

If you're interested in applying to be a ChaCha Guide, please visit
http://becomeaguide.chacha.com/.

When applying, please be sure to include my email address -
syphon101@gmail.com - in the referral box so you can join my team.
Be sure there are no extra spaces before or after my email address, or
the ChaCha system will reject it and give you an error message.


As a member of my team, I am always available to help with any
questions or concerns that you may have, as are most other Guides in
the ChaCha forums.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me.

2 comments:

  1. I also work for ChaCha and love it - you can make decent money and there are a few tricks to making a little extra on there - passing the test is the first hurdle and it is best to talk with someone who has done it - you can only take the test once - email me and I can help lauralei143@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. The comment above is lying to everyone to gain a referral so she can get paid for referring you. On top of that if yoru a great worker she gets rewarded by ChaCha too. Anyone that has to lie to get a referral is hiding something.. Like the fact the pay scale is 0.005 a question , 0.02 a question, 0.03 a question, and 0.10, to 0.20 a question.. You start out on the lower roles ... The highest roles are the ones current employees can upgrade to. Not new people.. There are no tips or tricks to sign up you just go and sign up ... That person wants the referral money and bonus... You sign up you take a test... You either pass or fail...

    Here is the link free and clear no games..

    http://becomeaguide.chacha.com/

    ReplyDelete