I've always wondered...

I know this is a silly question, but I've always wondered if the support 'live 24/7 chat' interface on sites; especially large ones - has a real multitude of people or if it just uses a name generator all the time.
For e.g. on SKY BET, in the same hour it will be You're speaking to Grace, John, Mark, Dinesh, whatever, loads and loads of names. Is it actually those people or just one or two fat slobs with a name generator

It's most likely a mixture of the two. I doubt they ever use their real names on live chats. I've even been told to call "Tom" when I thought I was talking to "Lucy".

Then there's the times when I'm talking to someone that claims to be a "John Smith" or "Rosie Jones" but obviously doesn't have English as their first language and therefore it's unlikely they'd have such an English name.

But the answer to your question, it's probably a mixture. I assume they have an ID# and they're tracked by that instead of their name because problems would obviously arise if you made a complaint against "John" and there were fifteen "John"'s that worked there.

Does it really matter? I get phone calls every day off people from India claiming to be called Bill, I am quite sure that is not their name.