[alexbowman]

Bloomberg have somewhat offered this service.

One lucky enough to have a Bloomberg terminal (providing financial news and information services) have access to a helpdesk built into the software via the messaging system (to query data, news, etc). This helpdesk has had huge appeal in other areas - booking restaurants, book recommendations, ideas for things to do on holiday - for many many years.

When paying at least $15k/year for such a terminal (often much more), and a client often having hundreds installed, if not thousands, it is a beautiful example of going a little extra for a lot of goodwill.

[ig1]

The Bloomberg helpdesk was never designed to be used in that way, but generally the guys and gals staffing it were given quite a lot of flexibility in answering clients.

Bloomberg actually took quite an interesting approach to staffing their helpdesk, everyone (except for developers) who joins the company from university has to spend a few months working on the help desk. So all the help desk staff are highly educated locals rather than outsourced labour. They probably have some of the most capable helpdesk staff in the technology industry.

[infinite8s]

I used to work for the company, and even employees could access the helpdesk (they definitely ate their own dogfood - everything was done through the terminal).