Practicing for a live chat typing check
Some employers who hire for live chat support ask applicants to take a typing test. The format differs from company to company, but the idea is the same: you type a piece of text and are measured on speed and accuracy. The test on this page lets you practice that for free, as often as you like. It is a practice tool. It does not issue certificates and it is not any employer’s official assessment.
What the test measures
Press Start test and type the passage of about 55 words. The clock starts on your first key and stops at the last character. You get three figures at the end.
| Figure | Why it matters for chat work |
|---|---|
| Raw WPM | How quickly you can get a reply written |
| Accuracy | How clean the reply is before you send it |
| Score | WPM multiplied by accuracy, the overall figure |
Why accuracy matters most
In chat support, the customer sees every character. A typo in a greeting looks careless. A typo in an order number or an email address can cause a real problem. Speed keeps a conversation moving, but a fast reply that has to be corrected is slower than a careful one.
So make accuracy the first target. Type at a pace where red highlights are rare, and only then push the speed.
Practice with capitals and punctuation
Chat messages are full sentences with capitals, names and punctuation. The passages here are normal English prose, which makes them closer to real replies than a list of lowercase words.
A short routine before an application:
- Do one warm-up run and ignore it.
- Do three runs for accuracy. Get as close to 100 percent as you can.
- Do three runs at your normal pace and average the scores.
- Repeat daily for a week and compare the averages.
If the assessment you are facing has a time limit, add a few runs of the 1 minute typing test so that typing against a clock feels familiar.
Requirements vary by employer
There is no single typing speed for live chat work. Each employer sets its own requirement, so read the job listing. If a figure is given, aim to beat it comfortably in practice, so that nerves on the day do not drop you below it.
For reference points, see good typing speed. A fuller routine is on the typing test practice page.