Many organizations now offer online service chats on their websites, so visitors can exchange instant messages directly with a customer service representative. Veikkaus, the Finnish Lottery, does this, as does the Nordea Banking site; people can ask for advice anonymously just by clicking the chat button. Colleges have had such chats for years, but a public-sector newcomer is the Helsinki regional government’s Infochat, which provides information about city services to new arrivals. Finnish libraries have been real pioneers in this area, and they offered the Ask a Librarian chat for over ten years; many college libraries have similar services on their own sites. In recent weeks, I have tested a dozen online service chats. All have worked well, and the customer service agents had good instant messaging skills. These chats make it easy for anyone to contact an organization, and people can ask questions more informally than via forms or in e-mails. Such a chat is usually run by experienced customer staff, so starting one doesn’t require extensive training, though each organization needs to develop some basic guidelines. Customer service personnel mainly have good experiences with this vehicle, and positive customer feedback is an additional incentive. Online service chat is a fast and easy communication channel ‒ my choice.