Yes the internet is a wonderful thing. You can find the answers to pretty much any question with just a few key strokes. It is an awesome thing, but what about when you aren’t at a computer, or that fabulous Smartphone of yours does have data service at the moment? If you find yourself looking for an afterhours bar at 3:00 am Cha Cha can help. Basically you text your question to them, and a Guide looks up the answer for you and tests you back. Using this service is easy and convenient.
Before you text, while the service is free, regular texting rates do apply, so if you do not have a text plan, or you are over the allotted texts, there will be an additional charge on your next phone bill. If you have a plan and are under your limit, there will not be an additional charges.
All you need to do is text your question to 242242. Remember that most phones have a 160 character limit on texts. If you are not text savvy, you can call 1-800-2ChaCha and a transcriber will transcribe your question and send it to the guide. Only ask one question per text or phone call.
Once you have asked your question, it is time to wait. Depending on question volume, how many guides are working, and how much work is needed to find your answer, your wait can be up to 20 minutes. You will get your answer and a link to the page where the answer was found. If your answer takes up more than 160 characters, simply text MORE back to Cha Cha and they will send more information. If the misunderstood your question, you need more clarification or if you have additional questions, you can just reply to the ChaCha text. You will probably not get the same guide, but any guide will be able to see your previous question and the answer the first guide gave you.
If you quickly become a Cha Cha addict, you can always set up your own Cha Cha account. Go to their website and register your cellphone. Once you register your phone, Cha Cha will start saving all of your questions and answers. It will make retrieving your answers and accessing the links much easier. This is key especially if your phone does not have a data plan. You can copy the URL manually from the phone to the computer, but this is much easier.
Sometimes there will be lags on ChaCha’s end. This can be very frustration to the user. There is no way of telling when the bad times will be. Most times the service a wonderful, other times you wonder how on earth locating the hours for the Starbuck down the road can take over a half an hour. These issues are created by high volume of questions, not enough guides working (guides can work wherever they want…so there isn’t a set shift), and sometimes their “knowledgebase” has issues that delay questions or create lags. In some instances, previous questions may not be visible to guides.
