Use Guide to Offer Chat

When using Guide to offer chat, visitors start a chat session from a Guide template or proactive offer. The chat thread appears in the Guide widget.

To use proactive offers, you must license Guide with Offers.

High Level Steps

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Define the chat button and branding.

If not done already, define the default chat channel button. This is the button that appears on your website to start a chat session. Also define the branding (default colors) to use for the Guide widget.
Create a chat entry point.

Create a chat entry point. This is where you specify the chat channel to use.
Create a single button template to display the Chat button.

Create a single button template defined as follows:

  • Set Entry point to the chat entry point you created.

  • Leave Button blank to use the default chat button.

  • Set Label to any text that you want to appear to the right of the chat button. For example, Chat?
Create an engagement rule that displays the template on your website.

Create an engagement rule that displays the template:

  1. Click the app selector and select Guide.

    The Rules page appears and lists any rules previously created.

  2. Click New Rule.

  3. Enter a rule title, such as Show Chat.

  4. In the I Want To... area, click Action > Set Guide template. Select the template to display. A preview of the template (chat button) appears in the lower right corner of the page.

  5. In the I Want To... area, click Condition > Chat is online. Make sure Active is selected and then select the required skills.

  6. In the I Want To... area, click Condition > Current page. Then set the Current page condition criteria to match the pages of your website where you want to display the template.

  7. Check Enabled to make the rule available for your website. Or, if you are not ready for website visitors to use the rule, leave the Enabled field cleared.

  8. Click Save Rule.

Embed Guide on your website.

Embed Guide on your website by copying the JavaScript code and pasting it on every page on which you want to offer chat.

Verify the template appears on the home page.

View the home page of your website and confirm that the chat button appears.

Using Chat-Specific Conditions in Engagement Rules

Guide provides several chat-specific conditions that you can use when creating engagement rules to offer a chat button:

  • Set the Time in Queue condition (if you have licensed Guide with Offers) to show the chat button only when the wait is within the time period you set. Guide tracks the average wait time across all skills specified for the past hour to determine the average wait time.

  • Set the Chat Is Online condition to only show the chat button when agents are available to assist visitors.

Using a Multi-Button Template to Offer Chat

If you are using other digital channelsClosed, you can create a multi-button template in Guide and offer chat with another channel. For example, you might configure chat and email with the following buttons:

Two round blue buttons. One contains an envelope icon and the other a chat bubble icon.

See the Guide use cases for more examples of using Guide with chat and other digital channels.

Offering a Different Channel When Chat Is Unavailable

You can create two engagement rules that work together to display the chat channel when agents are available and another channel, such as email, when they're unavailable:

  • For the rule that offers chat when agents are available, set Chat Is Online to Active and select the skills to check for.

  • For the rule that offers email when agents aren't available, set Chat Is Online to Inactive and select the skills to check for.

When defining the template that should appear for this rule, select Change template in real time. If agents become available while a visitor is on a page, the chat channel automatically replaces the email channel and vice versa.

Using a Precontact Web Survey for Chat

  • As a best practice, define a precontact survey form for your chat entry point.

  • When defining a template that references a chat entry point with a precontact survey form, you have the option of including a precontact survey icon and label at the top of the Guide widget.

    The icon and label are followed by the Name field that is automatically provided for the chat. Then, the custom fields defined in the precontact survey form appear.

  • If the chat channel also has a precontact survey defined, that survey is skipped. The visitor only sees the survey specified in the Guide entry point.

Continuing a Chat

If the visitor starts a chat from a Guide widget, and then navigates to a different page, they can continue the conversation with the agent. Guide displays either a button or a link on a Guide widget to continue the conversation until the chat session ends.

Also, if a visitor crosses subdomains while using your website, Guide retains the visitor data so that the chat session continues uninterrupted. Note that cross-domain support is not available for the Safari browser.