Modern Chat
Learn the basics about Modern Chat and how it can work for your business
What is Modern Chat?
Modern Chat provides a simple yet robust chat solution with a minimal amount of required technical expertise. The solution focuses on end-user experience so that a conversation can follow an end-user across devices and over time, keeping the conversation history present and accessible for context and continuity.
Modern Chat provides:
- A configurable Modern Chat widget that is easily placed on your brand site.
- Authenticated or unauthenticated chat sessions.
- Easy theming for brand personalization, empowering companies to create themes specific to their brand(s).
- A rules engine to trigger actions and experiences based on defined criteria.
- For example, you have the ability to create custom rules based on conditions specific to your brand needs, including having the chat appear based on data like time on page, browser, location, etc.
- You can also create a rule that displays the chat widget when an end user's shopping cart reaches a certain dollar amount, or when an end-user clicks a "Me Too" button in a support forum post.
- A rich, interactive conversation experience that can include video, images, links, structured messages, and emojis.
- Full conversation history to end-users and agents for context and continuity.
Benefits:
- Chat sessions can be long-running so that a customer can start a conversation with an agent, leave the conversation to go on with life, and then return without having to give a history or re-explain the issue.
- Rules become Source Tags that can be used for work queue rules and routing.
- Comprehensive customer conversation insights through comprehensive analytics.
- An interactive, direct chat experience with customers leveraging information sourced from your own brand's site rather than a third-party network.
How Does Modern Chat Work?
On the development side, Modern Chat is essentially JavaScript placed on your brand site(s). Visitors interact with the Modern Chat widget and send messages to your agents, which are accessible in Khoros Care. Agents can carry on conversations that can carry over to other platforms supported by Brand Messenger Legacy (iOS, Android).
A chat session is either unauthenticated or authenticated.
Unauthenticated Chat
An unauthenticated chat session is great for first-contact interactions with potential customers. A representative can help a customer find the information they need or introduce products and services to them that will drive conversions. All of this can happen without the agent needing an existing customer account to work from.
Having an unauthenticated chat doesn't mean you can't gather some information about the user. For example, you can add a pre-chat form requesting information such as the user's name and email address. Additionally, you can even include a multiple-choice question that can assist in routing the conversation to an appropriate agent team.
Authenticated Chat
Authenticated chat sessions enable the agent to verify that the customer they're speaking to is the legitimate customer of record. This is especially critical in situations where a chat may lead to changes or relaying of information specific to the account.
In JavaScript, you can set (unencrypted) user attributes, like first name, last name, and email address on the end-user. We strongly recommend setting user attributes in the form of author metadata on a Modern Chat end-user as soon as the user initiates an authenticated chat session. This enables the agent that is interacting with the user to have as much context as possible to help them provide the best service to the customer.
Similarly, you can pass metadata like a member's current membership status or the number of items in a shopper's cart. The current page a visitor is sending messages from is also relayed as metadata, enabling agents to better assist them with finding the information they need.
You are allowed one Modern Chat widget per page load. If your brand has several domains, then you may have a single chat widget per domain. Chat sessions can persist across subdomains as long as the jwt token and userId match in the KHOROS_CONFIG. You can find more information about this process in our End-user Authentication guide.
Updated over 2 years ago