Live Chat Active Sessions

You can find this section under Live Chat > Live Chat Active Sessions in the IRP Admin left navigation menu.

Live Chat offers a two-way chat facility through a messaging service. Users can start a Live Chat session by clicking the icon below:

Note that the icon is located in the folder: /InterfaceStandard/Icons/LiveChat/chat-bubbles@2x.png. You can also style various elements of the Live Chat feature using the 'Live Chat Controls' stylesheet on the Standard Controls Stylesheet page.

When a user starts a Live Chat session on the front end of the site, the IRP Admin user will be alerted by the Live Chat button at the top of the navigation; if the user has clicked on Live Chat through a particular model page, this link will allow the user to see which model it is:

To use the Live Chat feature, enable the Application Setting called Enable Live Support, available in the Live Chat Application Settings group. There are several other Application Settings that you can set for Live Chat, :

• Disable after Waiting Threshold Exceeded: Disables Live Chat when the number waiting reaches this threshold.
• Play New Live Support Session Sound in Admin: Determines whether or not a sound will play when there are new Live Chat sessions. Note that the sound effect will occur only when a new Live Chat request first comes through. It will not sound for existing unanswered Live Chat requests, or if an Admin User changes pages between a new Live Chat request coming in and the count updating. In addition, both customers and Admin Users can hear 'jingle' alerts from the Live Chat window. Note: If you are away from the Admin for an extended period of time and subsequently experience issues with the sound notification, clear your browser cache and refresh your screen.
  • Alongside the sound alert which is played when receiving a new message when the chat window is minimised, both Admin Users and customers will also receive a browser notification upon receiving a message when they do not have focus of the Live Chat window. The notification can be clicked to focus the relevant Live Chat window which produced the notification. The notification will include the recipient name and a Small Translation (ID 2631), used for the word 'says:', to display ' says:' as the notification title.
• Use Automatic Activation Rules: Enable this setting to make any configured Automatic Activation Rules (such as day of the week, time of day and so forth) come into effect. While Automatic Activation Rules are active, Live Chat functionality will be automatically enabled and disabled according to the rules added on the Automatic Activation Rules page of the Live Chat section. Note that if you disable the use of Automatic Activation Rules, the Enable Live Support setting will remain as what it was at the time of disabling the rules. Therefore if you want to totally disable Live Chat, you need to disable the Enable Live Support setting.
  • The Live Chat functionality includes rules governing the interaction between the 'Enable Live Support' and 'Live Support Use Automatic Activation Rules' Application Settings. When 'Enable Live Support' is disabled manually, the 'Live Support Use Automatic Rules' Application Setting is also disabled and will remain so until enabled again by an Admin User.
  • Also, the IRP determines the state of 'Enable Live Support' when Live Chat is opened by a customer on the front end. If the Application Setting is disabled at the time of the click, the Live Chat text area will be disabled and a translatable message will be displayed that informs the customer that Live Chat is currently disabled. The default text is defined by Small Translation ID 2627.
  • In addition, customers and Admin Users are able to continue using Live Chat when a session has been started but the 'Enable Live Support' Application Setting has since been disabled. Admin Users will be able to connect to waiting sessions after 'Enable Live Support' setting is disabled and can interact with customers until the session is completed by either party.
  • Note: The Live Chat feature checks at the beginning of a session if Live Chat is still available and, if it has since become unavailable between the opening of the Live Chat window and the sending of the first message, the window will instead display Small Translation ID 2627 (Live Support is currently disabled) and disable the text area, thus preventing the session from being started. This prevents a customer from starting a session if they have had the Live Chat window open with no active session whilst Live Chat is disabled.
• Enable Live Support In Checkout: Check this to show the Live Chat feature on checkout pages on the front end of your website.
• Live Support Enable Automatic Translations: Enable to allow Live Chat to automatically detect Admin User and customer languages and provide automatic translation services for both users. (This setting requires a valid Automatic Translation Key.)
• Automatic Translation Key: Key used to carry out Automatic Translations when Automatic Translation functionality is enabled. To obtain a key, talk to an IRP Account Manager.

Note that the Admin User Group to which you belong must also have permission to use the Live Chat feature. You can also configure several aspects of Live Chat for individual IRP Admin Users on their account settings page including:

• Live Support Name
• Live Support Photo
• Show Live Support Browser Notifications: when enabled, this will show notifications when there are new Live Chat sessions even if an Admin user’s browser is minimised.

The main LiveSupport.aspx page appears as follows:

The grid contains the following details:

• ID: This is the unique ID of the chat session stored in IRP Admin. This is created automatically by IRP Admin when the session is initiated by the customer.
• Received: This shows the date and time when the customer initiated the chat session on the IRP front end.
• Customer: This shows the name of the customer.
• Page: This shows the page that the customer was on when they began the Live Chat session. The text is hyperlinked and clicking on it will open the page in a new tab. If the page is a Model page, an image of the Model and the price will also be displayed.
• Order Total: This shows the order total if the customer places an order after a Live Chat session has been answered. The text is hyperlinked, and clicking on it will open the Orders.aspx page and display the customer’s order information. The Orders.aspx page will also display the Admin Name of the Admin User who talked to the customer before ordering, and a ‘View’ button is also displayed which, when clicked, will open a View Session window allowing the chat transcript to be read.
• Operator: This is the name of the IRP Admin operator who has connected with the customer.
• Rating: This shows the rating that the customer gave the Admin User during the session, either as a green ‘thumbs up’ for good, a red ‘thumbs down’ for bad or nothing is displayed if a rating was not given.
• Country: This is the customer’s country. Beside the name of the country you will see the flag of the country.
• Language: This is the customer’s language.
• Basket: This is the value of items in the customer’s basket in the customer's currency ISO. Click on the column header to sort the results in ascending or descending order.
• Status: This shows a colour-coded status of the session. ‘Waiting’ is displayed in red and ‘Chatting’ is displayed in orange.
• Device Type: This shows the device type used by the customer, either as an image of a desktop or a mobile.
• Connect: Click this button to connect to a chat session.
• Unanswered: Click this button to mark a chat session as ‘unanswered’.

Note that Live Chat sessions that contain no messages are also displayed on the LiveSupport.aspx page in IRP Admin. These sessions can happen if a customer opens the chat box but does not enter a message when they click the Send button.

At the top of the page you will see the Enable Live Support button. This setting enables the Live Chat functionality on your website and switches the main Application Setting on or off. Also at the top of the page you will see these buttons:

• Search Sessions button. This takes you to the LiveSupportSearch.aspx page. For more details see the Live Chat Search help topic.
• Automatic Activation Rules button. This takes you to the LiveSupportAutomaticActivationRules.aspx page. For more details see the Automatic Activation Rules help topic.
• Country Restrictions button. This takes you to the LiveSupportCountryRestrictions.aspx page. For more details see the Country Restrictions help topic.
• History Log button. This takes you to the LiveSupportStatusHistory.aspx page. For more details see the 'Live Chat History Log' section below.

The Live Chat functionality has the ability to automatically translate messages from one language into another. When an IRP Admin User and a customer converse via Live Chat, the IRP will determine if the customer and Admin User are typing in different languages, and if so, will prompt both users to enable or disable automatic translation by presenting a slide down notification bar below the Live Chat top bar.

Regardless of the choice, a 'Toggle Translation' button will be added to the Live Chat top bar so that if the user changes their mind about their choice, they can toggle the functionality on or off.

If the user chooses to enable automatic translation, the messages typed by their chat partner will be automatically translated into the user's language. If the user toggles the translation off, the original message will be displayed instead. If any messages are received before toggling the translation on, the previously-untranslated messages will be translated and the translation will be displayed.

For more information about the Application Settings associated with this feature, see the Live Chat Settings help topic.

When you connect to a Live Chat session as an Admin User, an automatic greeting will be sent as the first message being sent to the customer. You can set this greeting message via Small Translation ID 2630. You can also personalise the Small Translation with a {0} placeholder, which will insert your Live Support Name, or your First Name if your Live Support Name is not set.

The personalisation placeholder is optional and you can also use a general greeting without the {0} placeholder.

Live Chat features the ability to display links as link previews, akin to Twitter and Facebook. Whenever a link is sent via Live Chat, if the message contains only that link then a link preview message will be displayed, showing a relevant image, the page title and a description from the page.

Link previews will only be displayed when the message sent contains a link and nothing else. If additional text is sent along with the link, or if multiple links are sent in the same message, a normal message will be sent with the links being styled like hyperlinks.

Live Chat status history logs track every instance when the functionality is enabled and disabled throughout the system — manually, automatically via Automatic Activation Rules or threshold Application Settings. You can view an audit log by clicking the History Log button at the top of the LiveSupport.aspx page. The LiveSupportStatusHistory.aspx page then appears as follows:

You can find any event by using the search bar, and if you expand 'Other Options, by using date range parameters. The main grid on the page shows details of each event, including the Admin User name and timestamp of the event.

1. A customer clicks the Live Chat button on the front end:
   
   They will see the following pop-up window indicating that a Support Agent will soon respond to them:
   
2. The customer has the option to mute the sound using the icon at the bottom of the window. If the sound is unmuted, a jingle will be played upon the Admin connection. The jingle will also be played when messages are received when the window is minimised, or if a message is received while the focus is not on the browser window.
   • The customer can minimise the window using the icon at the top-right corner; if they do minimise the window, it will subsequently be maximised to alert the customer that a Support Agent has responded to them.
3. The customer types in a question and clicks the Send icon. The customer will see a message indicating that an operator will be with them shortly and will show what position they are in the queue. The queue number is updated dynamically as the customer becomes closer to being answered.
   • Note also that there is an icon in the bottom bar of the window that allows the customer to email a transcript of the chat session to an address of their choosing. This icon will be available to the customer right to the end of the session. The messages that have been submitted both by the customer and by the Support Agent will show the time of the message below the message content.
4. On the Admin side, you will be alerted to the message if your Admin User account has been configured to allow this (i.e. the setting Show Live Support Browser Notifications is checked on your account). The status of the message at this stage is ‘Waiting’ on the LiveSupport.aspx page.
5. To respond to the customer, click the Connect button (if another Admin User has connected to the customer, the session will have a status of ‘Chatting’ and you can also join the conversation). Both you and the customer will then see similar windows and you can type your message and click the ‘Send’ icon.
   • When you are typing, the customer sees a typing gif image.
   • Text-to-emoticon functionality is available for basic emoticons. On mobile, users can also use an emoticon keyboard.
   • You can add a note about the customer by clicking the 'pencil' icon.
6. If you have a Live Chat Name set in your Admin User account, it will be displayed to the customer; if not, the first name of your account name will be displayed instead. In addition, if you have a Live Chat Photo set against your account, it will be displayed to the customer.
   • The customer will see the message 'You are connected to <name>'.
   • The status of the session is now ‘Chatting’ and the session continues for as long as is necessary.
   • Using the top bar of the chat window, you can exit the chat at any time to view customer information such as shipping country, language, device and basket value.
   • The number of messages in the session is displayed in a count on the chat window and is incremented with each new message.
7. You can send vouchers to the customer using the Live Chat window:
   • Voucher permissions for Live Chat are available for Super Admin groups, Agency groups and their corresponding child groups for Admin Users. You can also give an individual permission to create vouchers by enabling the setting called Allow Voucher Creation In Live Chat on the AdminUserEdit.aspx page.
   • Vouchers are one-time use, free vouchers with the description 'Live Chat Voucher'.
   • You click the '%' icon in the chat window to create vouchers; you can then select the voucher type, discount amount, lifetime (days) and minimum basket value.
   • The Send voucher now button sends the voucher in the chat window as a message. If more than one voucher is sent in the chat window, the previous voucher will be deleted and display as voided in the chat window.
   • Sent vouchers are available on the Vouchers.aspx and VouchersTrade.aspx pages. There is also a shortcut for these on the LiveSupportSearch.aspx page.
   • On the customer side of the chat, the voucher will be displayed as a message with an Add to basket button which adds the voucher to the customer's basket and re-directs them to the basket page. (This feature will only be available on Trade sites for logged-in customers. The pop-up will toggle closed for mobile users when re-directed to the basket page.)
8. When you or the customer are finished with the session, either of you can click the ‘Complete’ button. Both of you will see a message stating 'This chat session has been marked as complete by the operator'.
   • A confirmation dialog box is displayed when an attempt is made to complete the session. This should reduce the frequency that customers end sessions accidentally by clicking the 'Complete' button.
   • The customer can rate your responses by clicking the 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' icons.
9. If subsequently you want to view the completed session, search for ‘Completed’ sessions on the LiveSupport.aspx page and click the View button. A pop-up window showing the completed chat session will be displayed.
   • Using the icons at the bottom of the window, you can also email a transcript of the session to an address of your choosing or add a note about the customer.
10. If for any reason you want to mark a session as ‘Unanswered’, click the Unanswered button (this option will be available only if the session has not been set to ‘Completed’).
11. When a chat session results in an order, the name of the Admin User associated with the chat is shown on the order record on the Orders.aspx and OrderManage.aspx pages. You can view the transcript of the chat by clicking View Chat button:
    
    • If the same Admin User closes other sales via the Live Chat feature, they will see the message 'You have helped to close X sale(s) today' displayed in the chat window.