Using support chat

Support chat (sometimes called Live chat) allows customer care departments to provide help to their website visitors and answer their questions in real time.

Setting up support chat

1. Enable support chat in Settings -> Community -> Chat.
2. Open the Permissions application and provide some users with the Enter support permission for Chat.
3. Place one of the following web parts on a page. We recommend to place one on the root page to make support chat available on all pages.
   • The Chat support request web part displays a button that the visitors can use to initiate chat with support personnel.
   • The Initiated chat web part provides a way for support personnel to start chatting with on-line visitors from the On-line users interface in the Users application.
   • The Automatically initiated chat web part automatically sends the visitor a message after a specified period of time.

You can now go on-line using the support chat toolbar. The toolbar notifies you about new messages and allows you to switch between active conversations.

Available support chat web parts

Chat support request

Displays a control that visitors click to start chatting with a support person. In this case, the site visitor initiates the chat and the support person receives a notification in the user interface. See the Notifications page for details.

If no support person is on-line, the request will be sent by e-mail or won’t be available at all. You can choose between these options in Settings -> Community -> Chat -> Support chat.

Initiated chat

When you place this web part on a page, you will be able to start chat with visitors who are present on the page.

You will be able to chat only with registered users who are logged on. To do that, navigate to Users -> On-line users and click the Initiate chat button to start chatting with the user.

Please note that you need to enable the on-line users feature first.

Automatically initiated chat

This web part automatically displays a predefined message to all visitors after a specified amount of time that they spend on a page. When the message appears, they have two options:

• Reply - opens the support chat window. The visitor can now reply to the message, which then lights up a notification for support personnel in the user interface.
• Close - closes the message without replying. This prevents the message from appearing again for an hour.

The message won’t appear if no support person is on-line.

Going on-line

To go on-line in support chat, you must have the Enter support permission for Chat. When you have the Enter support permission, you access support chat from the header.

1. Click the Support chat icon on the right side of the header.
2. Click Go on-line.

You are on-line in support chat. When a visitor sends their first message, the support chat icon shows a notification. Click the support chat icon to view active support chat requests.