Create and Configure Proactive Chat Campaign

Create and configure Proactive Chat Campaigns to engage with your visitors on web pages where Sidekick is available. Once configured, you can leverage Proactive Chat to greet your visitors with a custom message and invite them to chat with an Agent.

Before you start

Before you create a Campaign, we recommend that you first review the following:

• What is a Proactive Chat
• Agent Experience for Proactive Chat
• Proactive Chat 'Order' and 'Trigger' Overview
• Routing Rules for Proactive Chat Campaigns

You also need to make sure you have Sidekick embedded on your website, even if you're not using Sidekick to enable live chat for Customers seeking support or self-service.

When you are confident that you understand how a Proactive Chat Campaign works, you are ready to create your Campaign. Click Start to see an interactive walkthrough of how to create a Campaign, or follow the instructions below.

Create a Proactive Chat Campaign

1. Click the menu icon on the top left corner of the screen.
2. Click Settings.
3. Under the Proactive Conversations category, click Proactive Chat. The Proactive Chat page will show you a list of current campaigns you have, both active and inactive.
   
4. Click Create Campaign.
5. From the Create a Campaign page, enter the following information:
   • Name – Enter a name for the Campaign. This is the same name that will appear in the Conversation Timeline. Make sure it's a name that makes it easy to identify the Campaign. See Agent Experience for Proactive Chat for more information.
   • Description – Enter a description for the Campaign. This is the same description that appears in the Conversation Timeline. Make sure it's descriptive enough to give Agents enough context on what the Campaign is for. See Agent Experience for Proactive Chat for more information.
   • Order – Enter the order of priority for the Campaign. "1" is the highest priority. If there is another Campaign with all of its Triggers met first, it will display first.
6. Next, you need to set up the Campaign Trigger(s) and Actions. 
   • Triggers – Select the Conditions that a Campaign must meet before a Proactive Chat Campaign is displayed to visitors. See Proactive Chat 'Order' and 'Trigger' Overview to learn more about the Triggers.
     
     • By default, Proactive Chat Campaigns apply to all pages where Sidekick is embedded unless a URL is specified.
     • If using URL as a Trigger, do not include the URL protocol (i.e., https://) or commas as part of the URL.
   • Actions – Determines what happens if Trigger(s) are met.
     
     • Greeting – The first message or greeting displayed to the visitor when the Proactive Chat Campaign is launched.
7. Indicate if you want the Campaign to follow your current chat throttling setting and if you want to skip onboarding.
   • Ignore chat throttling – By default, a Campaign will follow the chat throttling (auto or manual) thresholds currently set up for a Sidekick instance. Check this box if you want to ignore the chat throttling rules for a Sidekick instance. The Campaign will still respect your Sidekick business hour settings. Proceed with caution, as disregarding your chat wait times could mean visitors may need to be queued and may sometimes have longer than desired wait times.
     • If you don't check this box and set up a Campaign, you can use the "Estimated Wait Time" Trigger, which will only allow a Proactive Chat Campaign to engage if the estimated wait time is less than the threshold you configured.
   • Skip onboarding – If onboarding is activated on your Sidekick instance, checking this box skips the onboarding process (i.e., asking for the visitor's name and email address) and immediately starts a chat session.
     • If you check this box, Gladly won't identify if the visitor is a known Customer or not and will create a blank Customer Profile.
8. Click Save. Next, you can preview what the Campaign would look like.

Preview Campaign Greeting in Sidekick

Next, you can preview what a Campaign greeting would look like to a visitor when shown through the Sidekick preview feature. From there, click the Preview Sidekick with Proactive Chat checkbox to preview what a Campaign would look like to a website visitor.

Route Campaigns to a specific Inbox using Rules

Once a Campaign is saved, and you have an idea of what it would look like to a visitor, you have the option to create a Rule to route chat requests from a Campaign to a specific Inbox. By default, without a Rule configured to route chats from a Campaign, the visitor will be routed to the Inbox that Sidekick (chat) is linked to in the Entry Point settings page.

1. Click the menu icon on the top left corner of the screen.
2. Click Settings.
3. Under the Routing category, click Rules. The Rules page will list all the Rules that have been created, active or not.
4. On the top right of the page, click Create Rule.
   
5. Set up the following to set up your Rule:
   • Trigger
     • Use Communication is received Rule Trigger.
   • Condition
     • Use Proactive Chat is Rule Condition to identify chat requests from a Proactive Chat Campaign.
       
     • Tip – Click View Campaign to view the selected Campaign's settings.
   • Actions
     • Use Route to Inbox Rule Action to route incoming chat requests from a Campaign to a specific Inbox.
     • Use Add Topics Rule Action to apply Topic(s) to Proactive Chat Conversations automatically.
6. Click Save. Next, double-check your Sidekick Display Rules.

Check the Sidekick Display Rules

Next, double-check your Sidekick Display Rules. Proactive Chat Campaigns work with Sidekick Display Rules to determine which pages the Campaign appears on, but keep in mind that Campaign Triggers could override Sidekick Display Rules. For example, Campaign Triggers will ignore the Sidekick Display Rules if a Campaign is set to appear on a specific URL, but Sidekick Display Rules have an exception to hide Sidekick on the same URL.

Test a Campaign before it's made live on your website

If you want to launch a Campaign on the URL 'retalé.com/new-products,' add '?=[your test name]' to the end of the URL in your Campaign (i.e. 'retalé.com/new-products?=TESTNOV2020'). The text after the ?= can be anything, but it should be unique, so your regular Customers don't inadvertently see the Campaign.

Once you've saved your Campaign, you can test it by navigating to 'retalé.com/new-products?=TESTNOV2020' on your browser. Once you have confirmed everything is working correctly, remove '?=TESTNOV2020' from the URL Trigger. Continue to tweak your Campaign until it looks just right after which, remove the addition you made to the end of your URL Trigger in your Campaign, click Save, and your Campaign should work just as you mean it to.