What’s New: Leaving the Beta Phase, Analytics Raw API, Messenger API, and More
With last Friday’s release, we have left the Unified Messaging beta phase, which means that it is the default product for new signups and our users of the Free product.
Because Unified Messaging is now our default product, the order of the Live Chat and Unified Messaging sections have been swapped.
If you’re not using Unified Messaging yet, note that to enter the Chat Panel, you will need to be in the bottom Live Chat section.
The end of the Unified Messaging beta phase is a big topic that deserves its own dedicated post. This post will instead walk you through the improvements we’ve added to our product with our latest release.
1
Reassign conversations for returning visitors
The main benefit of Unified Messaging is that it allows for both synchronous live conversations as well as asynchronous offline conversations.
We already offered some inactivity prevention options for live conversations (e.g. send inactivity message after 40 seconds if no operator response) and offline ones (e.g. reassign to another operator after 12 hours if no response).
We've now added an option for a common scenario: your contact returns to a conversation, but the assigned operator is not online anymore. With the new setting, you can immediately reconnect this contact with an operator that is online. If no operator is available, an automatic offline message is sent instead.
In your Widget Editor, under Chat > Behavior > Approach , you will see a new offline mode checkbox to reassign revisiting contacts to an online operator if assigned one is unavailable.
This checkbox defines what happens if your contact returns to a conversation and the operator assigned to that conversation is not online. When this checkbox is not selected, the Website Messenger will show an automatic offline reply. When it is selected, the conversation is forwarded to another operator, if available.
Note that this behavior is now the default selection for all Unified Messaging Widgets.
2
Message Center persistent awareness counters
We’ve changed the behavior of the red bubble awareness favicons on the 'Mine' and 'Unassigned' tabs in the Message Center to improve the workflow of your operators. Before, these notification bubbles would disappear once a conversation was assigned and the operator read the message, whether or not a reply was sent.
This however came with various problems: Maybe one operator already saw a message but could not answer right away or passed a conversation to a colleague, in which case the bubbles disappeared in the past and were not a reliable indicator of a conversation still requiring attention.
That’s why now, these bubbles always show the total of all conversations in ‘New’, ‘Open’ or ‘Live’ state. They work in conjunction with all other inbox functionalities to create a "swimlane workflow" approach. A conversation status would for example automatically switch to ‘Pending’ if replied by the operator after a short timeout. And for conversations where no reply is needed, an operator can manually set the status to ‘Pending’ or ‘Ended’.
3
Notification settings update
We’ve cleaned up the notification settings area within the Message Center.
You now find three tabs for the different notification categories: Inactivity Timer, Audio notifications and Browser notifications.
Under Browser notifications, we’ve clarified which events relate to you as an operator, and which relate to updates about your colleagues’ activities.
4
Analytics API
Chat analytics are important to optimize your customer communication, but some of you requested a function for extracting the data from our built-in analytics into your own tracking solutions, CRMs, etc.
Looking for better customer relationships?
Test Userlike for free and chat with your customers on your website, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram.
Read moreThis is now possible through the brand-new Analytics API. Check out the full tutorial here .
5
Messenger API (beta)
With our messenger API, you can control the Website Messenger’s behavior and integration beyond the options we provide in our Messenger settings. We already offered such an API for our old Live Chat product, but for Unified Messaging, we've developed a new, extended version based on the latest technologies.
It allows you to define the start and flow of your chat communication based on your website’s behavior, events and functions. Some ideas on how you could use this:
- Only show the Website Messenger after a cookie consent
- Trigger the chat when your customer’s shopping cart value exceeds a certain limit
- Load/remove the Website Messenger on larger single-page applications
This feature is still in beta. If you’re interested in testing it, please start a chat with us. You can find the tutorial with link to further documentation here .
6
Transcript email logo change
We made a tweak to the email design of transcripts and Contact Email Notifications sent to your customer's email address. Instead of putting the Userlike logo prominently on the top, we’ve moved it down to the bottom of the email.
If you’re on the Business plan , you can add your own logo to appear on the top of these emails and/or remove any reference to Userlike. You can set this in your Widget Editor under Wording > Transcripts .
7
Operator status & widget timeline improvements
We’ve reworked the operator status and Widget timeline tracking . Their accuracy should be much better now. Please let us know if you run into anything that looks incorrect.
8
Configurable columns in the All Conversations area
In a step towards a more operator-customizable UMC, we’ve made the columns in the All Conversation area configurable. Every operator can now create their optimal setup of columns, deciding which ones to show or to hide, and in what sequence they should be ordered.
We hope you enjoy the improvements! Let us know how they work out for you.
Happy chatting!
