The ACE Chat function enables customers visiting a company's website to request and participate in a chat conversation with an agent in the company's contact centre.
This is what you basically need:
- A Chat client for the web visitors, integrated in your website with ACE Web SDK.
- The sub product ACE Chat Engine handling the server side of the chat.
- ACE Agent, which is the interface used by the chatting contact centre staff.
In A chat flow example you can see a scenario with all components involved.
ACE Chat operates both in the cloud service as well as in an on-premises system. You will find a simple overview of the cooperation between the different servers in documents Configuration Instructions ACE Chat and Operation Manual Telia ACE.
The ACE Web SDK toolbox can also be used to set up functionality for co-browsing and proactive web as described in the document Configuration Instructions ACE Web SDK.
Flexible media for the agent
Chat in ACE Agent can be compared with other media, such as e.g. incoming calls or emails.
- Queues and waiting lists for chat are shown with their own icons in the queue status window, just like the other contact types.
- Chatting can be mixed with work in other media.
- Facts about a chat in progress, or a concluded chat in wrap-up, are shown in the area for contacts in progress.
- Chat sessions can be parked and reactivated any number of times.
- You can make a telephony enquiry and transfer an active chat to the enquired agent or to a selected queue.
- Information about handled chat contacts is shown in the Statistics during the day, and My contacts, as well as the Interaction View function areas.
One major difference to ACE Chat when compared to the other services in ACE is that the chat contacts are handled in their own particular window, and that agents can choose to either handle one chat at the time or to have a number of chat sessions in progress concurrently.
The contact centre staff cannot use ACE Agent to chat with each other. If you want to chat internally, you could have an extra ACE Chat Engine placed inside your network and integrate a chat client on e.g. your Intranet web page. Chat requests from co-workers would then be seen in ACE Agent in the same way as for external customers.
A chat client for the web visitors
ACE Web SDK is a collection of interfaces helping you to create an easy to use chat for the web visitors. Technically the chat client is an implementation in HTML5 using JavaScript, HTML, CSS and the chat API in ACE Web SDK.
You can either
- use the included reference implementation of a chat client as is
- use the reference client as a template for modifications
- or create your own chat client
The ACE Web SDK toolbox can also be used to set up functionality for co-browsing and proactive web.
Features in the chat client
Below you see what is offered with the reference implementation of a chat client, which can be used out-of-the-box.
- The chat is integrated in the web pages but can be moved around on the page freely. It can also be broken out as a separate window on the screen and docked into the web page again.
- Both text chat and video chat is possible.
- The customer can during chat navigate to various pages without affecting the ongoing chat session. This includes going to pages outside the website, as well as reload of the current page.
- The customer can during chat open several browser tabs in the website. The chat client looks the same in all these tabs, with synchronized update.
- The chat client is responsive to the type of device, and render in full screen mode in mobile phones.
- The customer can enter an initial question/sentence with is included when the chat starts, which saves time and helps the agent to prepare an answer.
- In the initial chat view you can make the determine which fields to be filled in by the customer . The values will be sent to ACE as contact data and can be used for identification of the customer, routing and other purposes.
- During the chat session, the customer (and the agent) can see when the other party is in progress of writing a chat entry.
- The chat client can show clickable links in chat entries and standard messages sent by the agent or the system.
- When the chat is finished, the chat client can continue to show the complete conversation (surviving page navigations etc. as described above) until the customer explicitly closes the chat client.
- The chat client can offer the customer to have the complete chat conversation sent as an email provided that the ACE Email function is installed in the solution.
Inviting an additional participant to an ongoing chat
Sometimes it may be necessary to include an additional participant in a chat. As an example, consider the situation where an interpreter is required in order to translate the conversation between the agent and the customer.
Agents can invite an additional participant to an ongoing chat by having the system to create an invitation link that the agent can send to the participant via email or sms. When the participant follows the link in a web browser, the participant is connected to the ongoing chat.
The invitation function is supported by the reference chat client for both text chat and video chat.
When an invited participant enters an ongoing chat, the invited participant will not be presented with the chat conversation produced so far. The reason is that this part of the chat may include information that is not to be shown to the invited participant. When the chat ends, the invited participant will likewise not be offered to have the chat conversation via email (as it may include information that is not to be shown to the invited participant).
Normally when a participant leaves the chat, the chat session ends for the other party. This does however not apply to invited participants. If an invited chooses to leave the chat, it will continue for the other participants.
If the invited participant enters the chat when video is in progress, the invited will immediately be offered to enter the video chat.
There are specific standard phrases shown to all participants in the chat as an invited participant enters or leaves the chat. There are also specific standard phrases and information messages only shown to the invited participant when the chat ends for the invited. This gives for example the opportunity to avoid offering survey to an invited.
See Chat and video with more than one participant
Configuration of ACE Chat
Major parts of the chat functionality is configured via Admin. See Chat configuration made in ACE Admin.
Configurations of the reference client are made in configuration files loaded in the web page. Examples are:
- the chat entrance to be used
- which contact data values are to be collected
- language, texts displayed on buttons
- styling, i.e. the graphical look
If you have configured your web and your ACE solution for so-called co-browsing the agent can, during chat, initiate a question about sharing a web page with the customer, as seen in Co-browsing – share web page.
Also see Customer interactions online.