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Getting started with My Customer Cloud

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Add accounts for your chat operators

Use the admin site to configure and manage your chat service. Part of the configuration and management of your service involves adding new chat operator accounts. When you first start with your free trial, there will be just one user account, yours. Another aspect of configuration and management is the creation of queues. Queues group chat operators (usually by specialty or department). By associating queues with chat widgets, you can direct incoming chats to the most appropriate resource. More on that later.

To add new chat operators: In the admin site, click on the green plus sign (+) in the Users panel located at the top, left-hand side of the Users tab.

Grouping chat operators by specialty or department with queues: In the admin site, click on the green plus sign (+) in the Queues panel located at the top, left-hand side of the Queues tab. Once you've created a queue, you'll need to assign chat operators to staff the queue. To assign an operator to a queue, select the queue in the Queues panel and click the Add/Remove Operators button. Move the desired user(s) from the Unassigned column to the Assigned column. Repeat the assignment step for each operator you wish to assign to the queue.

Very important - the admin site is not used for chat, only for configuration and management. For chat, you'll want to learn how to answer incoming chats.

Add chats widgets to your website

Use the admin site to configure and manage your chat service. Part of the configuration and management of your service involves creating widgets for your website. Widgets can be easily customized to match the look and feel of your website. The admin site is also used to generate the HTML and JavaScript for the chat widget that need to be embedded in your web page.

To create a new widget for your website: In the admin site, click on the Design Widgets tab and then the Widgets sub-tab. Click on the New Widget button. Experiment with all the possible settings to create the perfect widget for your site. When you are satisfied with the look and feel of your widget, click the Save Skin button located at the bottom, left-hand side of the page.

To add a widget to your website: In the admin site, click on the Design Widgets tab. Make sure the Code sub-tab is selected.

  1. Add a code snippet for your chat service by clicking on the green plus sign (+) in the Choose Code Snippet panel. Click on the newly added code snippet. Under Widget Type select, the type of widget you'd like to use.
  2. OPTIONAL. Contingency options control what is displayed to visitors on your website under three conditions. The No JavaScript option is displayed to visitors if they do not have JavaScript enabled on their browsers. Because the chat widget requires JavaScript in order to work, visitors with JavaScript disabled on their browser will not be able to chat. The Offline option is displayed when none of the operators associated with a queue are available to chat. The Online option is displayed when at least one of the operators associated with a queue is available to chat. Embedded widgets do not have an online option because the widget itself is shown.
  3. Add a service level to your code snippet by clicking on the green plus sign (+) in the Chat Service Levels panel. Click on the newly added service level. The Name column allows you to select which queue or user you'd like to associate with a widget. The Widget column allows you to select the widget that will be displayed. Chat service levels enable service rollover, which can be used to preferentially display a widget for one queue over another on the same web page.
  4. Save the code snippet. Then copy and paste the Generated Code for Your Website into your web page. Once the code snippet is included in your web page, you can tweak your widget, update contingency options, and even add/remove service levels without modifying your web page.

Answer incoming chats

Each My Customer Cloud chat operator account is a Jabber/XMPP account. You can use this account to answer incoming chats in any IM client that supports the Jabber/XMPP protocol.

We recommend that you use the web chat client while you are getting comfortable with the system. Our webchat client offers integrated transfer, send file, tagging, and e-mail transcript capabilities. It also displays visitor IP address and referring URL.

You can also use a 3rd party IM client (must support Jabber/XMPP) to answer incoming chats. This is a particularly attractive option for answering chats on-the-go using your favorite mobile device. More information on using 3rd party IM clients is available in our documentation.

Monitor chats & analyze chat statistics

Use the admin site to configure and manage your chat service. Part of the configuration and management of your service involves monitoring chats and analyzing your chat statistics.

To monitor current chat activity or see previous chats: In the admin site, click the Activity tab. In this tab, you can monitor real-time activity on the system, intervene in any active chat by transferring it to another queue or operator, and download a CSV (comma separated values) file of your call histories. You can perform any of these actions over a range of dates and queues using the calendar page view.

To analyze chat statistics and generate reports: In the admin site, click the Reports tab. You can generate reports of chats per hour, month, protocol, queue, and operator. These reports provide quality control measures for your service and the information contained within the reports can be used to improve your customer service over time.

Add SMS chat or IM identities

Use the admin site to configure and manage your chat service. Part of the configuration and management of your service includes introducing add-ons like SMS chat or IM networks. These add-ons are called gateways. To add SMS chat, visit our mobile documentation. To integrate IM identities, visit our IM gateways documentation.