You can require customers to enter information, like name, phone number, or a question, by enabling the pre-chat form.
To enable the pre-chat form
- From the dashboard, select Settings > Widget.
- Click Forms at the top of the page.
- Next to Pre-Chat Form, click On.
- Select the information you want end users to enter before they can start a chat, like in
the example below:
Some of the displayed options vary depending on your settings in other areas:
-
For the Require Phone Number option to appear, you must select Allow Phone Number under the Visitor Profile section of the same page.
-
For the Require Department option to appear, you have to have departments enabled. For details, see Creating agents and departments.
In rare situations, information required in the pre-chat form may not be passed into the chat:
- If the chat is started by a proactive trigger, the pre-chat form requirement is bypassed and chats can be created without users having to fill in their name and email address. For more information, see Why do I keep receiving chats with no customer contact information?
- If a chat is interrupted or disconnected, pre-chat data may not be reapplied upon reconnection, including department and visitor tags.
34 Comments
I wanna add Attachment field on Pre-chat Form, how to do that?
Hi Thawanrat,
This is currently not possible in the Web Widget and Chat Standalone widget.
If this is something you need now, you will need to create a custom widget using the Web SDK. You can learn more about the Web SDK here: https://api.zopim.com/web-sdk
Thanks,
Ramin
Hi !
Can we amend the language for "Choose a department" ? I'd like to translate it in two different languages, everything is translated instead of this section.
Thank you
Hi there emillie,
You will need to use the Javascript API to translate the custom text for different languages: https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/liveChatAPI/Departments-js.html#$zopim.livechat.departments.setLabel
-Ramin
I've set up triggers to automatically route chats between our two departments, one based on the exclusion of the other so it covers all visitors.
Is there a way to hide the Choose a Department field? We want this to be on our side only, not in the customer's control or view.
Hi Nicole,
You can use the filter API to remove the dropdown from the pre-chat form: https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/liveChatAPI/Departments-js.html#$zopim.livechat.departments.filter
If you need help using the API, please email chat@zendesk.com
Thanks,
Ramin
i setting live chat box require phone number. but about 15 second live chat box auto open.
how i can turn off this(auto open live chat box though visiter not input any things ).
Thanks
Hi Do Linh,
You have a trigger turned on, you can turn off the triggers by going to Settings---Triggers inside the Chat dashboard.
-Ramin
We find that the pre-chat form is a little overwhelming, is there a way to remove the department & phone number forms so that customer only has to enter their name, email address & a message?
Hi there Emylee,
You can use the javascript APIs to hide the department dropdown and you can disable phone number requirement from the Chat dashboard.
If you are using the Chat standalone widget:
https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/liveChatAPI/Departments-js.html#$zopim.livechat.departments.filter
If you are using the Web Widget:
https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/widget/settings#departments
Thanks,
Ramin
Even if you don't make the phone number required, it still crowds the pre-chat form. How do you hide this? It's obvious zendesk knows and understands that the more information a company asks for, the less likely a customer will actually contact them, because when i click the widget on your homepage, only the email address and a message show on the form. why then is it standard to force (required or not) name, email, phone, department & message to populate on the pre-chat form for your users, and not give us settings to disable any of the items we deem unnecessary?
Hi Emylee,
If you disable the checkbox, the phone number field goes away. If you are not seeing this in your account, please contact support@zendesk.com
With the settings and using the Javascript APIs, you can make it so you just ask for name and their message.
If you already have their name/email address, you can set that information using the Javascript APIs also and the visitor just sends their message.
-Ramin
Hello Zendesk,
Is it possible to customise a link when it is put in the pre-chat greetings field?
E.g. instead of it showing the hyperlink as https://www.zendesk.com/company/customers-partners/master-subscription-agreement/ then I would like it to show as a simple Terms & Conditions.
Best,
Martin
Hi Martin,
Currently, you cannot hyperlink text inside the pre-chat or offline form. It only supports hyperlinking of full links and we have no immediate plans to change this.
If you want to reduce the size of the link, you can look into using a URL shortener tool like bit.ly.
Thanks,
Ramin
Hi Ramin Shokrizadeh,
Thank you so much for the answer!
Best,
Martin
Hello,
How can I add drop down list with contact reasons to pre-chat form?
Mateusz S Currently, there are no options to add custom pre-chat/offline form fields. If you need this today, you will need to build a custom widget using the Web SDK.
I'm hoping at some point soon Zendesk will start to allow companies with little to no resources to customize the widget via SDK/API to be able to point and click to do things like remove "Choose a Department" or add fields from support onto the prechat form, and utilize dynamic content on the widget.
Please consider the non-developers administering Zendesk!
Thanks,
Heather
Hello Heather Rommel
You are absolutely right that we'd love to see the product continue to be accessible to everyone, developer and non-developer alike. The product team is continually working to get the chat features integrated into the Web Widget and overall more accessible within the UI itself.
I expect you have already, but if not, I definitely encourage you to add your voice to the product feedback section to put some customer weight and experience behind a need for these changes. If you're able to share examples of how this impacts your business or how it would improve your experience with the product, even better! As a Community Moderator you can also reach out in the moderator slack or connect up with our team that way to have a conversation as well!
Here is a link to get you started just in case: Product Feedback Guidelines & how to write an effective feedback post.
I hope that helps!
Hello,
Is there any way to add a email prompt dialog to triggered chat window?
Example: we configured a trigger for every visitor of our site. Chat shows greeting window with some text message. When visitor sent message in response to triggered chat, we need to get visitor email address. Is it possible to do this?
Thanks
Hello Vitaliy Galushka,
Unfortunately when a conversation with a visitor is started with a chat trigger, this bypasses the pre-chat form.
One work around solution I could think of would be to create a follow-up chat trigger that goes off when a customer responds that would say "thank you for your reply, an agent will be with you shortly. So that we can serve you better, please provide your email address".
I hope that helps!
Hello,
Is it possible to use a pre-configured ticket forms (contact form) before starting a chat instead of the given pre-chat.-form?
To explain: To start a chat we require the custom ticket fields that are configured in the ticket forms.
Thanks
Hi ppelaez03
Unfortunately it is not possible to switch or edit the pre-chat form. This is a limitation of the chat product. That being said, there are some work arounds explained in this article: How to customize the pre-chat form.
I hope that helps!
Hello !
Thank you for all this information!
I have a question about the Chat preform :
- I display the Chat in the Help Center.
- When my visitor is not connected, it is normal to ask for his email and his name in the preform.
- On the other hand, when he is connected, I would like not to ask him and automatically recognize him in my chat.
- When I start the chat, my visitor authenticated on the HC is not recognized in the Chat ... and he is asked for his name and email in the preform.
Do you have a solution ?
Thanks !
Serge.
Hi Serge,
If you'd like to have a visitor authentication on your WebWidget, you can do so by setting up JWT authentication. You can find the steps to do so in this articles.
If the user is authenticated successfully, then the name and email won't be asked and they'll simply have to enter their message and the chat will start.
Hope that this helps!
Hello, I implemented the integration of visitors
through jwt, so my customers click on a button on
my website and then they are directed to the
zendesk support screen, there is only one problem,
on this screen there is the chat and I noticed
that the "name" fields and "e-mail" although
already filled in, they can be edited.
how can I do so that the user cannot edit
these fields in the pre-chat?
Hi Raphael, you can hide the fields using Javascript, you just need to change my "xszt60-1.dLJShQ" for your widget's unique ID:
<script type="text/javascript">
zE('webWidget:on', 'open', function () {
var style = document.createElement('style');
style.innerHTML = `.xszt60-1.dLJShQ > div:nth-child(1) {display: none;}`;
style.innerHTML += `.xszt60-1.dLJShQ > div:nth-child(2) {display: none;}`;
parent.document.getElementById('webWidget').contentDocument.head.appendChild(style);
});
</script>
Hello,
We are working on enabling chat for our company. We would like to customize the prechat form, and I do understand it is done via SDK/API for the widget. However, we will be utilizing the link and not the widget to initiate chat. Is it still possible to customize this prechat form?
Hi Nicole!
Thanks for reaching out!
My understanding is you are going to use the direct link to a live chat popout window instead of using the widget and wanting to customize the pre-chat form.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to customize the pre-chat form in the direct link. By default, it would follow your Widget appearance settings from the Chat dashboard. You could only customize the language from a direct chat link.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Adrian
I'm not seeing the pre-chat form in settings --> widget. Is this still there?
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