Chat triggers allow you to set up automated actions when certain conditions are met for live chat interactions with users.
This article contains the following sections:
Related articles:
Essential facts about chat triggers
In addition to the essential facts that are true of all Zendesk triggers, consider the following information specific to chat triggers:
- In addition to conditions and actions, chat triggers also contain a run event that determines when the trigger runs on live chats.
- Chat triggers don't fire when:
- No agents are online.
- Every agent's availability status is set to Invisible.
Example chat trigger
The following example is a chat trigger that sends a message to users visiting your product's pricing page.
Creating chat triggers
Chat triggers are created on the Chat dashboard.
To create a chat trigger
- From the Chat dashboard, select Settings > Triggers.
- Click Add trigger.
- Enter a name and brief description for your trigger.
- Click Enabled at the top to enable your trigger.
- If the trigger should fire only once per individual, select the Each visitor will receive this message only once check box. Deselect this box if you want the trigger to fire every time an individual meets the trigger conditions.
- In the Customize Trigger section, use the Run trigger drop-down to select
one of the following events that should fire the trigger:
- Select When a visitor has loaded the chat widget if you want the trigger to run when the chat widget appears on the page, but the visitor has not interacted with it.
- Select When a visitor requests a chat if you want the trigger to run when the visitor has requested a chat.
- Select When a chat message is sent if you want the trigger to run when the visitor has entered and sent text in the chat widget.
- Under Check conditions:
- Select Check all of the following conditions if you want every condition you create to be met before the trigger is fired.
- Select Check any of the following conditions if you want one
or more of the conditions you create to be met before the trigger is fired.Note: You cannot use a combination of Check all of the following conditions and Check any of the following conditions when creating a Chat trigger. You can only select one option or the other. This is also not possible in Developer view.
- Select actions under Perform the following actions. To add placeholders, type @.
- Click Create triggers.
When the trigger is created and enabled, a check mark appears in the Enabled column on the Triggers settings page.
Note: If you have multiple triggers that must be executed in a certain order, you need
to add at least one second of wait time between each trigger. This is required due
to the fact that triggers do not run in a particular order and are evaluated and
executed simultaneously.
15 comments
Kelly
When will all the same chat triggers be available for messaging?
4
Jozsef Hajdu
Hi, I would like to fire a trigger only once per client: sending them a one time message. Even if I set fire once per visitor, if the user logs out and logs back again it will fire again. How could we fix this? Thank you!
0
Anthony Brantley
Hi I'm unable to select "When a visitor has loaded the chat widget" as a trigger. Is this possible?
0
DJ Buenavista Jr.
How are you accessing your chat triggers? You can select it from the Chat dashboard > Settings > Triggers.
It can be selected from the "Run trigger" option. Kindly check the screenshot I've shared above for reference.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
0
Anthony Brantley
When I follow your instructions these are the options I see. What do I need to change to get teh option for "when visitor has loaded the chat widget"?
![](/hc/user_images/7wCuhblgBSm24wvDZVb0sg.png)
0
DJ Buenavista Jr.
You need to change your selected Channel, the reason why you're not seeing the following option is that you have messaging selected as Channel.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
0
Test user
Hi! I have the same question as Anthony Brantley And the only channel option is Messaging even though I'm in Chat settings.
0
Jason Schaeffer
It is possible you are accessing it from the Admin Center and not in the actual Chat product. Depending on when you enabled Messaging you may need to disable and re enable to see these options. The below article is specific to Chat Triggers in Messaging.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822204698-Chat-triggers-in-messaging
Thanks!
0
Chris Smith
Need some clarification. This article indicates chat triggers will not fire if no agents are online. Yet, in selecting trigger conditions, there's the option of Account status - offline or Department status - offline. In many/most instances, the offline status presupposes no agents are online. So, how do you reconcile what seems to be a contradiction?
1
Gab Guinto
The Account status - Equals - Offline condition statement is not applicable for sending a message to the visitor but it can work for triggers that do other things like add/remove tags, set visitor name or append notes. This isn't clear since the dropdown options do not filter currently, but this is definitely something that can be improved on down the road (changing the behavior in the UI or updating our docs about chat triggers).
Thanks Chris!
0
Siddharth Gupta
Hi,
How can I access the Chat triggers revision history?
Regards,
0
Gabriel Manlapig
I'm afraid, we don't have the revision history feature for Chat triggers. This feature is only available to Zendesk Support > Business rules > Triggers.
For reference, please see this article: Viewing the trigger revision history
I hope this answer your question. Thank you!
-1
Bill Reed
What role (in Support or Chat) is required to create or modify a chat trigger? Does it need to be an Admin?
0
Viktor Osetrov
Yes, it is. Only Chat Admins can create and edit chat triggers:
Hope it helps
0
Nikki Goodson
I'd suggest an update to this article in the section about cloning a trigger.
Step 4 makes it sound like when cloning, then any changes must be done in the code from the Developer view. The truth is, you can copy/paste the code from another trigger, then switch back to visual and edit it as before. Much easier than trying to update the Developer code.
0