At our last Community event were joined by Zendesk Product Manager Paul Lalonde, who was on deck walking us through the functionality that can be used to deliver personalized experiences at scale. He covered both out-of-the-box Messaging functionally as well as more advanced ways it could be extended using the Sunshine Conversations platform. We also had the privilege of hosting Community Moderator Brandon Tidd from Zendesk Partner 729 Solutions and Mac Carmichael of Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, who discussed how their teams use and implement Messaging and share their expert advice and insights.
Video Recording
Q&A Summary
Q: How would I use chat triggers to let customers know that no agents are available or that they are away?
A: we aren't able to key off of agent status in messaging yet however you could just set up a static trigger that lets them know everyone is on lunch or change your schedule to account for lunch/training times
Q: Do we have a back step or start new inquiry yet in Messaging?
A: Not at this time, however we do have the ability to clear the widget cache which would result in the widget starting over if the page is closed and reopened
Documentation:
Add "Back" step in "Flow Builder" : Community Post
Q: Can Zendesk be used for a dual purpose of not just external for customers but also for internal as a help feature for employees?
A: Yes, we've seen customers setup different 'brands' for external vs internal customers - each brand can then have its own bot. That said, gated content currently can't be 'seen' by the bot.
Q: How does a customer start a new conversation from the Messaging web widget? Otherwise all their queries are treated as one long, un-sortable, un-trackable ticket.
A: With sunshine conversations you can enable multiple conversation at the same time instead one long continuous one. Without the advanced APIs you can close the ticket in support which will cause the user to be redirected to the top of flow builder workflow next time they open it or chat it.
Q: Can the Help Center be available to our customers without having to log-in?
A: Yes, you can create an open help center!
Documentation:
Getting started with Guide for your help center: Setting up
Q: can we target users with proactive messaging on any user meta data for building conditions?
A: Currently proactive chatting requires our advanced APIs for sunshine conversations but that is possible
Q: I am looking for a way to have flow bot measure expectations when we are within business hours, but no agents are available. For example, we're all at a meeting. Or everybody is at their max capacity for live messaging tickets.
A: For complete customization and utility Sunco could help there. However for out of the box options we do not currently have conditionality for agent or department status as that can cause the widget to look like it's glitching if agents are continuously becoming available and getting maxed out or going on break... Chat triggers can be configured and enabled which can send a message the client if you're all on break.
Q: Is there an upcoming solution to allow reuse of flow builder steps akin to "functions" in programming to prevent the need for extensive copy/paste? It seems like it could complicate future maintenance if those steps need to change.
A: You can already copy and paste entire flows and branches of flows so this tends to be pretty simple to reproduce one tree many times with subtle nuance.
Q: Where do the messages live in Zendesk?
A: Messages endup becoming tickets.
Q: Any advice on how to establish a control group to prove the efficacy of proactive chat and its impact on conversions?
A: You can enable Messaging on a per brand basis, so you can create a new brand or use an existing brand and then use that widget where needed while the other brands can still default to chat.
Q: Can a queue number be set up so customers know where they are in line? Also, can we add additional customer fields so customers can add a phone number?
A: Zendesk has the concept of queue prioritization so this isn't necessarily a number that would always decrease, sometimes it might increase if there's a more important ticket in the queue based on your settings. Wait times are also based on the client needing to wait by the chat, messaging is asynchronous so they could leave and come back an hour later or one minute later this would make this number fluctuate frequently.
Q: Can the tags added during the conversation be used to fill out ticket fields should the conversation end up as a new ticket in Zendesk?
A: Yes, as part of certain flows you can include tags which can be used for routing or setting fields without the client necessarily being asked to set the field.
4 Comments
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"Q: Is there an upcoming solution to allow reuse of flow builder steps akin to "functions" in programming to prevent the need for extensive copy/paste? It seems like it could complicate future maintenance if those steps need to change.
A: You can already copy and paste entire flows and branches of flows so this tends to be pretty simple to reproduce one tree many times with subtle nuance."
I think you missed the point. Having to copy and paste branches of flows is not a good thing, because if you have to change something, you're gonna have to change every single flow that re-uses that part and that makes no sense. It'd be much easier to connect flows to each other.
"Q: How does a customer start a new conversation from the Messaging web widget? Otherwise all their queries are treated as one long, un-sortable, un-trackable ticket.
A: With sunshine conversations you can enable multiple conversation at the same time instead one long continuous one. Without the advanced APIs you can close the ticket in support which will cause the user to be redirected to the top of flow builder workflow next time they open it or chat it."
Once a ticket is closed, and the user is redirected to the top of the flow builder the greeting message is not sent by the chatbot. So the user doesn't really know that it's gone back to the chatbot. You really should have a button to restart it.
Q: Do we have a back step or start new inquiry yet in Messaging?
A: Not at this time, however we do have the ability to clear the widget cache which would result in the widget starting over if the page is closed and reopened
Documentation:
Add "Back" step in "Flow Builder" : Community Post
I had a look at that link but it didn't come up with anything, I presume it's being used here as reference to the question that it's not possible to set a back step for flows?
How would we go about prompting clear on the widget cache as advised above?
Hi Rina,
Messaging has the setting to forget the Widget history and start fresh every time.
You can check this article for more information.
Hope this helps.
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