PureClarity's auto messaging feature allows you to show messages and chat bots to your customers automatically and can be set up to be sent to various audience segments.

This feature uses segments to allow you to target different messaging or chat bots to different customers. For example, show different messaging to your key account customers, or display a chat bot asking about what a customer is interested in to first time visitors.

For chat bots, you can also record the steps they click on against each customer and segment your customers using these responses. Combine this with personalised content and pop ups to create dynamic experiences tailored to your customers.

NOTE: live chat auto messages will only be shown to your customers once.

To get to the auto messaging page, click on 'Chat' in the admin menu and then 'Auto Messaging'.

If you've not created any messages, a panel will show with some introductory text and a button so you can start creating your first message.

If you have one or more messages set up, then these will be shown in a list.

To create an auto message, you can click on the "Add messaging" button at the top of the page, or in the introductory panel if you haven't already got any messages.

This will bring up the creation page, where you have multiple options to choose from:

The "Who do you want to show the chat message to?" panel allows you to choose the audience segment that you want to show the message to. Clicking the drop down arrow will show all your existing segments.

You can also use the "Create Segment" link on the right hand side of the panel, this will bring up the "Add New Segment" panel where you can create a new segment without navigating away from the message create page.

You can select the 'Context' of where you want your message to appear -selecting the drop down list, will list the various options.

Use "all pages" to show the message regardless of where the customer is on your site. You can be more specific as well, for example sending a message to customers who are viewing a product in a particular category for example.

There are several options for controlling when the chat message or chat bot will be shown. You can base it on a date and time range or whether the customer is on your site in business hours.

You can also set the chat message to only appear if the operator has not responded.

Leave blank (the default) to always show it, or enter the dates and times it can be shown. You can use this to push messaging for a key retail event such as Black Friday or Christmas.

If you have set up your office hours in Settings -> Configuration, then this message will only be shown during this period. You can use this to highlight that your live chat operators are standing by to help for example.

If you have set up your office hours in Settings -> Configuration, then this message will only be shown outside this period. You can use this to let customers know that no chat operators are available, and to leave contact details.

This setting controls whether the message will be sent after a chat is started, but not responded to within a specified time period. Turn this on to apologise for no response from an operator, and to ask for contact details. You can choose how long to wait before the message is shown.

TOP TIP: We suggest using a no operator response message and turning on the setting for forwarding unanswered chats to an email address. This way you can ask the customer for contact details, and follow up when you are next in the office.

You can combine a no operator response with the date & time and office hours settings to show different responses depending on why the operator is not available. If the entire office is closed over the holiday season for example you may want to show a different response to when a customer messages during the middle of a working day.

NOTE: If you're showing a normal chat message to a customer, it will only be shown once. When the customer returns to the site they can view their chat history to see messages sent previously.

NOTE: If you're showing a chat message because the operator has not responded, they will see this message once per session. When they come back to the site they would get shown it again if the operator did not respond again.

Tags can be added for the message. These appear on the list of chat auto messages, and help to identify them. Use notes to record information about the auto message that might be useful later, or to other team members.

This is a simple message that is shown to the user. There are many uses for this, such as, asking for customer contact details out of hours, or providing more information about a certain product or brand.

You'll see a preview of your message below. The chat message can be edited using the tools in the chat message box, allowing you to insert links, headers, images and other elements.

Chat bots allow you ask questions, and provide options for the customer to respond with. Depending on their response you can follow up with further questions.

To create a chat bot, you need to create steps that ask questions or give instructions, which can then be linked to follow up questions or responses.

Steps list

The steps list appears in the left hand side of the chat bot panel, it lists all current steps in the chat bot. There is one "welcome" step created by default.

Note: the welcome step included by default cannot be re-ordered or removed, this is so that you always have a first step in the chat bot.

Adding/Editing Steps

Click on the "Add New Step" button in the steps list, and a new step will be added with default options. This will also show the step content panel.

You can also click on a step name in the step list, and it will bring up the step content panel for the step.

The Step Content has 3 parts.

Name

The Step name it for your reference, so that you can find it and link to it from other steps.

Message to show to the user

This is where you'd put a question or an instruction to the customer. If you choose to put a question, then you can configure the options the customer can choose from in the "Next Steps" section.

You will also see a preview on the right hand side of how the message will display to the customer.

These are the options the user can click on in response to the message shown to them. The user will then be shown the next step that they chose.

You can also record their response as part of the data PureClarity holds on each user. To do this, click the "Save User Attribute" toggle.

This allows you to enter a user attribute name & value, which will be stored against the user when they choose this next step.

Once you've saved the chat bot, the attribute will be created and you can create segments based on the user attribute value, and therefore you can use it to personalise other parts of the site.

There are many uses for this, such as asking about their preferences when they first visit the site (tea/coffee or mountain vs road bikes for example). You could then show personalised banners based on their responses for example.

You can re-order next steps by click on on the 6 dots at the left hand side of the next step, then drag it to where you want to

You can delete next step by clicking the red trash icon at the right hand side of the next step row.

In the example below we show a simple chat bot for a bike store. It asks for the customers preference on the type of bike they are interested in.

Depending on the response the customer clicks on, they get shown a message about that type of bike. PureClarity also stores this information in a user attribute.

The site could then show a personalised banner with either a road bike or mountain bike to the user.

Re-ordering Steps

You can change the order of steps in the list, by dragging them using the 6 dot icon next to the name in the step list.

Deleting a Step

To delete a step, click the red trash icon shown next to the step name in the list.

There are a couple of options when saving a chat message, using the buttons at the top of the page.

You can deactivate messages quickly by clicking the toggle icon in the auto messaging list page. A deactivated message will not be shown to customers.

You can also deactivate it by clicking on the edit icon in the list, then clicking the active toggle shown in the top panel on the edit page and pressing the save button.

To delete a message, press the red trash icon in the list, you'll be asked to confirm the action as it cannot be undone.

You can also delete it by clicking on the edit icon in the list, then clicking the delete button at the top of the edit page.