Understand proactive vs outbound chat
Last Update: Nov 2024 Est. Read Time:Kustomer provides different ways to engage your customers in a chat conversation proactively. The table below explains the key differences between the two.
Proactive chat | Outbound chat | |
Description | Proactively engage with customers who are actively viewing your website. 1 proactive chat message is shown to many different users in the defined target audience. Example: popup after x seconds on x page. | Initiate chat conversations with customers who may not be actively viewing your website or mobile app. Specific customers will receive push notifications when an outbound brand initiated conversation has been started, helping you to bring customers back into your app and provide support. Example: send a bulk chat message to customers to alert them of an upcoming sale. |
How to use | Create a conversational assistant rule and turn on the Proactive Chat setting to invite your customers to start a chat conversation using a specific dialog of your assistant flow. | Agents can initiate and send outbound chats via the customer timeline or send customized chat messages using the bulk message feature. |
Audience | Anonymous and authenticated end customers who meet your rule criteria and are viewing your website. | Authenticated end customers that have used Kustomer chat since you turned the feature on in Chat Settings. |
Available on | Web | Web, iOS (v2.6.0+), and Android (v2.9.6+) |
Conversation created? | Conversation does not display on the customer timeline unless the customer engages. | Conversation is always created and displayed on the customer timeline. |
For more information on these features, see: