Customer Assist

Assistant rules provide a way for your customer experience team to engage website visitors with targeted messages. With rules, you can specify which dialog in your assistant launches when a customer starts a conversation based on a multitude of factors such as the current page they are viewing or their VIP status. You can also proactively initiate a conversation with a customer using this criteria instead of waiting for them to reach out to you. This helps you engage with your visitors and build a stronger customer relationship with them.

In this article

• Create a rule
• Define your audience
• Start a proactive chat
• Set up a rule for a specific SMS or WhatsApp phone number
• Order of assistant rules

Before you create a rule, please note the following:

• An assistant can only belong to one channel at a time and cannot be used across multiple different channels.
• An assistant can have more than 1 rule.
• Each rule can only be used in 1 assistant.

Create a rule

You can create up to 200 rules for your chat, WhatsApp, and SMS assistants. For this example, we created an assistant that welcomes users with a different message depending on whether they are new or existing customers. The rule we create will start a conversation if the user is a new visitor. The following image shows where this dialog is along the conversation path.

To create an assistant rule:

1. Go to Settings> Kustomer IQ > Customer Assist.
2. Select the Rules tab and then select Add Assistant Rule.
3. Enter a name for the rule.
4. Select the channel that has the assistant you want to define an audience for from the Channel drop-down menu. 
   • If creating a rule for the SMS or a WhatsApp channel, you can set up a rule that launches when it detects a specific phone number.
5. Select the assistant you are creating the rule for and then select the dialog you want the assistant to start with if the rule matches. By default, the assistant will start with the Welcome dialog. The Preview pane on the right shows the dialog you selected.

   Note: You can only add a rule to a published assistant.

6. Next, determine what criteria the rule must to start on that dialog or assistant. We are going to launch this dialog if the customer's email address isn't set, indicating they are a first-time visitor, and they've been on the current page for longer than 15 seconds.
   
7. Optionally, select the Use proactive chat check box if you want to automatically start the conversation. For more information, see Start a proactive chat.

   Note: Proactive chat is only available for web.

8. Select Save Changes. Please note that it may take up to 10 minutes to see your rules reflected in your assistant.

As you can see, since the criteria are met, the assistant is skipping the other dialogs in the path and welcoming a new visitor.

Define your audience

With rules, you can use filters to narrow down the exact audience for your assistants. Depending on the channel you're creating the rule for, you can filter down by Company, Conversation, Customer, or Message attributes. 

• Current Page is the page the user is currently on. This field is only supported on web.
• Language is the language the browser is set to.
• Previous Page is the page that the user was on before landing on the current page. This field is only supported on web.
• Time on Page (seconds) is how long the website visitor has been on the current page (in seconds). This field is only supported on web.
• User Agent is information that identifies the user agent your customer is on, such as the browser, its version number, and the host operating system.

For more information on creating filters and the available operators, see Understand filter operators.

Start a proactive chat

You can proactively invite your website visitors to start a chat conversation instead of waiting for them to initiate one using our proactive chat feature. This provides a way for you to engage with your visitors and offer assistance in the proper context. You can use proactive chat in a variety of scenarios. For example, you can use this feature to:

• Prevent cart abandonment by offering help when you notice a visitor is on the order page for a certain period.
• Greet your returning customers and offer a personal experience that develops a customer relationship with them.
• Promote an offer that is occurring during a short period, such as a holiday sale.
• Announce a new feature while they are viewing your product page.

Let's create a proactive chat for our cart abandonment example. Here, we want to initiate a conversation if the customer has been on the order page for longer than a minute and ask them if they have any questions before submitting their order.

1. First, select the Chat channel and then the assistant you want to use.

   Note: Proactive messaging is only available for the Chat channel.

2. Next, select the dialog that will proactively pop up. We want to start the conversation while the visitor is viewing their shopping cart, so we are using one named Shopping cart.

   Note: Proactive chat only supports certain dialogs. Please review how the dialog appears in the Preview section to verify its support.

3. Enter the criteria that will trigger the chat to start. Select Session Time On Page (seconds) Is Equal To 60. 
4. Finally, select the Use proactive chat to start the dialog check box.
   
5. Select Save Changes.

Now, if a visitor is on your order page for a minute, the chat will automatically open asking them if they have questions and directing them to an agent.

They can select a button or respond to free text from directly within the pop-up, or dismiss the message by hovering over it and closing it out.

Set up a rule for a specific SMS or WhatsApp phone number

If you have assistants for SMS or your WhatsApp integration, you may want to set up a rule that launches when it detects a specific phone number. To do so, select SMS or WhatsApp from the Channel drop-down menu and then select the phone number from the available list. You can also manually enter the number. 

If you do not select a specific phone number, the rule will launch whenever your audience contacts you via SMS or WhatsApp channels.

Twilio for WhatsApp

If using Twilio for WhatsApp, enter the number in the Phone box in the +19191234567 format.

MessageBird

If using MessageBird, you need to enter the WhatsApp ID in the Phone box.

To find your WhatsApp ID, log in to your MessageBird account, go to WhatsApp, and then select Install channel. Copy the ID for the WhatsApp channel you are using with Kustomer.

Order of assistant rules

The order of your rules will have an impact on which assistant launches when the criteria are met. The first rule that matches the set criteria is the assistant that will launch. There may be instances where you want an assistant to run before another so you'll want to reflect that in your sort order.

If none of your rules match an incoming conversation, the default assistant will run. If you don't want the default assistant to run if none of the rules are matched, select None from the Assistant drop-down menu.