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Comm100 Help > Getting Started Guide
Live Chat Quick Start Guide

Now that you have access to your Live Chat account, this guide will help you get started with configuring it to suit your needs, as well as pointing you in the direction of different things to review before you go live.

How to Use This Guide

Work through each section, step by step. For each of the areas to be configured, you’ll need to decide on the options you need to tailor our system to your needs. We’ll also let you know the various areas of the system that should be reviewed before go-live.

Once you’ve worked through the guide, you’ll be ready to launch. Good luck and don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any further help or assistance!

Working with Your Live Chat Control Panel

Whether you’re an Admin or Agent, your Live Chat account starts with our Control Panel. It’s an essential hub that enables you to access Live Chat and control your operations. We can help you to perform the initial setup of your account so you can start using Live Chat and managing agents, reports, settings and more!

Watch our Quick Start Video
Read our Setup & Chatting guide

The PDF version of this user guide is also available. You can download it to your local drive for future reference.

Download PDF Version

Things to Do

Access Agent Console

  1. Sign in at www.comm100.com, or download the desktop app:
    1. Download for Windows
    2. Download for Mac
  2. Set Up Your Live Chat Account
    1. Add a profile photo
    2. Update your information
    3. Change your password
  3. Decide Whether Agents Should Use Desktop or Web Apps Our Agent Console can be accessed in two different ways – via our Desktop app, or via any internet browser. Agents who will be using our desktop app will need to download it here. Alternatively, agents can access the Agent Console via their internet browser. To learn more about this, please click here.
  4. Monitor & Chat as an Agent Once logged in as an Agent, access your Agent Console to start monitoring visitors and chatting. For more information, see the Monitor & Chat section of our Knowledge Base.

Configure Your Campaigns

  1. Create a Campaign Follow steps 2-5 here. Ensure that the correct campaign is selected from the dropdown list at the top right of the Control Panel when following the next steps. If you’re setting up Multiple Campaigns, you’ll need to repeat these configuration steps for each campaign by selecting each in turn from this drop-down field.
  2. Set the Look and Feel of Your Chat Button The Chat Button will sit on your homepage and has three different settings that define how it looks – adaptive, image or a text link. The button can be made available when agents are online and hidden when they are offline, or it can be set to show persistently with an offline message field available when agents are offline. Click here to learn more about the Chat Button.
  3. Customize Your Chat Window The Chat Window is the interface that visitors use to communicate with agents. It is fully customizable and allows you to add your own colors, text and logos. You can choose a company banner at the top of the window so it fits in neatly in with your website. There are settings that allow for chat transcripts to be sent via email once the chat has finished. The window can also be embedded in the webpage or set to pop up, so visitors can navigate to other sites while chatting. Learn more about the Chat Window here.
  4. Customize Your Pre-Chat Window The Pre-Chat Window gathers information from the visitor before the chat begins, for example, their name, email address and product/service. This feature is useful to save time and prevent agents from asking repetitive questions, but can also be used to aid chat routing and allocation. Custom fields can be created to collect any information you need with a variety of input types available, from drop-down boxes to simple text fields. You can also set a greeting message to tell your visitor more about your company. This feature is disabled by default. Click here to learn more about the Pre-Chat Window.
  5. Customize Your Post-Chat Survey The Post-Chat Survey prompts visitors to rate their chat experiences, allowing you to collect qualitative or quantitative statistics on the effectiveness of your chat service. Answers can then be reported on in the Reports area of the control panel. You can read more about the Post Chat Survey here.
  6. Customize Offline Messages Offline Message allows visitors to leave a message if there are no agents online. You can set any email address for offline messages to be delivered to. Click here for more information.
  7. Customize Chat Invitations Invitations allow automated chat invites to be sent to visitors based on certain rules and conditions. For example, if a visitor is on your webpage for longer than 30 seconds, you can have an auto-invitation sent to them inviting them to chat. You can also customize what you want the manual or automatic message to look like.
  8. Configure Agent Wrap-Up Wrap-Up is a feature that allows the agent to make notes on a chat. This allows for fuller chat histories to aid future conversations, as well as allowing for further reporting on chats. This is again configurable, allowing you to add whatever fields you need.
  9. Create Routing Rules Routing Rules allow for chats to be transferred to an agent or department based on a specific set of rules and conditions. This can be a great timesaver as it allows visitors to be routed to the right person to help them, replacing the need for manual transfers. Click here to learn more about Routing Rules.
  10. Configure Chatbot Chatbot allows visitors to interact with a bot for resolution of simple queries, freeing your agents up to take only the more complex chats that require human assistance. You can read more about Chatbot here.
  11. Set Up Multiple Campaigns Multiple Campaigns allow you run different chat systems, or Campaigns, with different settings (for example, differently branded Chat windows) if you wish to have chat available on more than one webpage or website. Click here to learn more about Multiple Campaigns.
  12. Set Up Dynamic Campaigns Dynamic Campaigns allow you to run multiple campaigns on the same webpage or website. Each Campaign has certain rules attached to it and the Campaign takes effect on the website or web pages only when the conditions of the rules are met. For example, different Chat Windows could be displayed to visitors from different countries. Learn more about Dynamic Campaigns here.

Configure Your Settings

  1. Set up Canned Messages Canned Messages are pre-defined messages that can be sent instantly to visitors, saving agents time and preventing the same message being typed out repetitively to different customers. To learn more about Canned Messages and how they are configured click here.
  2. Create and Configure Departments Through Departments, you can ensure chats and messages get forwarded to the correct teams. To learn more about how to create them click here.
  3. Set Up Audio/Video Chat Audio/Video Chat allows agents and visitors to communicate verbally or visibly, through webcam or microphone. You can read more about this function here.
  4. Set Up Auto Allocation Auto Allocation defines how chat volume is managed. You can set the maximum number of chats agents can take and how they are distributed. Learn more here.
  5. Create Custom Away Statuses Custom Away Statuses allow you to create customize agent statuses for better reporting purposes. For example, it may be that the default “Busy” status isn’t detailed enough for you to analyze agent states, and it may be that custom statuses of “Lunch”, “Meetings” and “Comfort Break” give you greater visibility.
  6. Set Up Ban List If you need to exclude certain users or IP addresses from your chat service, setting up a ban list allows you to do this. You can read about this feature here.
  7. Create Visitor Segments Visitor Segmentation allows you to divide your visitors into different segments based on pre-defined rules. Agents can then see visitor segments through the Visitor Monitor in real-time. For example, you can create a visitor segment for VIP clients and have notifications sent to your VIP support team whenever a VIP client arrives on your website. You can set the color of each segment so that they can easily be seen from the Visitor Monitor within the Agent Console. Click here for more information
  8. Configure Conversions The Conversions feature links together live chat data with your onsite data, allowing you to view what chats and the detail of chats which drive your visitors to convert. Click here to read more about this feature.

Configure API Access & Integrations (Optional)

  1. Configure RESTful API Comm100’s RESTful API enables you to integrate your applications with Comm100 Live Chat to allow both systems to exchange information. To read more about API’s, please click here for a quick introduction, or here to learn how the API can be implemented.
  2. Integrate Third Party Applications Live Chat can also integrate with a host of different applications such as Salesforce, Google Analytics, Zendesk, Join.me and GoToMeting. To learn more about which applications can integrate with Live Chat, please click here.
  3. Set Up Social Media Integration You can integrate your Facebook, Twitter and Facebook Messenger accounts within the Agent Console. For a quick intro on Social Media Integration, follow this link.
  4. Configure Webhooks Webhooks allow you to receive notifications from Comm100 when a certain event happens. You can register an http:// or https:// URL where event data can be stored in JSON format. Click here to learn how webhooks are configured within Live Chat.
  5. Configure Custom Variables Custom Variables allow you to read visitor information from your website and pass it to your live chat system. To learn more about what custom variables are and how they are set up, please click here.

Check Security Requirements

  1. Set Up Credit Card Masking Credit Card Masking allows you to mask credit card numbers sent by visitors during chat sessions. In the case when credit card numbers are necessary, you can request the information from visitors through Secure Forms. This helps you meet higher security standards and ensures that visitors’ sensitive data is safe with you.
  2. Set Up IP Restrictions You can restrict certain IP addresses from accessing your Agent Console and Control Panel.
  3. Review Audit Log This feature records all agent activities so you can check all previous events that took place. Click here to read more about Audit Logs.
  4. Reset Passwords To learn more about password resets please click here.

Go Live!

To go live you must first import the live chat installation code into your website. To learn more about this, click here. Ensure you select the correct campaign before carrying out this step.

Things to Review

MaximumOn

MaximumOn ensures consistent uptime through deployment in two different data centers, so if the server is down in one center, the other data center automatically takes over. No manual intervention is required and no chat transcript is ever lost. Data will be synchronized back to the primary data center. You can read more about this feature here.

Live Chat Reporting

Comm100 Live Chat Reporting supplies the data and metrics on your chat quality, agent performance and visitor satisfaction so that you can make informed decisions that drive continuous service improvement. Key reports include:

  1. Chat Volume — Shows the volume of accepted, missed and refused chats.
  2. Efficiency — Shows the average response time, wait time and chat time of each agent, department, and the whole live chat team.
  3. Rating — Shows details of visitors’ ratings on the chat performance of agents, departments, and the live chat team as a whole within a defined time range.
  4. Availability — Shows details of agent status changes within a defined time range.

For a more comprehensive review of all reports, please click here.

Best Practice Guides

We’ve developed some best practice guides that provide helpful tips on how to achieve specific business goals:

  1. Avoiding Chatmageddon — how to avoid being bombarded with more chats than you can handle. Download here
  2. Account-Based Chat — How to use Comm100 to compliment your account-based marketing strategy. Download here
  3. Increasing Chat Volume — How to get more customers to engage with live chat. Download here. Download here

Additional Help & Resources

Knowledge Base

You can find useful documents and articles on all the products and services we offer in our Knowledge Base. Visit our Knowledge Base.

Video Tutorials

We have developed a variety of useful tutorial videos that will walk you through key functions and features of our platform. Watch our Video Tutorials.

Contact Support

Our support team is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week! They can be reached via live chat, email or phone. Contact Support