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Actions

Let your agent show a button under an answer, such as one that calls your customer service, and say in your own words when it should.

An action is something your agent can do in the chat besides answering. You describe in your own words when it should use it, and the agent decides, answer by answer, whether that moment has come. Actions are part of every plan.

Today there is one kind: a button under the answer that opens a web page, an e-mail address or a phone number. More kinds will follow in the same place.

Adding a button

Open the agent and choose the Actions tab.

  1. Choose Add button.
  2. Name is your own name for it, up to 60 characters. Visitors never see it.
  3. When to use tells the agent when to show the button, up to 1,000 characters. The agent reads it before every answer.
  4. Button text is what the visitor reads on the button, up to 40 characters.
  5. Opens is where the button goes: a web page (https://...), an e-mail address (mailto:...) or a phone number (tel:...). Spaces, brackets and a (0) in a phone number are taken out, so tel:+31 (0) 495 583 500 rings +31495583500.
  6. Choose Save actions.

An agent has at most 20 actions. On switched off keeps an action, but the agent stops using it.

Writing "When to use"

Write it as you would explain it to a new colleague: the situations, in plain words. For example:

When the visitor asks for customer service or for a person, or when you have no clear answer to their question.

The agent decides from your words and from the conversation. It is not a rule that is checked word by word: test it in the Playground with the questions you expect, and sharpen the words when the button comes too often or too rarely.

Where buttons appear

  • In the widget and in the Playground, under the answer that chose them. A web page opens in a new tab; an e-mail address or a phone number opens the visitor's mail program or dialler.
  • Over the API, an answer in one piece lists the actions it chose in actions, each with id, kind, label and url, and its text leaves them out. A streamed answer and an answer by e-mail use no actions.

What actions do not do

  • A button opens an address in the visitor's own browser. It runs no code and sends nothing to your systems.
  • Which button an answer showed is not kept. Activity shows the answer without it, and when a visitor opens the chat again later, earlier answers show without their buttons.