Live Chat settings

Owned by HostBill (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 26, 2020 by HostBill
4 min read


What is Live Chat in HostBill

Live chat in HostBill is a real-time chat communication in web browser with your clients and website visitors. It gives a plenty of opportunities to assist your clients and visitors during their order. Moreover, it enables elimination of abandoned shopping carts, constant information about traffic on your site and many more. Live Chat is easy to integrate with your website. It doesn't require any programming skills, because it's simple and intuitive. In order to configure your Live Chat you need to go under: Support -> Live Chat

Live Chat configuration

General settings

  • Switch operator every: This tab enables to define how much time passes until the operator is switched.
  • Max operator switches: This tab defines how many operator switches are possible at maximum.
  • Chat invitation timeout This tab allows to define the time after which the chat invitation expires.
  • Add tracking to client areaBy ticking this tab, you will be able to track your client in client area.

Departments

Imagine situation, that your business has many different departments. All departments deal with different issues. Some clients may feel lost in the structure and they simply don't know which department handles with the issue they have problem with. Live Chat gives an opportunity to list all departments in your company, together with a short department's description. Now, you can be sure that your clients will be well informed and assisted by your staff.

  • List Departments: A list of all departments that are available through Live Chat option.
  • Add new department: This tab enables to add new department.

    • Name: Here, the department's name is displayed
    • Description: A brief description of the department: its responsibilities, issues it deals with, etc.
    • Assigned staff: Here, you can define who is assigned to deal with clients within a given department.
    • Interface language: This tab allows to choose an interface language. Note, that is always better to choose language which is understandable for most of your clients.
    • Show offline status: By enabling this tab, your clients will see if staff is available online or not.
    • Left message will open ticket in: If an operator is offline, client can leave a message. This tab assign the left message automatically to a certain department.

GeoIP

Using free GeoIP database HostBill Live Chat can track your visitors' location with 96% accuracy. In order to enable GeoIP tracking in your HostBill you need to:

  1. Download GeoLite2 City archive file from https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/
  2. Upload on server and extract archive contents into directory under main HostBill dir (ie. includes/libs/geoip). 
  3. Provide path to geolocation db folder you've decompressed GeoLite2 City archive contents in Live Chat settings

Site Widgets

Website widget is html code that you can put on your website to allow visitor tracking and/or chat request icon, with current chat status.

  • Create new widget: HostBill allows you to choose a widget that will suits you best. There are four widget's types:
    • Visitor monitoring: This widget does not show "chat now" icon anywhere on website, it allows to track visits on your website, and invite visitors to chat with nice invitation image set in Widgets->Chat Images
    • Click here to chat: This widget generates text link, that once clicked opens new chat window. It also allows to track website visitors and engage them to live chat.
    • Chat icon: Generate chat offline/online graphical icon to embed on website. You can use different image sets on different websites/parts of your website. It also allows to track website visitors and engage them to live chat.
    • Floating sidebar: Generate popular website floating sidebar tag, that once clicked opens live chat window. It also allows to track website visitors and engage them to live chat.

Once, you have chosen a widget you click Generate and follow the configuration steps. The last step is placing the HTML code in your website HTML source.

  • Chat images

HostBill offers a default chat images that can be used as invitation to chat, or as chat status button with website widgets. Also, you may add new chat image by uploading it from your files.


Canned Responses

HostBill provides an option for using Canned Responses - predetermined responses to common questions. Rather than typing the same answer repeatedly or pasting from some other resource, operators can insert a canned response straight to the message. Canned Responses are divided into categories, so it's easier to find a required response.

Chat History

Chat History contains a printable chat transcripts. It holds all subjects and user names, so it is easy to come back to a given conversation with a few clicks.