Start using Chat Journeys

Understand Chat Journeys to use them as per your requirement.

To create a Chat Journey, follow the steps:

• Go to Messenger in the sidebar, and select Chat Journeys.
• Click on the button 'Create Chat Journey' when you're on the landing page or click on the 'New Journey' button in the top right corner on the listing page.
• You'll be redirected to the canvas screen, where you will see a default template of the greeting message.
• The default setup is to send a greeting text to all those visitors who visit your website. You can customize this journey and use other actions instead of just a text message.

Note: Only users with "Manage Chat Journeys" permission can perform the operations on Chat Journey.

The default chat journey is sent when your website (where the Messenger is installed) is visited by anyone, they receive the greeting message "If you have any questions about our offerings, we're always happy to help."

Step 1. Set up the trigger to start the Chat Journey for a Visitor

To start a journey, the first thing that you need to do is set up the trigger. Click on the Start Journey trigger, a popup will appear which would let you configure the following options:

• Page URL:
  • is not empty: by default, this condition is set.
  • is: set any value here if you want to target a specific page.
  • starts with: this option can be used to target all pages that start with the value you provide here.
  • ends with: this option can be used to target all pages that end with the value you provide here.
  • contains: this option can be used to target all page URL's that contain the value you provide here.
  • does not contains: this option can be used to target all page URLs that do not contain the value you provide here.

One or more of these conditions can be used, and they all are connected with an OR clause which means that if one of these conditions matches then the journey will start for the visitor.

• Extra check for UTM variables
  • UTM_source
  • UTM_medium
  • UTM_term
  • UTM_content
  • UTM_campaign

Along with a page URL, you can also target specific UTM variables by enabling this option and entering the value in the respective variable. For example, if you wish to target the visitors who are redirected from a Facebook ad, then you can do so by entering the UTM parameters that you set.

• Audience
  • Visitor: Select this option to choose everyone who visits the URL set above.
  • Contact: Select this option to choose only contacts that visit the URL set above.

Add one or more conditions to filter the website visitors or contacts based on the fields provided such as country, that too can be connected with AND or OR clause.

Click on Add Group for changing the clause, and click Add Condition to add a condition with the same clause.

Step 2. Configure Action

To create a Chat Journey flow, you need to connect the trigger Start Journey with the action by connecting the output port of trigger to the input port of the Action, you will see the ports when you hover on the trigger or action.

There are a few actions available depending on the use cases, let's see each one in brief:

1. Message

You can use this action if you just want to display a message to the visitor and proceed ahead without waiting for any response. Just connect it wherever you want it in the flow, by simple drag and drop.

2. Post

This action is much like a Message action but if you want to make bigger impressions then use it to display a feature update, announcement or to capture a text response or an emoji reaction. Also, you can configure this action on basis of size type i.e. small or large, response type i.e. none, text, reaction, or delivery type i.e. full or snippet (a partial part is displayed, and full is displayed when clicked upon it).

3. Banner

This action is another type of Message which can be used to get the attention of visitors when you want to show any announcements, warnings, or promotional content. Its appearance can be customized by the user i.e. how and where should it appear. With a banner, you can also capture responses from visitors using the reactions and further set actions based on the reaction they choose. A banner can be used on Chat Journeys to achieve the desired results. For example, when customers visit the pricing page for the first time, you can show them a banner with a discount coupon on the subscription plans.

4. A/B Split

This action is helpful when you want to distribute the incoming traffic for the Chat Journey, such as 50-50 would mean that the first person would follow the A path and another half would follow B path, but there's more than this and you can learn by reading this article.

5. Question

This action can help you route visitors according to their responses given to a specific question. Ask questions by using this action and set options to choose as a response to the question. Also, this action provides you with an option to allow open text response to the question. 

You can even change the order of responses you set for a question. Additionally, you can connect further actions to the responses set for the question.

6. Assign Owner

This action can be used at that point where you want to connect the visitors with a support executive for a live chat. It displays no message to the visitors, only enables the text editor to send messages.

7. Capture Contact

When you want to capture contact information, by taking a response from them and updating at our back-end then you can use this action. It will help you with a message to display to the visitors along with setting the fields that you want to capture. To use this action, connect where you want in the flow and you must first select the field that you wish to capture, then provide a message that will be displayed to the user and then choose if you want to skip this action when the field value already exists in our system.

Note: You must always capture the contact's email, phone, or mobile information first in the journey to capture any other field value.

8. Capture Company

This action is very similar to the previous 'Capture Contact' action only here you're trying to capture the company information, by taking a response from them and updating on our back-end. To use this action, you must make sure that you capture the company's name first.

Note: You can opt to skip the action if the value for the selected field already exists.

9. Contact Field Update

If you want to update any specific information of contact at any point without requiring any response from the visitors then you can use this action, it is similar to the capture action but does not show any information to the visitors and whatever value you define will be updated when this action is executed. To use this action, connect where you want in the flow and select the field that you want to update.

And then set the value that should be updated for the field. Add more fields if you want to update all together when a user reaches this point in the journey.

10. Company Field Update

It's similar to the above action, the only difference is that company information is updated via this action.

11. End Journey

This action puts the end to the journey flow when you use it though it is not mandatory to use this action. After this action is executed the visitors won't be able to respond to the journey conversation. To use this action, connect it at the end and provide a closing message that should be shown to the visitors.

Once you have configured the flow on canvas, save it, and go to settings there you'll see the options to schedule your chat journey.

Step 3. Set when and how Chat Journey should be delivered to the Visitors

Once a Chat Journey is configured, you need to schedule when to send it to the website visitors, you can choose a specific date or time frame window like during office hours or outside office hours during which it will be delivered to the website visitors when they match the trigger conditions. Learn more

Step 4. Publish Chat Journey

Once the scheduling options are configured in the settings of a Chat Journey, it is ready to publish. You can publish the journey from the canvas screen by clicking on Publish button or you can also publish from the list view by hovering over its name and choosing the Push Live option inside the Actions menu.

Note: If you get any errors, then check for the following:

• Trigger and all the actions should be connected with each other.
• There should not be a circular loop formation.
• All actions and trigger blocks should be configured and no warning should be displayed.
• There should be at least one message, post, or banner in the Journey.