Chat with Custom Variables
Today we welcome a new feature to the intellichat product: Custom Variables. Many of our clients use intellichat on the final stage of their order form, or after a lead capture form. At this stage of the process, the website will contain information about a customer, so their name, email address any maybe order details. This information can now be passed through to the intellichat script, and our agent will display this data straight back into the chat. For security reasons, any of the variables added to the script will not be transmitted, but instead interpreted on the client’s machine.
If you know your way around JavaScript, or have someone in your team that does, you can take full advantage of this new feature by using the very simple code shown below. The script works off a key value pair and performs a quick replace on the message being displayed to the window.
<script type="text/javascript">
<!—
intellichat.Actions.AddChatVariable(’Key’,'Value’);
–>
</script>
Quick Guidelines
- Make sure your keys are unique and not part of everyday conversation, for example, you may want to set the key for the users first name to be #FIRSTNAME# (keys are case sensitive).
- Add the chat variables after you have included the intellichat launch code to avoid JavaScript errors and your custom variables not appearing.
- When writing your chat scripts within the control panel, only use variables that you know will exist. If your page does not set a variable, the user will see the variable as its actual variable name, e.g. #FIRSTNAME#, which can appear very ugly on the chat.
Example Chat (with Custom Variables)
| Summer Says: | Hey Joe, how are you today? |
| You: | Hey Summer, im fine thanks, how are you? |
| Summer Says: | I see you ordered 4 bottles of our Weight Loss Water |
| You: | Yeah, hopefully they arrive soon  |
| Summer Says: | Deliveries are usually shipped next day to all addresses within the United States. |
| Summer Says: | Would you like to take advantage of our special offer we have today? |