SmarterTrack Chat Improvement Suggestions

Question asked by Derek Curtis - 5/24/2017 at 4:58 PM

Answered

Employee Post

All,

One of the things we're looking to do in SmarterTrack 13 is improve how live chat works. This is NOT ONLY user-to-agent chat that you use for conversing with customers and users, but also the internal chat features: chat rooms and agent-to-agent chat.

With the changes we made in SmarterMail 16 to group chat and the introduction of Team Workspaces, plus the use of newer technologies, such as SignalR, we feel now is a good time to re-visit chat in SmarterTrack as well. So, we're looking for some feedback. Do you use the internal chat in SmarterTrack? (Agent-to-agent and/or Chat Rooms.) If not, why not? If so, what could we improve upon? What about user chat and live chat links? Integration steps/process?

We have a framework for how we use live chat in SmarterTrack internally, and have some ideas on how to improve upon it, but we also wanted to get YOUR feedback as well and get a better understanding of how you use live chat and what you like/dislike/wish/want/desire...

Derek Curtis

COO

SmarterTools Inc.

www.smartertools.com

13 Replies

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Serge Baranovsky Replied

5/25/2017 at 7:34 AM

Derek,

We don't use agent-to-agent nor the user chats.

Agent-to-agent: we do not "live and breathe" in SmarterTrack, it is just a tool that helps us manage one of the sides of our business - customer service. There are many other tools we use, so most of the time our ST use is "reactive" - we open ST when receive an email notification (we have them for new ticket/reply, comment, etc). We find it more efficient for us to use Comments within the tickets - they are not visible to anyone but the agents, we have email notifications configured for comments, and they are right there in the ticket thread for us to review whenever we need.

User chat: we tried to set these up a couple of times but were not able to get them to work. So we have given up - it was not worth spending more that a day or two for a user chat popup. Yes, we have read through all ST KB articles we could find on the chat setup.

Thanks!

kevind Replied

6/22/2017 at 1:21 PM

Here's a suggestion for something that would be useful:

Live chat that can turn into a remote support (aka remote desktop) session.

Example: customer starts a chat with one of your agents, says he/she has a problem with their PC. The agent says, let me take a look at your screen and can fix the problem.

Looks like it has been suggested previously:

https://portal.smartertools.com/community/a88189/integration-with-some-kind-of-remote-desktop-utility-like-logmein.aspx

Thanks,

Kevin

Michael Replied

6/22/2017 at 11:46 PM

We do not use internal chat.

Stuart Rowbotham Replied

7/13/2017 at 8:43 AM

Have currently disabled all chat as we had so many issues after the last 2 updates of the chat box disconnecting people after a moment, however we did find it a great system when it worked for the client side, as to internal we use skype however the way that's going we may revisit SmartTrack Chat, as to the comment on remote support, that would be so good if possible and save many people a lot of money with products such as teamviewer.

Lance Rasmussen Replied

7/13/2017 at 11:43 AM

We rely heavily on Live Chat for technical support related chats with our users. When needed, we then go to Splashtop for remote sessions, which would be awesome if this was integrated.

Like others, we use Skype for internal conversations currently.

What I find lacking with the current hosted SmarterTrack chat features:

Like others - We seem to have a common complaint from customers saying they get disconnected.
We mostly use Chrome and notice that when using multiple tabs, we do not get audible notifications that a chat is waiting. Same, when navigation in ST is set to Email or another tab and not Live Chat. Sometimes we don't get audio notifications when the Live Chat tab is open.
Would like a Windows standalone client that could help with notifications being consistent when Live Chats are waiting.

Merle Wait Replied

7/20/2017 at 4:13 AM

Guess the number #1 request from us... Being reliable.

As mentioned, we have issues with chat not being reliable as far as showing who is on / and or being disconnected.

~~~

As for what we use, Chrome - about 80% of time, other percentage split across several other browsers..

~~~
After re-reading Lance Rasmussen - post on this exact subject... we pretty much match his request. Especially with stand-alone Windows based client.

We would love to see better integration with VOIP phones... but after doing some programming of our own.. not sure how realistic that is... some the VOIP providers leave a alot to be desired, themselves.

Andrew Farrell Replied

7/28/2017 at 5:41 AM

I would like the ability to turn user to user char off.

Jeremy Wesley Replied

8/30/2017 at 1:25 PM

I think we need a Client Chat API, so that we could have chats from website using js or Mobile apps utilize smarter track.

Derek Curtis Replied

8/30/2017 at 1:50 PM

Employee Post Marked As Answer

All,

Thanks for the replies. We've essentially re-written the chat side of things, improving the agent-to-user side as well as the agent-to-agent Instant Messaging and Chat Rooms. While we haven't created a standalone "app", we have made it so that live chat can be split out from the rest of the interface and placed elsewhere on your desktop. This would be for all chats, not simply agent-to-user.

The standalone client is a great idea, and one we have on our list of further improvements. This could include building out chat using XMPP, so you *could* use your favorite standalone clients like Adium, IM+, etc. on both desktop and mobile. That's a fair amount of work, however, not to mention planning for implementation.

We have the ALPHA version running on our servers now, which is why you may see some differences in the Portal, especially here in the Community. For example, we have a new Thread type: Announcement. It's also possible to sticky posts and close/lock threads. There's MUCH more on the back end, though.

Again, I appreciate the replies. Sounds like we're all on the same page, which is good to know.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Lance Rasmussen Replied

8/30/2017 at 6:16 PM

That's a good direction. My agents always have Chat going during business hours. However, they may not be dealing with tickets. So it would be nice to not be tied to the browser for chats. This would also help deal with notifications, bring to front, call attention, sounds, etc that a separate app can provide.
Having your own app can then help by being able to integrate access to canned replies or KB lookup. Canned is very important.
Announcements, stickys and close/lock will be awesome.
I come from using vBulletin and UBB Threads for our community forum. These are some of the things I greatly miss with ST Community.

Wendy Graveline Replied

9/26/2018 at 10:56 AM

We have tried using the user-to-user chat feature, but no one seems to ever know when a chat message pops us. There is a VERY brief notification that looks like an email, but that's it. You have to know you have a chat, then open the chat icon to see it. The notification pop-up needs to look different than an email notification and it needs to stay up longer, maybe stay on top and not close until the user closes it. I should be able to look at my screen and have something show that there is a new chat. We really wanted to like this and use it, it just isn't working well. I hope this can be fixed in an upcoming release! :-) Thank you!

Andrew Barker Replied

9/27/2018 at 7:33 AM

Employee Post

Wendy,

Thanks for the feedback. The notifications for an unread agent-to-agent are under review for a future release.

Andrew Barker Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Andrew Barker Replied

12/12/2018 at 9:53 AM

Employee Post

Wendy,

In SmarterTrack Build 6910, we made it so that the Chat icon at the top of the page will turn yellow when you have an unread Instant Message or Group Chat message. I hope this helps to make the agent-to-agent chat features easier for you to use.

Andrew Barker Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

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