Whats new

On January 22, 2012, in release, Tips & Tricks, by megan.eitel
0

Thanks for stopping by and checking out what’s new with SnapEngage. We have a new development to reveal!

Have you ever forgotten to change your status in your Gmail, GTalk, Adium and Pidgin accounts to “Offline” or issue the \pause command before you left your desk to grab a coffee? Well, you are now in luck as SnapEngage now recognizes the “Away” status as being unavailable to take chats!

How it works:

Gmail:  After 15 minutes of inactivity, your chat status will automatically change to “Away”…. this means that your agent will be recognised as “Offline” to SnapEngage and won’t be presented with any new chats from your website visitors.

GTalk, Adium, Pidgin: The idle/inactivity time can be configurable to your preference – simply go into your status settings and select your “Away” timings.

Adium Example:

Select “Status” –> “Edit Status Menu” and you will see the box below. From here, select the amount of time you would like to have your idle time set to before showing as “Away”

 

Pidgin Example:

Select “Tools” –> “Preferences” and you will see the box below. From here, select the amount of time you would like to have your idle time set to before showing as “Away”

We have many more exciting features planned this year. Keep an eye out for new integrations, new plugins and new functions coming soon!

 

Winterize your Chat Box

On December 8, 2011, in release, Tips & Tricks, by chris.vieville
0

Looking out at all the lovely snow on the beautiful mountains surrounding Boulder, there is no arguing winter has arrived. Many of us are bundling up to stay warm, sipping hot cocoa and taking bets on who will sustain the worse skiing injury this year and it really puts you in a festive mood. To celebrate we thought it would be a great idea to create a Winter Themed chat box and in the spirit of sharing it is available for all our customers to use.

Winter Chat Box

To enable this brrrrrrilliant theme you will need to make a small change to your SnapEngage code. You are looking for snapabug.js in your widget code, easiest thing to do is a ctrl+F and search directly for snapabug.js

Once you have located snapabug.js you will want to replace that line of code with snapengage-winter.js update and then you are all set!

As always free to chat with us if you have any questions about enabling the new chat box. We hope that you are able to enjoy these winter months and keep warm. We wish you all a wonderful holiday season and the best for the New Year!

Tagged with: • • •
 

Announcing SnapEngage FaceBook Chat App: FaceBook now with twice the Social

On November 15, 2011, in in the news, release, by chris.vieville
0

We all know the benefits of using SnapEngage on our websites.  We are adding a human touch, a friendly hello and reaching out a helping hand; you know being social. Wouldn’t it be great if we could offer this same level of human interaction on places other than our website, you know somewhere REALLY social… somewhere like FaceBook? Ah FaceBook, currently the reigning champ of social media with more than 800 million active users! Of those users more than half log onto FaceBook EVERYDAY, and on average each user is connected to 80 pages (one of them might be yours). That is a very active, very powerful social group of people that probably want to chat with you, right on the page they visit on a daily basis…but unfortunately they can’t, or can they?

Take a moment and think about why your business even has a presence on FaceBook (other than the fact that 96% of small businesses already are!) You have a website and you want to drive traffic to your site but with more and more people spending time on FaceBook that’s less and less time they are spending on your website. A Facebook page is a great way for you to communicate with your fans and hopefully they will post and comment in return. Facebook pages are increasingly being used as an additional outlet for customer support and a way to drive traffic back to your website. With all the great features available to you as a page owner one thing that has been seriously lacking is the ability to have a one click chat capability, until now. Back in April we started working on a one click chat plugin for FaceBook based on suggestions from you, our amazing customers! In May of this year we secretly rolled out the plugin and there was much rejoicing.

Customer reception has been amazing, sales teams are ecstatic about the ability to capture interested leads via FaceBook and bring them back to the website via co-browsing. Customer supports teams have been doing the happy dance now able to interact directly with customers wherever they are and provide world class WOW!  Your custom chat forms even work directly in FaceBook, just take a look at what SkySlope did here .

Installing the SnapEngage Facebook plugin is actually quite fast and easy! Existing customers will login to their SnapEngage account and head over to the plugins tab, then click the Facebook image. You can find more detailed step by step instructions here as always feel free to come chat with us if you have any questions.

 

Anna Sawyer, Marketing Manager at Trada the world’s first and only crowdsourced online advertising marketplace recently installed the SnapEngage app. “I love how simple and straight forward installation was!” beamed the Content Queen. “We love to share the Trada story and connect with our fans but the one thing that was lacking on our FaceBook page was the ability to connect with a potential customer right when they are most interested in our service. Using SnapEngage has become a vital piece of our sales process, visitors love that they can chat directly with an expert”

 

FaceBook is undoubtedly one of the most successful social platforms on the web today.  Now with the SnapEngage chat app for your pages you just became 100% more social. If you don’t have a SnapEngage account yet remember we do offer a free 15 day trial if you would like to test it out or share with a friend.

~Photo courtesy of Flickr user Snugg~

Tagged with: • • • •
 

A Bootiful Spooktacular Addition to the Chat Box themes

On October 27, 2011, in release, by chris.vieville
0

Harvest time is right around the corner, leaves are changing color, the days are getting cooler and shorter here at SnapEngage HQ. In a few short days legions of children and adults will assail the streets of their local neighborhoods in search of treats and potentially tricks dressed in all manner of costumes. Now we know just how much fun getting dressed up and participating in the local festivities can be, everyone should do it. Well we didn’t think that should exclude our humble SnapEngage chat box! Often the life of any conversation and never shy to say hello to a website visitor we figured it was time “chat box” had a costume too.

You can also enable this chat box on your very own site with a couple simple steps. First you will need to find a bit of code in your widget and replace it on your site. You are looking for snapabug.js in your widget code, easiest thing to do is a ctrl+F and search directly for snapabug.js

Once you have located snapabug.js you will want to replace that line of code with snapengage-halloween.js update and then you are all set!

As always free to chat with us if you have any questions about enabling the new chat box. Hope that you enjoy and may your Halloween be filled with treats!

Tagged with: • •
 

Announcing SnapEngage Priority Tiers

On October 5, 2011, in release, by chris.vieville
2

At SnapEngage we are always listening to the feedback you give us and looking for ways to improve our service even more. Recently we released a new feature that will address a common challenge associated with effectively responding to chat requests. We have added the ability to create priority tiers for your agents so now you can segment your agents into easier to manage groups. Additionally you can assign a priority to each of those groups creating 1st responders, 2nd, 3rd and so on.

Here is a short video detailing how to use the new system so that you can create those multiple tiers for your live chat agents.

YouTube Preview Image

The way priority tiers work is proactive chats and new help requests will go to your Tier 1 agents first until those agents reach their maximum # of chats (by default it is set at 4 but you can change that in the Live Chat Tab -> Advanced section).

Once your Tier 1 agents reach capacity the system will move to the agents listed in Tier 2 using the same logic and them move onto Tier 3 and beyond as needed. Agents can always transfer a chat to another agent no matter what tier they are in with the \transfer command.

Using priority tiers you will allow your agents to focus on their immediate tasks while at the same time reducing the chance that you will have visitors waiting in a queue to chat. As your chat requests increase the system will always scale up to the next tier of agents making them available when they are needed most. When chat volume is low and can easily be handled by your tier 1 agents this allows your higher tier agents to focus on other tasks.

Using tiers is a great way to maximize the effectiveness of your team and always make sure you are providing world class service to your customers and constantly creating new friends!

Tagged with: •
 

SnapEngage Call Me Feature Now with Twice the Cake

On August 23, 2011, in release, by chris.vieville
1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Now SnapEngage live chat features include advanced Call Me. Your website visitors can place a Call Me directly thru their computer using a headset or mic and speakers to call from anywhere in the world for Free! <for more details see below>

In an age where more and more business is being conducted on the Internet we are often confronted with challenges that have never existed before. When you stroll down to the local shop “Awesome 3ft Cakes” there is a helpful clerk at the cash register, perhaps someone stocking shelves maybe even a baker proudly displaying tarts and treats. When you stop to admire the cornucopia of goods you will most likely get a personal greeting.

“Hello, thank you for visiting. How may I help you?”

“Actually yes I was wondering about that beautiful triple chocolate 3ft monstrosity you have there, is it raspberry filling?” you ask sheepishly.

Typical interactions to say the least and most likely you now want cake.

Let’s fast forward now and throw in a bit of teleportation for good measure placing you in front of your computer but on vacation in Papua New Guinea. You just remembered you need a cake delivered to your house on the day you return to the States but completely forgot! Quickly you go to www.awesome3ftcakes.com. Well they have a great collection of photos to browse through but you have some questions, what to do? Thankfully you notice a pop up in the lower portion of your screen with a picture of the baker.

 

“Hello, thank you for visiting. How may I help you?”

“Actually yes you can, but please forgive my slow typing. I was injured in a Wolverine washing incident earlier today.” You sheepishly type back.

“No worries just click the Call Me button and we can talk on the phone or even through your computer using your mic and speakers.”

“No way!” you painfully single finger type back wondering what type of witchery is this?

Throwing caution to the wind you eagerly click on the Call Me button and are presented with two options

Well seeing as your headset was already plugged into the computer and not relishing the thought of reaching into your pocket for the cellphone with all the bandaging on your hands; why not… here it goes, you click the Call from my Computer icon. A small pop up comes into view asking you to allow access to your microphone and webcam but knowing that this is a voice call there is no need to primp your hair.

“It’s ringing!” your inner monologue exclaims. Then you are greeted by the sultry sounds of your local baker who proceeds to direct your page to a variety of lovely cakes while you chat away using nothing more than your headset giving your battered fingers a rest.

Not only was the day saved and the cake ordered you were so impressed with the awesome service and realizing how many people you would need to feed you upgraded to the 6ft cake. Also turns out the baker used to be a professional Wolverine wrestler and had some helpful tips for you to try next time. Reflecting on an amazing vacation you lay your head down and think to yourself I’ve got to check out that SnapEngage when I get home, THEN my site will truly rock!

Tagged with: • •
 

5 Reasons Why Startup CEOs Should Answer Support Emails

On August 12, 2011, in Best Practices, Stories, Tips & Tricks, by chris.vieville
8

 

(This guest post is from Jesse Maddox, the CEO of TripLingo. TripLingo makes language-learning applications specifically designed for travelers. They currently offer Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dari, and even Pirate! You can find TripLingo and Jesse on Twitter: @TripLingo & @Onwardly.)

Answering support emails isn’t exactly glamorous, and if you asked your team if anyone wanted to take responsibility for answering them, few would raise their hand. And why would they? It can be distracting from the other tasks you’re doing, and you’re likely to run into similar questions over and over from:

  • People who want to learn about your product
  • Upset customers
  • Customers who can’t figure out some technical issue
  • Customers requesting features

One reason a CEO might object to answering support queries is that support issues are focused on one user at a time- and as CEO part of your job is to focus on the grand issues- satisfying thousands of users and not on supporting individuals.

Despite this concern, and especially in early-stage startups, there are several compelling reasons to answer support emails as a CEO, ranging from keeping close to the customer to keeping the rest of your team focused.

Here are my five reasons, can you think of more? Have any objections?

Reason #1: Direct Feedback From Customers

Answering support emails and chats is the best way to get direct feedback from customers. As someone responsible for guiding the product vision, this feedback is invaluable to understanding what your users expect and how you’re meeting those expectations. Setting up a solid customer support system (like with SnapEngage) speeds up the development cycle and is a relatively cheap way to improve the product quality.

Reason #2: You Aren’t Shielded From Product Issues

Pushing this task on someone else means you don’t have to directly deal with customer complaints, which makes it easier for you to ignore them or write them off. But when you have to individually respond to 10 customers that have the same problem, their problem becomes your problem. When its your problem, you become quickly motivated to get it fixed quickly. And their problem is your problem, so this is a great way to align your customers’ interest with your own.

One example from TripLingo was feedback we got regarding audio quality on our first release. I heard this several times, and besides the customers being right, it was a great motivation to get it fixed. We’ve since built a new sound studio and re-recorded all of the 50+ hours of audio that we did initially in a poor room for recording.

Reason #3: Your Engineers’ Time is More Valuable Than Yours

Startups have few employees, so if its not you doing the customer support it’s likely someone on the engineering team. And lets face it: the technological challenges your engineers face are typically more complex than your own challenges and require their focus. And while they could probably do many of the things you do, non-technical CEOs can save precious engineering time by being the buffer between engineers and the customer.

The market supports this idea. A good engineer makes probably $150K. A similarly ranking marketing officer might make half that. Further, part of your job is to keep everyone else happy, and you won’t make your engineers happy if you ask them to do support.

And engineers, don’t take this too harshly, but developers often aren’t the right face for a company in a delicate area like support. Many lack the desire, sympathy for technologically-challenged users, and the patience for dealing with such a front-facing aspect of a company’s operations.

Reason #4: It Forces You to Be Up-to-Speed on Technical Issues

Having a grasp of what is going wrong for customers is helpful in prioritizing and having a firm grasp of the technical issues you’re facing. If someone has a technical problem, I let them know that I’ll talk to our engineering team to see if we can figure out what the problem is. Then, I talk to our engineering team. Not only does this serve as a filter of sorts for helping the engineers focus on their task, but it also ensures that I know what’s going on technically that’s causing a problem.

Reason #5: Customers Appreciate It

If you respond promptly, courteously, and helpfully to customers, they really appreciate it. Mainly because they’re not used to that level of support. They also like that the CEO, someone who has influence at the company, has taken the time to address their concerns.

I’ve probably gotten 5 or 6 angry emails from customers where their tone is really aggressive and they are upset. Its amazing how their tone changes when you respond nicely. We offer a 200-year 100% money-back guarantee, and I proactively offer this to each customer that reports a problem. This high level of support often takes people aback, and every time except once the other person has apologized for their tone because they felt bad for the way they sent their email.

Bonus Reason: It’s the Right Thing to Do

We take selling our product pretty seriously, and consider offering support to our users a part of that transaction. Undoubtedly you’re familiar with the terrible support offered by some companies, and it never fails to infuriate. Each of those instances is a missed opportunity for that company to delight you, to impress you, to gain you as a true fan. But offering solid support isn’t just an opportunity, we believe its a responsibility. So make it happen!

Final Words

We use SnapEngage for answering customer support issues via email and instant messenger. We love SnapEngage (and I originally wrote this for ourblog, but then offered to have SnapEngage post it here). SnapEngage is relatively inexpensive, and it gives your customers the option to email you or have a live chat. Live chats come through over Skype, which integrates well into my routine and makes it easy to answer questions. There are four of us on our account, so if I’m not around then someone else can answer the query as well.

It obviously doesn’t make sense for Steve Jobs to answer Apple support issues- he’d have no time for anything else. But as you’re getting started, you DO have the time, and for the reasons outlined above I strongly believe that startup CEOs should answer these questions. For TripLingo, we’ve been able to engage with hundreds of customers, get critical insight into bugs or issues faced by our users, and even gain a few fans in the process. When you’re fighting for every inch, offering exceptional support is a pretty easy way to set yourself apart.

 

Tagged with: • • •
 

Ancient wisdom and a new integration, meet LeadFormix

On August 9, 2011, in integration, release, by chris.vieville
6

Sun Tzu a 6th century Chinese General once said, “If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles”. Sometimes doing business feels a little bit like you are sauntering out onto the field of battle ready to tackle an enormous force rallied against you. When faced with such a challenge it always helps to be prepared and level the playing field anyway you can. If you are an intrepid general then you already know the power that is SnapEngage and wield it with strategic fervor. Now what about knowing others? Thanks to a new upgrade in your SnapEngage arsenal now you can know even MORE!

We are pleased to announce our newest integration with LeadFormix. “Hold the press!” you say, “just what is this LeadFormix aside from having a really cool name?” Well why don’t I let them tell you a bit more:

“LeadFormix is a highly proactive, cloud based, B2B Marketing Automation 2.0 platform that helps identify and create sales opportunities by measuring visitor intent. It provides unmatched actionable intelligence to qualify opportunity accurately and provide a scalable solution for targeted response, using a state of the art data mining engine”

Well if that doesn’t sound like a battlefield upgrade I don’t know what does! Now at the start of your chats you will automatically receive detailed company information like address, phone, website, # of employees and industry.

To enable LeadFormix with you SnapEngage account simply go to the Plugins section in your SnapEngage account:

  1. Click on the LeadFormix logo
  2. Check the box to enable the integration
  3. Put in your LeadFormix Username and API Key
  4. Click Save

It is as simple as that, now go win!

Tagged with: • • •
 

Announcing Assistly SnapEngage Integration, and a Special Offer

On June 13, 2011, in Uncategorized, by chris.vieville
0

Image of SnapEngage Assistly Integration

At SnapEngage we are all about joining forces with other awesome web solutions. Like any other super hero team fighting lousy customer service we always like to have a full arsenal at out disposal. The newest tool to help SnapEngage and our loyal troops combat this menace is the aptly named Assistly! If you have been looking for a full featured HelpDesk to:

  • Keep all your support in one place
  • Monitor customer experience on social media
  • Create a self service center
  • Have happy agents
  • Make sure no ticket goes left unanswered

Look no further! Assistly is well suited to help manage those support tickets as effectively and efficiently as possible. Need to address something on your social networks, not a worry with Assistly you can bring all those conversation together into one place and respond directly. Let’s say you are chatting away via SnapEngage’s super slick Chat App for Facebook and don’t see the comment from Little Jimmy about how much he loves your product. Never fear Assistly is here, the comment will actually show up directly in the agent console and you can send that love right back to Little Jimmy.

Snap Shot of the Assitly Dash Board

Assistly Agent Dash Board

One of my favorite parts of Assistly is how well integrated the Knowledge Base is with the ticketing system. Need to respond to a ticket with an article from the KB, just a click away. Have responses you use often? There’s a macro for that. I can attest the agent experience is a breeze and very natural to pick up. Not only was Assistly super easy to set up, super easy to integrate with SnapEngage it was super easy to start using; it just works!

Now for the really cool part where all your SnapEngage conversations can be sent to Assistly for follow up, never forget to send the link or article that you talked about. At the close of your chat the transcript, any JavaScript variables, detailed info like browser, plugins, platform and even a screen shot will all go to Assistly. Don’t forget that SnapEngage will do a look up in Assistly when a new chat starts so you always know who you are talking to.

I know you are saying Assistly with SnapEngage DOES sound pretty awesome. Well we really want you to find out for yourself and to make the proposition dang near impossible to resist (we are talking chocolate cake irresistible) we are giving you 2 months of SnapEngage FREE! To take advantage of this great offer please contact us directly once you have your Assistly account and we will make magical things happen!

As always let us know of other integrations you would like to see us work on.

 

 

Is it possible to one click install SnapEngage? With CloudFlare, it is.

On June 10, 2011, in release, by chris.vieville
0

If I said there is a service that can help your site:

… load 30% faster

… use 60% less bandwidth

… be way more secure

…and is free

You would probably say you were interested. Well that just so happens to be the kind of thing our good friends at CloudFlare specialize in!

I think the illustration says it all, besides everyone loves visuals. Think of CloudFlare as a site booster, protector, optimizer, and all around nice guy. CloudFlare protects and accelerates any website online, that is pretty awesome. They also have a number of apps that you can add to your site with just the click of a button. SnapEngage just happens to be one of those apps and we have some pretty great company too!

I highly suggest that you take a look at CloudFlare, I think you’re gonna like what you find. Setup is super quick & easy plus the team is top of the line.

 

 

New Easter Theme for your Chat Box

On April 21, 2011, in release, by chris.vieville
1

We know everyone loves the ability to customize their SnapEngage chat box. We also know that many people like to decorate for the holidays! Well we went ahead and put two and two together; we created an Easter themed chat box to use on your site because we thought it would be fun. Starting today you are free to use the Easter themed chat box on your site, I mean who can resist a cute bunny and pastels!

SnapEngage Easter themed chat box

To enable this bunniful theme you will need to make a small change to your SnapEngage code. You are looking for snapabug.js in your widget code, easiest thing to do is a ctrl+F and search directly for snapabug.js

After you have located it you will want to replace it with snapengage-easter.js After you have done that you will be all set! Pat yourself on the back, it looks “eggsalent” :)

We hope to continue adding to a library of themes for all our users to access. What do you think? Any special requests?

 

SnapEngage + Join.me Chat and Screen Share Join Forces

On April 19, 2011, in integration, release, by chris.vieville
2

We have been very busy over in the SnapEngage laboratory cooking up all sorts of exciting new features, integrations & plugins. Thankfully we have managed to keep the explosions to a minimum *this time*. From this magic mix of toil, sweat and creativity we have given life to our latest plugin! Today we would like to invite you to join us in welcoming join.me!

join.me Logo

Now you are most likely asking yourself, “Self, what is join.me?” Well let me tell you, join.me may be the simplest screen share app we have ever met, period. Direct from their site:

“It’s an impromptu online meeting space, the opportunity to share your screen to collaborate, meet, train, demo or show-off, and the last two words in an invitation. join.me”

I don’t think I have to tell you just how awesome chat + screen share is. In the history of matches made in heaven there is peanut butter + jelly, peanut butter + chocolate, peanut butter +… well you get the idea and then there was SnapEngage + join.me.

Here you can see Jerome showing a customer his back end.

With the join.me plugin you can now start a screen share directly from a chat with a visitor. There are actually two ways you can use join.me:

  • 1st you can use \share to start a join.me session with your website visitors. (Places the agent in control of the visitor’s screen)
  • 2nd you can use \view to provide your website visitor with a join.me screen sharing link. (Allows the visitor to share his screen with the agent)

To get started using this great plugin simply login to your SnapEngage account and go to the “Plugins” tab. If you don’t yet have a join.me account do not fear we have included a link to sign up for their free trial.

As always we want to hear from you, how do you think join.me will impact your business? What cool creative ways will it allow to you to provide awesome customer service? Please share your ideas below and be sure to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, we love friends!

 

Tagged with: • • •
 
« Previous Entries