Launchpad and web chat

The Launchpad is a widget you can put on your own website. It allows your website visitors to reach you via one or more of your connected channels. The following channels are supported: WhatsApp, web chat, SMS, phone, email, Facebook Messenger, and Viber.

The Web Chat application is a web application that enables you to implement chat service in your web page. With both applications customers who are browsing your website can contact your customer service.

Prerequisites

Before you start configuring:

  • You must have a logon name and password and rights to view at least one queue.
  • Chat queue addresses must be configured in your system.

Configuration

The applications are configured with the Visitor Chat Configurator application which allows you to change look and feel in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) type of an editor. The configurator can be accessed via URL ecf/latest/VisitorConfigurator/. During the configuration you can test the applications and when you have finished your configuration, you can save it for further use.

Allowing Traffic

By default, the use of Launchpad and Web Chat is blocked by Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS). To enable the application, you must provide in a service request a list of your company's domains where Launchpad and the Web Chat application will be included. Only domains in the allowlist can include the applications while non-listed domains are denied. Include in the service request also possible subdomains and inform Sinch if localhost should be allowed for development purposes.

Using additional capabilities

If you need more advanced features, use the object Sinch Contact Center Visitor Intermediate Client (CVC), which becomes available when the chat has been fully loaded into the browser memory. For the available features, see CVC API document.

Below are some use cases for the CVC API:

  • Changing destination chat queue

    For example, a customer clicks a link on your web page to navigate to your “Products” page. The website can use CVC API to change the destination chat queue to specifically target “Product Questions Chat Queue”. Changing the destination queue is easier and faster via the CVC API than reloading the web chat completely with another script.

  • You want the website to be able to react (perform some extra action) when a customer decides to start a chat. For this purpose, the CVC API allows “subscribing” to chat events. When receiving a chat event, the website could, for example:
    • Trigger Google Analytics per each started chat discussion.
    • Prevent pop-up notifications while the customer is chatting with an agent.
    • Direct the customer to a specific page after an ended chat (for example a survey)
  • Identification data of logged-in customers (such as customer number, email address) can be attached to the web chat via CVC API.

    This is typically done to allow agents to identify the customer and to be able to provide better service.

  • Website can call CVC API to dynamically move the web chat to another position or change the size on the screen.
  • Your website and customers are using a language not provided by Sinch Contact Pro. You can translate the user interface texts in that language and add the translation file to a URL that you point to from the API.