Channels are a new feature introduced to Chatavise that, much like filing folders, help you to categorize and keep track of certain customers a customer types from the Chats page. Channels gives you the ability to organize your customers and clients as you see fit, and helps you to message a channel of clients easily.
How do you get started using Channels? How do they work?
You can get started by heading to the Chats page of Chatavise. You'll notice the Channels will appear just below the quick access filters.
Next, click on the gear icon beside the Channels header. This will take you to the Manage Channels page. It's going to be empty at first, but you will be able to add as many channels as you'd like.
Click on the New Channel button to create your first channel. First, pick a name that best defines the category of clients you are trying to organize into one group. This can be anything you need it to be; just make sure it's something that will be understood by any team members that may need to access the channel.
Next, you will want to choose whether this channel will be public or private. Public channels will be accessible to all team members who have access to the Chats page. Private channels gives you control over who does and does not have access to view the channel. Select your preference for this channel, and hit the Save button.
This new channel will now populate the Manage Channel page. You'll be able to see basic info about your channels from this page.
Most importantly, you will be able to keep track of subscribers, visibility (public vs. private), and active status for each channel. If you'd like to edit anything about the channel, click the pencil edit icon on the far right.
At the top, you'll be able to change the active status and public status for each channel by toggling the respective checkboxes as well as the display name of the channel. Marking a channel as inactive will label it as such in the Channel Manage page, and will remove it as a filter on the Chats page.
You also have the ability to add subscribers to a channel from this page. Subscribers will be notified when messages from customers of this channel come in. To add a new subscriber, click the Add Subscriber button.
From here you'll be able to select from a list of Chatavise users who you'd like to subscribe to receive notifications from this channel. You have the ability to search through users by name, or to filter out users by location(s).
Use the assign button besides user names to subscribe them to the channel. If you'd like to unsubscribe a user from a channel, you can remove them from this page here.
You will also have the opportunity to select that subscriber's priority level. Priority level determines which user a customer chat will be assigned to first. Being priority 1 means that you're the first line of defense when a new message comes in. Priority level 2 will only be assigned if priority 1 is unavailable.
Hit the save button to add the newly assigned subscribers. You'll now see the added subscribers including their priority status and availability status.
If you'd like to remove a subscriber, click on the trash can icon beside their name on the right hand side of the screen. Chatavise will double-check with you that you'd like to remove this subscriber from the channel.
If you'd like to edit settings for a subscriber, hit the pencil edit icon beside the trash can icon.
From here you'll be able to change the priority level of this subscriber, or mute their notifications for this channel. Once you've updated the settings for this user, click the Save button to save any changes made.
Triggers are an event that occurs in Chatavise and it's integrations that cause an action to take place within Chatavise. For example, closing out a job in your service software can trigger a review invite to be sent within Chatavise.
Selecting a channel trigger will cause any customer interaction with that trigger to add them to the channel. This makes it easier to group customers together without needing to add them to channels manually; Chatavise will take care of it for you!
To select a trigger, start by heading to the Triggers tab within the Channel customization page.
For this walkthrough we have elected to create a Customer Care channel, which may include unhappy customers that need more direct attention to make sure that their problems are handled accordingly. For something like Customer Care, we may want to use a trigger like "Negative soundingboard post received".
Scroll through the list to find the relevant trigger or triggers for this channel, and hit the toggle button to turn them on. Now, customers who perform this trigger (such as hitting the thumbs down on the soundingboard for this channel) will automatically be added to this channel.
After this, your channel should be all set! This is what a full page of Channels would look like in an account:
You can use the channels on the Chats page much like a filter to find customers within that channel. To view your customers within a channel, head to the main Chats page and take a look at your list of channels.
To filter out specific channel customers, just click on the channel. This will pull up all relevant customers to that channel.
You may select more than one channel at a time to view customers from multiple channels all at once. To remove a channel filter, simply click on the channel no longer relevant to you, and it will remove that channel's customer chats.
If there's a channel that's no longer relevant to your and your team, head to the Channels Manage page, click on the pencil edit icon, deselect the Active checkbox, and hit the save button.
You also have the capability of bulk texting your channel customers. Head to the Bulk Text page of Chatavise by clicking the button located at the bottom left of the Chats page.
You will then be prompted to select which channel you'd like to send a bulk text to. Select the channel you'd like to bulk message, and proceed through the bulk text process like normal.
