The Chat feature is a web-enabled chat interface that creates a messaging service between customers (current and potential) visiting your website and your agents. Chat enables a customer-initiated conversation to be instantly routed to a group of agents, who can engage the customers in a real-time messaging dialog. The Chat application is faster than email and more efficient than a voice call. Chat helps ensure that agents can provide the best customer service possible in a timely manner, which benefits both agents and customers. A website with a live chat feature improves customer satisfaction by improving agent efficiency. 

With Chat, an agent can work in multiple chat windows simultaneously and service a greater volume of calls, instead of relying on the slower one-to-one interactions that phone support requires. Because the natural cadence of chat allows for a brief pause between responses, an agent can more easily access the necessary information and determine the best solution without placing the customer on hold.

A web widget is an independent application that you can embed into your website to provide your customers (including visitors) with a single support system by enabling them to chat with an agent, access your Knowledge Base (KB) articles, or submit a ticket. Adding a web widget to a business website is becoming standard practice for the following reasons:

  • Most website visitors expect the chat feature to be available on a website.
  • Web chat has minimal response time and efficient issue resolution.
  • Web chat provides a personable experience for customers. 


Chat Feature on the Agent Panel

  • For information about the roles and permissions associated with Chat, see the User Roles and Permissions section in the Product Documentation Library.
  • For information about how to build and deploy a virtual agent (bot) to deliver personalized conversations through chat for your customers, see LiveVox Bot.

Features of Chat

You can create and manage the following types of web widgets in Chat:

  • Chat widget: Enables your customers to chat with an agent. 
  • Knowledge Base widget: Enables your customers to access knowledge base articles. 
  • Ticketing widget: Enables your customers to submit tickets through the widget.

Chat User Interface (UI)

The following provides an example of the Chat user interface (UI) for your customer:  

The Chat UI includes the following options for the customer:

  • A button to accept a web call.  
  • A button to decline a web call.  
  • A mute button to mute the audio and an End button to end the call.
  • An option to rate the chat. Customers can select 1 - 5 stars for the chat rating.

Benefits of Chat

You can use Chat to:

  • Save time and money by supporting customers who need only minimal help.
  • Reduce call volume for busy contact centers.
  • Reduce the hold time for those customers who need human intervention.
  • Create conversations on your website that improve customer satisfaction and use artificial intelligence for self-service use cases.
  • Personalize the customer experience using Contact Manager.
  • Provide a cohesive agent experience and add context to chats using omnichannel interaction history and tickets.
  • Increase customer engagement using proactive chat.
  • Reduce response time using chatbots.
  • Facilitate complex issue resolution using web calling and co-browsing.
  • View the supervisor and agent chat history which is available until the browser cache is cleared.

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