What is a Chat Shortcut?
A Chat Shortcut is a word that the system replaces with a longer phrase when the agent types it in the chat window. You set up the shortcut in the account administration and agents type a forward slash (/) followed by the shortcut in order to have the longer phrase appear.
How an Agent uses a Chat Shortcut
In the chat window, the agent can type a forward slash (/) to make a list of Chat Shortcuts appear. In the image below there is only one Chat Shortcut set up for the account, but if you have a lot of Chat Shortcuts, the agent can keep typing the name of the Shortcut to go directly to that one in the list. In this example, you can see that a variable has been included in the Template field, and the agent sees what the message will look like with the correct variable value.
Adding a New Chat Shortcut
Follow these steps to get to the screen where you add a new Chat Shortcut. You can also use this screen to edit an existing Chat Shortcut:
- Log in to your Support.com account.
- Select Admin in the Navigator bar at the top of the screen.
- Select Settings>Chat.
The Chat Shortcuts screen appears.
From here you can click the pencil icon next to a Chat Shortcut if you want to edit one, or you can click the +Add New button to create a new one. The Chat Shortcut itself must not have spaces, so keep it to one word. If you need to have more than one word, you can run the words together without spaces or use an underscore between them.
By the way, the Description that you see here is visible only to you as the administrator to help you identify the Chat Shortcut if you have a lot of them set up in your account. Whatever you type in this field is not going to be seen by the customer. Also, if you've got a Chat Shortcut that just isn't ready for agents to actually use yet, you can set the Status to Disabled. The Chat Shortcut will still appear in your list in the Admin screen, but agents won't be able to type in the shortcut and get the replacement.
Personalizing shortcuts with variables
In the replacement text (the text you type in the Template field), you can use variables. For example, if your Template text were:
Then the chat would show the name of the consumer in the replacement text instead of the variable. For example, if the consumer's name was Lee, it would say:
Hi Lee. How can I help you today?
To see a list of the variables that you can use, type {{ in the Template field. A list of variables will appear that you can scroll through. If you know the name of the variable that you want to use, you can continue typing it after the {{ to go directly to that variable in the list.
The following table lists the available shortcuts. Depending on your account configuration, this list might vary slightly from what you see in your account.
| Variable | Comment |
|---|---|
| user.email | |
| user.given_name | |
| user.family_name | |
| sessionPath.id | |
| sessionPath.session_id | |
| sessionPath.session_device_id | |
| sessionPath.workflow_version_id | |
| sessionPath.name | |
| sessionPath.status | |
| session.id | |
| session.external_id | |
| session.user.email | |
| session.user.given_name | |
| session.user.family_name | |
| session.user.phone | |
| session.user.external_id | |
| session.consumer.email | |
| session.consumer.given_name | |
| session.consumer.family_name | |
| session.consumer.phone[0] | |
| session.consumer.phone[1] | |
| session.consumer.external_id | |
| sessionDevice.id | |
| sessionDevice.session_id | |
| sessionDevice.machine_id | |
| sessionDevice.device_id | |
| sessionDevice.device_type | |
| sessionDevice.os_name | |
| sessionDevice.connectionKey | |
| sessionDevice.isRemoteCapable | |
| sessionDevice.isMobile | |
| sessionDevice.SDKVersion | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.id | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.name | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.os | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.serial | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.serial2 | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.os_lang | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.model | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.manufacturer | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.brand | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.ip_address_public | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.memory | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.networkInfo | |
| sessionDevice.deviceInfo.os_version | |
| sessionDevice.DeviceName | |
| gp-title | The title of the Guided Path that the Agent is currently viewing. This variable is available only from get.support.com and it must be provisioned for your tenant. The value of this variable will appear only if the Guided Path that the agent is viewing is available to Consumers or Consumers & Agents (not Agents Only). |
| gp-url | The URL of the Guided Path that the Agent is currently viewing. This variable is available only from get.support.com and it must be provisioned for your tenant. The value of this variable will appear only if the Guided Path that the agent is viewing is available to Consumers or Consumers & Agents (not Agents Only). |
| gp-description | The description of the Guided Path that the Agent is currently viewing. This variable is available only from get.support.com and it must be provisioned for your tenant. The value of this variable will appear only if the Guided Path that the agent is viewing is available to Consumers or Consumers & Agents (not Agents Only). |
You aren't limited to using Chat Shortcuts for just saying hello. Consider creating one for when the agent is going to be unresponsive for some reason, to direct the customer to a satisfaction survey at the end of the discussion, or any time you want to save your agents' time from typing repetitive messages.
In this example, a chat shortcut contains replacement text that resolves into the URL for the Guided Path that the Agent is currently viewing.
https://<YourDomain>.support.com/how-to/{{sessionPath.workflowVersion.json.Name.replace(/ /g,'-')}}-{{sessionPath.workflowVersion.workflow_id}}Let's review the components of this bit of replacement text:
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| https://<YourDomain>.support.com | This is the domain of the site where your Guided Paths live. You replace the <YourDomain> part with the domain of your site. For example, if your subdomain were "example," this this would say https://example.support.com |
| /how-to/ | This is the directory where you keep your Guided Paths. Replace this value with whatever you've named your own directory. |
| {{sessionPath.workflowVersion.json.Name.replace(/ /g,'-')}} | This command takes the value in the sessionPath.workflowVersion.json.Name variable (the name of the Guided Path) and replaces all the spaces with a hyphen, as you would expect when a title is turned in to a URL. |
| -{{sessionPath.workflowVersion.workflow_id}} | This part adds a hyphen and the value of the sessionPath.workflowVersion.workflow_id variable to the end of the URL. |
If you have questions about using this feature or need help implementing it, contact the Help Desk.