Create and manage agents

Set up a pre-chat question that will be visible to your customers when they start a new chat conversation with your team. This question can be something like “how can we help?”, so that they can share the general reason they contacted you, like a question or an issue. Your agents will be able to see this message before a chat is assigned, which can also help them decide if they should forward the conversation or assign it to themselves. Find out more about it below! 

How can I set up a pre-chat question?

Here’s how you can edit and enable your pre-chat question and add it to your chat widget:

Step 1: Go to Administration > Channels > Chat. This is where you will be able to see your channel name (General tab), edit messages (Messages tab) and create a chatbot (Chatbot tab). Read more about it here. 

Image 1. Setting up pre-chat question

Step 2: Once you’re in your chat channel administration, open the Messages tab and enable the pre-chat question. You can enable it by checking the box (as seen in Image 1.) and disable it by removing that checkmark. 

Step 3: Finally, edit the text label (you can also add emojis from a list ) and save changes. 

What will the pre-chat question look like in my chat window?

Once you have set up your pre-chat question, make sure to link your chat channel to a website widget and install it on your site. 

Depending on your widget customization preferences, it can look something like this on your website: 

Image 2. Prechat question on website widget

How does it work in the app?

When your customers go to your site and start a new chat, the pre-chat question will appear before the actual chat opens. Their reply to the pre-chat question will be visible in the Unassigned tab before the conversation has been assigned to anyone.

This can be useful because it can help agents determine if the chat should be transferred to anyone else or if they can just assign it to themselves and open it. Alternatively, you can set up chat departments to give customers the option to decide who they’d like to contact.

Here’s what your customer’s reply to your pre-chat question will look like in your Unassigned tab:

Image 3.  Prechat question in Unassigned

And that’s how you can set up a pre-chat question in your Paldesk dashboard! If you come across any issues, reach out to us via live chat at paldesk.com or email us at support@paldesk.com. We’ll be more than happy to help you set things up!