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Creating a Journey in Chat

Jorge Ferreira Filho
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In this article, we will learn what is a Journey and how to benefit from its multiple features, improving and customizing the user experience for your prospects.

Table of Contents

What is a Journey?

A Journey is where you can set up an automated experience on your website for visitors to interact with, with the ultimate goal of qualifying them and leading them to a conversion event such as capturing their email address and/or booking a meeting with a sales rep. 

The possibilities are endless with creating Journeys to build pipeline, so it’s recommended that you categorize the type of experiences you want to provide with them; here are some ideas:

  • Journeys for personalized landing page experiences, such as “Pricing Page” or “Homepage”.
  • Journeys for solution-specific or product-specific pages.
  • Journeys for returning site visitors.
  • Journeys for events and webinar registration.

Starting everywhere is compelling, but starting with one area and hyper-focusing on a few landing pages to test your initial Journeys strategy before expanding will set you up for success!

To get started, navigate to the “Chat” section in the left-side menu of your Fire workspace and open the section menu. You will see "Journeys" listed first!

Copying Nodes

Before you get started, note that you can also copy multiple nodes and paste them where needed in your Journey to save yourself time and manual effort! The only nodes that can't be copied are the Welcome Message and Trigger ones.

In your Journey, CLICK + SHIFT and select the nodes you want to copy. After that, click "Copy Nodes" in the pop-up message that will appear at the bottom:

When copying/pasting for the first time, your browser will likely ask for the permission below. Select Allow, otherwise, pasting will not be available


If you already blocked it, no problem, you can toggle the Clipboard button on by clicking the icon right next to your browser's URL while you are on the Journey's page:

You can paste the copied nodes in the same Journey or in different Journeys across the same or different workspaces. 

To do that, click the (+) button, and select "Paste Nodes"

Trigger

Every Journey starts with a Trigger node which will always be the first node. There are two main components of the Trigger:

  • Location: Where should this Journey appear and when. You can show it everywhere or only under certain conditions like specific URLs, device types, query parameters, time on page, page scroll percentage, etc.

  • Audience: Who should this Journey appear for. You will be able to set conditions using both Chili Data and Salesforce rules. Note that at this time, these rules only apply to returning visitors whose email has previously been collected.

Let's cover a real use case example to give more context on the settings above.

In this example, we only want the Journey to load on Chili Piper's pricing page to everyone and be passive. With that being said, we will

  • Set Location conditions that require the visitor to be on the following URL https://www.chilipiper.com/pricing and from a Desktop device for the Journey to be triggered.

  • Set the Audience field to "Show to everyone"

 

Just so you know, the Trigger conditions can also be used to test your Journey before launching it on your website. You can set a URL condition to any testing or staging URL, such as yourdomain.com/internal-testing.

Starting your Journey: Send a Welcome Message

The first node after a Trigger is always the Welcome Message node. This consists of a message and at least one reply button. The Welcome Message node is a best practice for greeting your visitors with a simple message that catches their attention and gives them a clear call-to-action (CTA) using reply buttons to engage with your Journey further quickly. This note can't be deleted.

Click the node, and you will be able to edit the Welcome Message and the Reply Buttons to be sent:

The preview of your welcome message will be displayed on the same screen, and this is how visitors will initially see the widget when they land on your site:

Send a Message and Reply Buttons

At any point in your Journey, you can Send a Message and Reply Buttons.

As the name suggests, the Send a Message node is a message to your prospects, such as guidelines, questions, links, etc. This is different than the Welcome Message, since this one is always placed right after your Trigger, and the Send a Message one can be used anywhere.

Coming to the Send Reply Buttons node, this is where you can send some pre-defined and clickable options to your prospects, routing them to the correct path of your Journey.

Using Data Fields to Capture Visitor Data (Send Data Field)

While you have your visitor’s attention and interest, you may want to capture their relevant data (such as email, Company, and so on) before asking too many questions to ensure the required teams can follow up.

Whenever you are ready to capture their email or any other information, you can use the "Send data field" node.

Still using the same example, after setting our reply buttons, we included a few messages to keep the interaction going and the Email data field so the visitor's e-mail could be collected for the interactions.

Data Fields are configured in the Admin Center and are reusable in other Chili Piper products like Fire Concierge and ChiliCal. They can also be mapped to your Salesforce fields to ensure visitor data synchronizes with your Salesforce records. You can read more about setting up Data Fields here.

After capturing the email, you can use Data Fields to collect more information for other qualifying questions within a single form. Visitors may get restless with the back-and-forth conversation-style Q&A through a chatbot if it’s unclear when it will end or if the visitor will eventually talk to someone live. For example, to qualify this visitor, we will need their Company Size and their State:

 

You can also add Hidden Fields  that will not be visible to your visitors but will still be written in their records in Salesforce. Still using the same example, we will add a Hidden Field to write the prospect's Country as the United States:

By asking for these three Data Fields in the same node, the visitor will be presented with the non-Hidden ones simultaneously in a form view. The Hidden one will not be displayed to the visitor.

Any data the visitor submits, including what was set in the Hidden Fields, will also appear in their Inbox conversation, which you can configure here if you are a Sales Rep or here if you are an Admin.

Routing Rules

Routing Rule nodes can be used to branch the conversation, and you may choose to do this for a couple of reasons, such as:

  • Provide a personalized experience to visitors with specific firmographics, i.e., 'Company Size > 1000+'.

  • Route visitors to different team members based on specific criteria.

In the example Journey above, we can add a Routing Rule node after asking for an Email to check if the visitor already exists in Salesforce. If they are, then we can route them to their existing Lead Owner:

This example rule uses a Salesforce condition to check if the Lead.OwnerId is in the Team called "SDRs". If the owner is one of the members of this Team, then we will route it directly to them. If not, the rule will not match, and we can continue with a different flow, like our supplemental qualifying questions.

Click here for a more detailed view of how to configure and maintain your Rules!

Route for Live Chat

You should also be able to assign someone to the conversation to start live chatting with the visitor by using the Route for Live Chat node.

When using this node, note that if it is preceded by an Ownership type Routing Rule, you will see an option in the menu to Route to that owner. Otherwise, you can configure the node to either:

  • Team or Team Member via Round Robin: Chili Piper will round robin leads equitably among a Team, starting with the first team member on the list.

  • Route to an Individual: Assign the chat to a specific user.

  • Route to an Owner: Route to the owner identified in the Salesforce Ownership Routing Rule.

  • Route to Everyone in a Team: Assign the chat to a team instead of an individual, and allow the team to self-assign on a first-come, first-served basis.

When adding the “Route for Live Chat” node, the path will automatically branch on the rep's availability in two places:

  1. First branch: Chili Piper is checking to see if any reps in the "Routing to" configuration are online. If the assigned individual or at least one Team member is online, we will proceed with the top branch. Otherwise, we will fall back to the lower one.

  2. Second branch: Chili Piper will use the "Wait for rep" node to check and wait for the rep to join the conversation.

Note that checking reps' availabilities is currently based on this switcher in the bottom right-hand corner of both the Workspace and MyApp/ChiliCal's Home sections of the app:

When a rep joins the Live Chat, their name and profile picture will be displayed, so prospects can know they are speaking to a "real person". Ensure your reps have their profile pictures updated in their Personal Details in MyApp.

Route for Meeting Node

You can use the "Route for Meeting" node to present a calendar to the visitor. The node can be configured to book similarly to the Route for Live Chat node; the main difference is that the visitor will book a meeting for the future and will not be presented with a Live Chat option:

  • Round Robin within a Team: Chili Piper will round robin meetings equitably among a Team, starting with the first team member on the list. Click here to learn more about Teams and how to create them.

  • Route to an Individual: Assign the meeting to a specific user.

  • Route to an Owner: Route to the owner identified in the Salesforce Ownership Routing Rule

For meetings booked through Chat, you can create your Team Meeting Type template by expanding the "Assets" section and clicking the "Meeting Type" option on the left-hand side menu.

The selected Meeting Type will be displayed in your node:

In the widget, visitors will see a calendar followed by the confirmation screens you set in your Meeting Type once they select a time.

You likely have noticed the hyperlinks, but we would recommend checking this article to learn more about Meeting Types and their features

Wait for Rep Node

The Wait for Rep node is optional and not required when using "Route for Live Chat", although optimizing the visitor's experience is recommended.

The default timeout is set to 30 seconds. However, we recommend setting this no higher than 90 seconds as the visitor is not guaranteed to still be on the site if required to wait an extended period.

It is also recommended to let the visitor know how long they should be expected to wait, i.e., "This should take no longer than one minute", like in the example below:

Assing To Node

You can use the Assign To node to assign a visitor through a Distribution in the following scenarios:

Click the + button in one of the above-mentioned paths, and select the "Assign To" option within the Routing options:

Within the node, you can configure the record to be assigned to:

  • Meeting or Live Chat: We will use the rep assigned to have the meeting booked or the Live Chat assigned to assign the CRM record to them. The Meeting option will be enabled only after a Route for Meeting node, and the Live Chat option after a Router for Live Chat one.

  • Individual: You can select one individual to have the record assigned.

  • Distribution: Here, you can select one of your Distributions to distribute the record among your Team's reps. Click the hyperlinks if you want to learn more about Distributions and Teams.

Send a Slack Notification Node

You can use the Send a Slack Notification node anytime on the Journey. The most common uses would be:

  • Notifying a channel when a new lead has submitted an email
  • Notifying a channel when a new lead has been routed for live chat and is waiting for the rep to respond
  • Notifying a channel/individual when a lead owned by them is on the website

In our "Route for Live Chat to Owner" example path above, we can add a Send a Slack Notification node immediately after if the rule matches "true" to notify the "Assignee" in Slack:

The "Assignee" option works dynamically by notifying the routed assignee. Alternatively, you can configure the notification to be sent to a Public or Private Slack Channel or a specific user. 

The message can be either the Default "There’s a new visitor on the site", or a custom message.

If you do configure the notification to go to a Channel, you must have the Slack integration configured in the Admin Center and have @chilinbot added to the channel. For more information on how to do this, please refer to this article: Configuring Slack Notifications in Chat

Navigate To Node

If you would like to refer to a part of your Journey that you have already built, the Navigate To node will allow you to redirect it without replicating it manually. 

The Navigate To node will redirect to the node you referenced and everything after it. In this example, we are redirecting to the "Send a message" node that says the team is unavailable, which means we will follow the rest of the path and send the same "Missed Chat" Slack notification.

Update or Create Salesforce Record Node

After collecting an Email, you can update an existing Salesforce record or create a new one at any point in your Journey.

Chili Piper will first check if an existing Salesforce record exists. If it does, there is an option to update that existing record. Any Data Fields captured in the Journey prior will be used to update the record. 

If this setting is disabled, then we will not modify existing records. A new record can be created either as a Contact if an existing Account is found OR always as a new Lead:

 

To modify/update your L2A settings, you can do so in your workspace settings here

Create Salesforce Event Node

At any point in your Journey, after adding a "Route for Meeting" and an "Update or Create Salesforce Record Node", you can use this node to Create a Salesforce Event attached to a related object: Account, Opportunity, or Case.

You can also determine if the event will be deleted or not if the meeting gets canceled or deleted from the reps' calendar.

Update Field Node 

After collecting the visitor’s email and adding an "Update or Create Salesforce Record Node", you can select Lead and Contact-related fields in Salesforce to update with a desired value at any point in your Journey. You can update multiple fields in the same node.

In the example below, the Contact_Status__c or the Lead.Status field will be the one to be updated with "Sales Working": 

The fields used in our example were picklist-related, with pre-defined options set in Salesforce. You should be able to include a value that needs to be updated manually for other types of fields.

Add to Campaign Node 

You can also associate the Lead/Contact record to a Salesforce Campaign and set the Campaign Member Status in your Journey. This node also requires the visitor's Email to be collected and adding and an "Update or Create Salesforce Record Node" first.

In the example below, we are setting the node to associate prospects to the "Dreamforce 2019" Campaign and update their Campaign Member Status to "Responded": 

Update Ownership Node

This is another handy feature and node, where you can update the Salesforce owner to the Assignee selected by Chili Piper during a Live Chat. This will update the standard Owner Lookup field for the selected object (OwnerId).

To enable this node, you must first route your visitor for a Live Chat or Meeting and add an "Update or Create Salesforce Record Node". 

As you can notice in the screenshot above, you can define which object will be updated depending on which object was matched in your CRM.

If the "Update Account if an Account is matched" is Enabled, we will follow your workspace's Lead-to-Account (L2A) settings. You can modify/update your L2A settings in your workspace settings here.

Testing Your Journey

As you build out your Journey, you will be able to preview it at any time without deploying code to your website. Once you publish your Journey for the first time, use the "Preview Journey" button at the header to load the widget on a test page.

Note that any changes must be published to ensure you load the latest version on the test page. If errors prevent the Journey from being published, you must resolve them before publishing and then testing the new Journey version.

You should see something similar to the page below after clicking Preview Journey:

To reset the widget and/or load the latest published changes, use the "Restart" button at the top right. You will notice the widget will reset.

Duplicating Your Journey

If you want to use an existing Journey setup to build a new one, you can create a copy of your existing Journeys to facilitate!

Expand the "Chat" option in the left-hand menu, and click "Journeys":

 

Once your Journeys list load, click the three dots right next to the one you want to copy, and click "Duplicate"

After that, you will notice a new Journey created as "Copy of..." in Draft mode. From there, you can update the Journey's name and setup as you wish!

Viewing and Restoring your Journey to Previous Versions

If you need to track the updates made to a Chat Journey and rollback any changes that possibly caused any issues to your flow, the Version History is your place to go!

On your Journey's header, click the three dots (...), and then Version History:

The UI will display the Journey's current version with an Active flag, and its previous versions sorted by the publishing date.

You can click in a previous version to see what it looks like, but note it will be displayed in View only mode, meaning you cannot edit yet. Note the information banner in the header as well:

If you wish restoring to a previous version, click the Restore Version button:

Then, confirm it by clicking Restore & Erase Latest Draft:

That's it, you restored your Journey to a previous version!

 

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