Creating messaging triggers

Messaging triggers are a separate set from ticket triggers, with their own conditions and their own place in Admin Center.

Messaging triggers are a separate set from ticket triggers, with their own conditions and their own place in Admin Center.

They are not ticket triggers

The distinction that confuses people. Ticket triggers act on tickets after they exist. Messaging triggers act on the conversation as it happens: someone opens the widget, sends a first message, or goes quiet.

Both exist, both are needed, and looking for one in the other's list is a common few minutes lost.

Create one

1. Open Admin Center, then Objects and rules, then Business rules, then Messaging triggers.
2. Add a trigger and name it after what it does.
3. Choose the event it reacts to.
4. Add conditions.
5. Add the action, usually sending a message.
6. Test in the widget yourself.

The ones worth having

• A greeting on the first message, setting expectations.
• An out-of-office response outside business hours.
• A wait-time message when the queue is long.
• An inactivity reminder before closing a conversation that has gone quiet.

Test in the widget

Not by reading the conditions. Open your own site, start a conversation and watch what arrives, including the timing. Messaging is felt as a rhythm, and a message that is correct but arrives four seconds too late feels robotic.

Keep the number small

Every trigger is a message the customer receives. Four automated messages before a human says anything is a bad conversation, however well each one is written.

See also

• The standard messaging triggers
• Conditions and actions in messaging triggers
• Setting an out-of-office response