Hello everyone,

It’s been a while since the last update, but we’ve been working hard on many improvements to the application.  We’ve just posted a significant update this week that doesn’t change a lot visually, but improves important elements in the underlying architecture that will be important moving  forward.

A couple things that I would like to draw your attention to are the new “My Info”, “Manage Account” and “Contact Support” options are available from the admin.  The “My Info” link is a quick way to access your user details (the user you’re currently logged in with).  “Manage Account” is only available to the Super Administrator and there you will be able to access key information about your account and PayPal details (for paid accounts).  “Contact Support” is a quick and easy way to contact support from within the Dashboard, making it super easy for you to contact us.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about any of these new improvements.

Best Regards,
Luke

Hello everyone,

I’m excited to tell you about the latest update that we posted this week, which is an upgrade to the Chat Invitation feature.  This update now allows you to customize the look of the Invitation Pop-up window.  You are able to upload a custom operator image and also select custom background and button colours.  Here’s a screen shot showing the new feature in action:

If you’re looking for a specific colour that we didn’t include in this initial release, please let us know and we’ll consider adding it to the system.

In addition we have also improved the operator session management.  We know that many of you like to leave the Chat Monitor window open for extended periods of time and occasionally have had your session time out while you’re not watching.  Not only have we done some improvements to the session timeout reliability, but we now have a 30-second warning that will show up before your session times out.  This warning also plays a sound, so even if you don’t have the Chat Monitor in view, you will hear the warning.

As always, let us know what you think of these improvements and be sure to send us any suggestions you may have on how we can continue to improve these features.

Cheers,
Derek

Hi Everyone,

Due to a rapid increase in the amount of users signing up for Provide Chat we’re going to be upgrading servers tonight at 12:00 AM EST (midnight). There will be a brief moment where the system is taken offline.

When we’re finished, the benefit for you will be a much more agile and faster service.

As always, we’re constantly looking for ways to improve the features, benefits, and overall service of Provide Chat. If you have any questions about any of this please let me know (luke@providechat.com).

Cheers,
Luke

Hi everyone,

Some of you have been asking for the ability to customize your text links. We’ve just added new feature that will allow you to customize the online and offline text for your live chat links.

If you’re using a text link rather than a button/image you now have full control of the text displayed in the link.

You can customize your text links by going to “Settings -> Image & Text Link” from the Dashboard.

If you have any questions about this new feature or anything else related to Provide Chat please email me at luke@providechat.com.

All the best,
Luke

Greetings all,

we have done another update to Provide Chat today which adds some basic search features to the chat transcript reports.  You are now able to narrow down your transcript listings based upon Chat ID, Operator & Date Range fields.

In addition, we have also added the ability to search chat transcripts directly from the Chat Monitor.  You’ll find this new search field directly below the Sales and Technical Info tabs.  You can enter a specific Chat ID or simply click Search Transcripts to open a window with full transcript search abilities.

Finally, we have also done some tweaks to the visitor chat experience.  Now at the conclusion of a chat, the visitor will be shown their specific Chat ID for future reference.  In subsequent chats, the visitor can give this Chat ID to the operator, who will be able to use the Search Transcripts feature to locate the previous chat log.  In addition this Chat ID is also shown in the chat transcript log that the visitor is able to access via the Email Chat & Save Chat functions.

We trust these features will continue to improve your Provide Chat experience and also improve the experience for your site visitors.

Cheers,

Derek

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that we have been continuing to work on improving the Chat Invite feature and just within the last week we have rolled out some improvements.  You should now notice that on the Chat Monitor there is an Invite button which you can now use to send a Chat Invite popup to any of your website visitors.  Simply select the visitor you wish to send the invitation to and then click the Invite button and within moments your visitor should see the Invitation popup.

Just a couple quick points about this feature:

1. You need to ensure that you have updated the ProvideChat code on your website to the latest available version.  We posted an update to the Code Generator last week, so if you have not updated your code within the last week you will need to do that before this feature will become active on your website.  This update also improves visitor country and screen resolution detection so it’s worth it to update your code even if you don’t intend to use the Invite feature.
2. If you use this feature in combination with the Proactive Invitation feature and visitor has already received a Proactive Invitation, they will not be sent your chat invitation.  You don’t want to annoy your website visitors with multiple pop-ups and so we ensure that each visitor will receive a maximum of one pop-up invitation per visit to your website.

Please note that this feature is still in beta and so please let us know if you encounter any problems with it and we will address them immediately.

Cheers,

Derek