How the chatbot works

The Pleased chatbot is the conversational front door on your website. A customer opens the chat widget, browses or asks a question, and is either answered from your knowledge base or handed to a live agent, a voice call or a support request.

This article explains the path a customer takes, and the settings that control it. Chatbot settings are held per brand and, where you use more than one language, per language. Appearance is covered separately in (Customising your chatbot to be linked) Installing the widget is covered in (TBC)

Before you begin

You need:

• The Chat Bot Edit permission.
• At least one brand configured
• Published knowledge base articles if you want the bot to answer from your own content.
• The chat widget installed on your site, otherwise customers never reach the bot. See Setting up the chat widget.

How a conversation runs

When a customer opens the widget, Pleased picks the first matching path, in this order:

1. An open live chat is resumed if they already have one.
2. The normal landing, including categories and articles.

From there the customer typically:

1. Sees your welcome message.
2. Browses categories, sections and articles
3. Reaches a connect step if the article cannot resolve the issue. These connection options include, live chat, a voice call or an open request, depending on what you enabled and what is available at that moment.
4. Options that are unavailable at the time, for example voice with nobody online, are simply not shown.
5. Ends the conversation. A CSAT survey is then offered to a user as long as the conversation is not abandoned.

How to configure the chatbot

Step 1 — Open the chatbot configuration

1. Go to Chat.
2. Under Chat settings and select Chatbot.
3. Choose the brand you are configuring.

The left-hand tree is your knowledge base for that brand. Select the brand itself to edit brand-wide settings, or a category, section or article to edit that item.

Step 2 — Configure the brand

Select the brand (the Chatbot Welcome Message item) to set behaviour that applies across the widget.

Settings & configs:

Display this option to End User

Shows or hides the welcome message when the widget opens

Define Welcome Message

The first text the customer sees. Keep it short. If you leave it empty, Pleased uses a default greeting

Step 3 — Configure categories, sections and articles

Select an item in the tree. Settings cascade downward: a category's connect options apply to its sections and articles unless you override them.

Shared settings

Display this option to End User

Shows or hides this category, section or article in the widget

Do you want to override parent's settings?

On a section or article, lets you change connect behaviour independently of the parent. Parent settings are copied downstream until you override

Define Response Message

Text shown when the customer selects this item

Connect End user to Agent

Which channels are offered: Live Chat, Call, Open Request. You can also require login, and apply the same choice to every article in a section

Add message before connecting to agent

Extra copy shown before the connect options (categories and sections)

Apply A/B Testing

Shows Connect to Agent to only a percentage of customers (10–99). Requires Connect to Agent. Cannot be combined with Skip Article Content

Auto-Assign Ticket/Live Chat Category

Category attached to the voice chat, open request or auto-closed chat created when the customer connects. For live chat it is added when the conversation ends

At least one of Live Chat, Call or Open Request must be selected when Connect to Agent is on.

Article-only settings

These appear when you select an individual article.

Show Description Box

Asks the customer to describe the issue before connecting. Defaults to on; to turn it off you must first select a transaction type

Custom Description Instructions

Prompt above the description box. Defaults to "Describe your problem"

Setup Pre-"Connect Agent/Restart Chat" Message

Copy shown above Connect to Agent or Restart Chat after the customer leaves an article or cancels a request

Skip Article Content

Skips displaying the article and jumps to the next configured step (description and/or transaction). The article remains searchable. Requires Connect to Agent, and does not work with A/B testing

Trigger Ticket Creation

The customer submits a ticket first, sees your response message, then can connect to an agent. The default response is "We have received your request and will get back to you shortly."

Step 4 — Saving

When you are happy, select Save. If you navigate away with unsaved edits, Pleased warns you first.

Changes must be saved to reach customers. Confirm you edited the same brand the widget is assigned to.

Troubleshooting

No live chat option appears. Connect to Agent does not include Live Chat, chat availability is off, or no agent is online for that brand.

Voice is never offered. Connect to Agent does not include Call, voice is not enabled for the brand, or no voice agent is online.

Changes are not visible on the website. Chatbot settings are per brand and per language, confirm you edited the same brand and language the widget uses, and that you selected Save.

Connect to Agent settings are greyed out on a section or article. Override parent's settings is off, so the item is inheriting from above. Turn override on to edit it here.