Features of Engagement Messenger

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 8 minutes to read
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    Summary of Features of Engagement Messenger

    The Engagement Messenger application in ServiceNow Xanadu release provides a customizable, interactive communication platform for your customers. It enables various features to support customer engagement through messaging on your website, allowing both authenticated and guest users to access services like knowledge search, case management, chat, and appointment booking. You can tailor the feature set and display order to fit your customers' specific needs.

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    Key Features

    • Greeting: Customize greetings for guest and signed-in users on the messenger header to enhance the user experience.
    • Knowledge: Integrate multiple knowledge bases to display featured articles or provide search results within the messenger. Requires assigning the knowledgeadmin role to the Engagement Messenger admin user.
    • Search: Utilize ServiceNow AI Search to deliver relevant knowledge articles based on configured knowledge bases. Search results include feedback options for customers to help improve content. Note restrictions apply if the Service Portal - Restricted Pages plugin is active.
    • Case Management: Authenticated users can submit, view, and track customer cases directly from the messenger, including receiving updates and responding to requests for more information.
    • Catalogs: Allow customers to browse and request catalog items, with requests tracked through case management. Customers receive updates on their submissions upon login.
    • Field Service Management: Customers can request technician visits by selecting products/services and locations, attach supporting files, and track work orders with live technician location and ETA. Requires activation of the Field Service Management - Customer Experience plugin and is available only for logged-in users.
    • Walk-up Appointments: Enable customers to schedule, modify, or cancel visits to support centers. Confirmation and status notifications are sent via email. Both authenticated and guest users can use this feature with appropriate plugins activated.
    • Virtual and Live Agent Chat: Facilitate real-time or contextual chat interactions between customers and support agents, including case-related chats. Available for both authenticated and guest users, requiring activation of the Glide Virtual Agent plugin and proper system property configuration.
    • Asynchronous Chat: Supports conversations that do not require simultaneous online presence, allowing long-running chats. Configurable via messaging channel setup.
    • Message Preview: Provides previews of unread messages, including text, images, and rich content, enhancing user engagement without opening each message fully. Supports emojis in asynchronous chat.
    • Offline Message Support: Users can view messages sent while offline, with real-time unread message counts displayed upon return.
    • Chat Message History: Maintains chat context even if the chat window is closed and reopened. Idle timeout for conversations is configurable by administrators.
    • Configurable Cards: Allows embedding of custom content into the messenger such as portal pages, featured links, or data from any ServiceNow table, creating a centralized access point for information and services.
    • Proactive Updates and Reminders: Sends reminders and updates about walk-up appointments, technician visits, case statuses, and chats, with notification counts displayed on the messenger widget and browser tab.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • Assign appropriate roles and activate necessary plugins (e.g., knowledgeadmin, Field Service Management - Customer Experience, Walk-up for CSM, Glide Virtual Agent) to enable corresponding features.
    • Configure AI Search, Typeahead Search, and AI Search Assist widgets to optimize search capability for both authenticated and guest users.
    • Customize feature availability and display order on the Engagement Messenger home page to align with your customer engagement strategy.
    • Use Configurable Cards to extend messenger functionality with custom portal content and links, enhancing your self-service offerings.
    • Leverage proactive updates and reminders to keep customers informed and engaged even when they are not actively using the messenger.

    By implementing these features, ServiceNow customers can provide a comprehensive, interactive, and personalized support experience that improves customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

    Understand what the Engagement Messenger application can provide to your customers.

    After you create and configure an Engagement Messenger module, you can customize it for your customers. For example, you can change the display order of any of these features on the home page of the messenger. Also, you can enable or disable any of these features to suit your customer's needs.

    Figure 1. Engagement Messenger features
    Engagement messenger application showing all options for a customer to interact with a company. Refer to the following list for all available options.
    Greeting

    You can display the user greeting, which also includes a greeting message, on the header of the messenger. You can customize the way you want to greet your guest users and the users who sign in to your website.

    Knowledge

    You can select a knowledge base for your search results or choose to display featured articles on the home page of the messenger. You can also add multiple knowledge bases to suit your customer base.

    Note:
    To add knowledge bases to the Engagement Messenger module, you must manually assign the knowledge_admin role to the Engagement Messenger admin [sn_csm_ec.ec_admin] user.
    Search
    The ServiceNow® AI Search capability that is used in the Engagement Messenger application uses the knowledge bases that you selected for your messenger.

    When a customer searches for information using the Search widget on the messenger, the displayed results are from the articles in the knowledge bases that are associated to your messenger module.

    Customers can open the articles from the search results to get the information they need. They can also provide feedback to the article directly from the messenger to indicate whether the article was helpful or not. This feedback helps you to understand which articles are the most helpful so that you can improve those articles that were not helpful.

    Note:
    • If the Service Portal - Restricted Pages plugin (com.glide.service-portal.pages.restricted) is activated in your ServiceNow instance, AI Search functionality will not work in Engagement Messenger for unauthenticated users.

      If this plugin is not activated, then the AI Search functionality works for both unauthenticated and authenticated users.

    • You must configure AI Search in your ServiceNow instance and then enable Typeahead Search and AI Search Assist widgets so that the unauthenticated users can use the AI search feature from Engagement Messenger.

      For more information on enabling Typeahead Search and AI Search Assist widgets for Engagement Messenger, see Enabling AI search in the Customer and Consumer Service Portals for unauthenticated users.

      For more information of AI Search configuration, see Configuring AI Search.

    Case management

    You can manage your customer cases on the messenger. This feature is available only for authenticated users of your website.

    By using the Cases widget on the messenger, your customers can submit a case to request help with something or to report an issue. Submitted cases can be assigned to a customer service agent and tracked to a resolution.

    Figure 2. Case management
    Case management chat windows that customers can see on the customer portal. For the text description, refer to the text that follows.

    Whenever your customers return to the customer portal and log in, they are notified of any updates to the cases that they created. They can also view the details of all the cases and requests that they have previously submitted and track their status.

    Some cases would require action from the submitted user, asking them to provide more information about the help they need or to review a solution that the support team has provided. Customers can perform all these actions directly from within the messenger.

    Catalogs

    You can associate pre-defined catalogs with your Engagement Messenger. Customers can browse through the list of available catalog items. From this list of catalog items, they can choose to request a service or create a ticket. The requests that the customer makes can be tracked to a resolution using the case management feature.

    Whenever your customers return to the customer portal and log in, they are notified of any updates to the requests that they have previously submitted.

    Figure 3. Catalog feature
    Catalog view with the Request things you need feature highlighted.
    Field service management

    The field service feature enables your customer to request a technician visit to service their issue. By selecting a product or service that they need help with and their location, customers can submit a request for a technician visit. While submitting the request, customers can also add any supporting attachments that they think might help the support team understand the issue before a technician is allotted for the visit.

    All technician requests are stored as work orders in your ServiceNow instance so that they can be tracked to completion.

    The Work Order will have the location where the customer has raised a request. Geo-location services must be enabled for the technicians so that customers can track the live location and know the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of their technician. For more information, see Field service feature configuration.

    Note:
    • Ensure that the Field Service Management - Customer Experience plugin (com.snc.fsm_customer_experience) is active in your ServiceNow instance.
    • The field service feature is available only for users who log in to the Engagement Messenger and not for guest users.
    Walk-up appointments

    The walk-up feature enables your customers to book an appointment to visit one of your stores, service centers, and the like. Customers can view the support centers near them and select one to schedule an appointment to visit. Once an appointment is scheduled, customers receive a confirmation email.

    Customers who log in into your website can view a list of scheduled appointments directly from this widget on the Engagement Messenger home page. They can modify or cancel existing appointments. They also receive notification emails on the following status of their walk-up appointment:
    • They are ready to be assisted by an associate of the support center
    • A walk-up interaction is assigned to an associate of the support center
    • A walk-up interaction is closed

    Customers who do not log in can use the confirmation email to view and modify their appointments.

    Note:
    To enable walk-up feature for your customers, ensure that you activate the following plugins in your ServiceNow instance:
    • Walk-up for CSM plugin (com.snc.walkup_for_csm) for authenticated users
    • Guest Walk-up Experience for Customer Service plugin (sn_guest_walkup_cs) for unauthenticated users
    Virtual and live agent chat

    The chat feature enables support agents to interact with customers to resolve their issue by creating incident or case records or to transfer chats to another agent or queue if needed. Chat feature support is enabled for both authenticated and guest (unauthenticated) users.

    Virtual and live agent chat
    Customers can use the Chat widget on the messenger to interact with a virtual or live customer support agents in your organization. This way, your customers can get immediate responses to their queries or issues.
    Figure 4. Live agent chat
    Chat window showing a customer's dissatisfied response to a field service agent's suggested steps to resolve an issue.

    Engagement Messenger also provides contextual chat functionality. From any case details page, your customers can directly start a chat that opens with the context of that specific case.

    Note:
    Chat is available when you activate the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot) and set the com.glide.cs.embed.csp_frame_ancestors system property value to 'self' <your website URL>.
    Asynchronous chat

    Engagement Messenger supports communication at different time intervals, enabling your support agents and end users to participate in long-running conversations without having to be online at the same time. For more information about asynchronous conversation, see Asynchronous Chat.

    Configure asynchronous chat on Engagement Messenger by setting the web client as a messaging channel. For more information, see Configure asynchronous chat for the web channel.

    Message preview
    • Enable preview to see previews of unread chat message text, tables, links, HTML content, cases, knowledge cards, and images shared by the support agent without opening a message. The complete HTML content or video, and multiple unread messages, can be seen only when the user accesses the message.
    • Asynchronous chat supports emojis sent by an agent in the message preview for a more interactive conversation. For more information on how to use emojis in Agent chat, see Using emojis in Agent Chat.
    Figure 5. Previews
    Unread message previews shared by support agents. For the text description, refer to the preceding text in the Message preview section.
    Offline message support
    Offline chat support enables users to view messages sent by the support agent while they were offline. The chat widget notification shows the total number of unread messages in real-time when the user revisits the website.
    Figure 6. Offline message support
    Pop-up window displaying the number of messages received when the user was offline.
    Chat messages history
    Users can close and reopen the chat window as needed without losing context or progress so an accidental messenger closure doesn’t reset the chat session.
    Note:
    You can set a specific timeout to manage the idle conversation. By default, if the requester does not respond to an agent message within two days, the conversation status changes to Closed Abandoned and the chat session is ended. As an admin, you can override the conversation idle timeout period for a web channel by setting the value in the Conversation Idle Timeout field in the Messaging Channels [sys_cs_channel] table. For details, see Closing Virtual Agent and Live Agent conversations.
    Configurable Cards

    The Configurable Cards enables you to add custom features to Engagement Messenger. It enables Engagement Messenger to serve as a one-stop solution for accessing all the information. You can embed portal page, featured links, and data from any table on the messenger using the Configurable Cards.

    Portal page feature card
    Allows you to embed any portal page or catalog item on Engagement Messenger. The embedded page will open within the messenger when the user clicks the feature card.
    Figure 7. Portal configuration
    Portal configuration showing feature cards including a clickable image as a display card, and title and subtitle text as a display card.
    Featured links
    Enables you to add a list of links to website on Engagement Messenger. The link opens in a new browser tab when accessed using the feature card on messenger's homepage.
    Figure 8. Featured links
    Featured links shown as Top Links in a display card.
    Data from any table feature card
    The feature card enables you to embed data from any table on Engagement Messenger. The added records appears as a card with a title or links on a messenger's homepage.
    Figure 9. Data from any table
    Engagement messenger view of open orders and their details, displayed in a table record view or list view when accessed through Card or Links.
    Proactive updates and reminders
    Engagement Messenger provides your customers updates and reminders in the following scenarios so that you can keep your customers updated even if they are not accessing the messenger directly.
    • Reminder for an upcoming walk-up appointment, as per the walk-up feature configuration
    • Reminder for an upcoming technician visit
    • Updates on a case
    • Update on a chat

    According to the configuration of Engagement Messenger behavior, the count of the updates is displayed on the messenger widget on your customer support webpage. If the customer navigates away from your website, the count of updates is also displayed on the browser tab.

    To learn how to start configuring Engagement Messenger for your third-party website, see Set up Engagement Messenger.