The lead capturing chat flow is set up in the “Chat” tab inside the sequence.

The chat can work as a standalone feature, where data is collected for contact capturing which can be pushed into your CRM; and it can connect with an email campaign, where Exceed’s email sequences can provide additional follow-up engagement if a contact drops-off at any point in the chat conversation.

Creating the Sequence

To initiate a new chat sequence, open a new sequence and choose:

Platform: Chat to Email
Type: Chat Template

Once you open the sequence, navigate to the Chat tab and start building your chat!

Crafting the Flow

A few things to keep in mind while creating the chat flow:

Though it's tempting to ask many questions, keep it a short as possible to decrease the drop-off rate.
Think about what are must-haves you need in order to set a meeting. Company name & email might be a must, when Name isn't necessarily. Do you have qualification criteria? use buttons to qualify & disqualify.
Prioritize buttons over free text.
Relevant especially for number - present number ranges via buttons rather than asking for a specific number.
Not all visitors are ready to meet.
Treat the chat also as an educational one for people to learn about your product or service. Offer a flow support that with information, case study, or link to the resources page.

Types of Fields

There are various options to choose from:

Text - can be used with Buttons (see below) or just to collect info like company name
Email - Exceed.ai automatically verifies that the email is valid and wouldn't bounce. You can choose to collect only work emails
Phone - a number with 9-15 digits
Number - to collect the number of employees, for example
Name
Address - specific address according to selected locations
Country - we will collect the country and in cases of misspelling, would validate it
Meeting Scheduler - to book meetings with reps directly from the chat. To learn about assignment preferences, check this article: Rep Account Setup
Confirmation - used to pop a text with a flow afterward or as the last node of a flow. Notice, it is required to end each flow with a confirmation with the proper status: Assigned or Ended
Media - to share a video from youtube
Answers - lets the contact ask a question and receive an answer based on pre-defined Answers. After answering, the chat would present the previous message in the flow
Support - would trigger the Active Chat

It is important that you choose the correct field type that is related to your field name (i.e, for name, choose “Name”; for a phone number choose “Phone”). This is because the Exceed engine has been trained to extract the correct type of information from the answer that is provided to us from the contact, according to the type of field that we are expecting. For example, if a contact responds with “My name is John”, and the field type is set as “Name”, we will know that “My name is” is not the contact’s name, but that “John” is the contact’s name.

Please note:

If you are choosing to input the ‘Meeting Scheduler” in your chat flow, ensure that you have set up an “email” node beforehand so that there is an email address we can send the meeting invite to.
The “Confirmation” field does not collect any information, but rather allows for an acknowledgment of information collected from the previous question, or for a break in messages sent to contacts. I.e. if you would like to share information before continuing with the flow.

Creating the Flow

By default, you have a basic flow offered for you. You can either edit it or start from scratch.

Start with a welcome greeting and ask what are they looking for:

Welcome Greeting
This is an optional greeting which is the first message that a website visitor will see when the chat is activated. Use confirmation type for this.
Fallback
This message will appear if a contact says / asks something that the Exceed.ai engine does not understand how to respond to.

To start building your flow, click on the + sign

Once you've added a new block, options will appear on the right side:

Field Name

Create a label for the field, I.e. name, address, country, etc.
Make sure the name doesn't have spaces. You can use underscore instead, like Phone_Number

Variant of Questions

Type out the way in which you would like to ask the question to the contact.

You can create a few variants of how this question will be asked to contacts, and this is shown to visitors in a round-robin fashion.

This function is to assist with A/B testing and to create a more human-like interaction with contacts.

Buttons

Buttons are used when you would like to give your contacts options to choose from to help gather further information.

When buttons are used in the flow, ensure that the field type is set as “Text”.

Other Settings

Mandatory - when this is marked, we will insist on collecting the field information from the contact and not move on to the next step until the contact provides the information. If it is not marked, it is not mandatory for the lead to provide the information in order to move on to the next step in the flow.
Update CRM - if this is checked, the information will be pushed into your CRM

If you would like to set up a node that is dependent on the answer provided in the step before, you are able to do that through the Field Condition setting.

The “Present only if” selection should be the field that this node is dependent on.

I.e. if you would like to insert a Meeting Scheduler in the flow, you can set up that this step will only be presented to the contact if the email address field has been completed correctly by the contact, meaning it exists.

Contains vs. Exists

“Contains” is used when there are certain buttons that need to be selected by the contact in order to follow a specific flow.
“Exists” is used when it is not specific what answer is provided by the contact, as long as it fits into the field type. I.e., the name of a contact.

Note: if you are going to connect an email sequence to follow-up with leads if there is a drop-off, an email address should try to be collected as one of the first steps of your flow, therefore, should be mandatory.

You are able to set up how your chat widget will appear to contacts visiting your website in the following section:

Settings > Chat Widget

There are two different options in how your chat can appear to website visitors. As a Pop-up chat (you can dictate the time it will appear after a contact lands on your page), or through the Chat Launcher.

The default setting is the pop-up chat.

Note:

These settings will be applied to all chats that are set up in the project.

Pop-up Chat

Chat Title
Choose a name for the Chat settings
Auto Start After (in seconds)
Here you can choose how long (in seconds) the chat will pop up after contact has landed on the webpage
Avatar Image
This is the image that will appear as the avatar for your chat. It can be uploaded in the following formats: jpg., jpeg., png., svg.
Response delay (in milliseconds)
This is how long each message will take to deliver to the contact, from the time of receiving the last message from the contact.
Restart conversation on chat re-open.
If this toggle is switched on, it means that if a contact closes the chat at any time, and then re-opens it, the conversation will start from the beginning. The default setting for this feature is switched off, with an expiration period of 1 day which can be changed.
Theme color
This will be the color of the main bar at the top of the chat
Client Message background
This will be the color of the bubble responses from your contacts.

For the above two points, you are able to choose a color from the rainbow color selector or insert the HEX code for exact color.

Chat Launcher

The chat launcher is an alternative option for the appearance of the chat on your webpage. When a contact lands on the webpage, instead of the chat popping up, an avatar image and a small welcome message will appear on the bottom right-hand corner. Contact will have to click on the message or avatar in order to start the conversation with the bot.

You can personalize the welcome message that will appear next to the avatar.

Upload Image:

You are able to place a different image as the chat icon before a lead starts engaging with the chat. I.e. your company logo.
This setting needs to be completed, even if you decide to use the same image that is being used for your Avatar Image.

Code for Embedding Chat into your Website

Post this code in the <head> tag:

sequenceid='<Sequence ID>'

utm_source=’auto’/>

Adding Custom Attributes to Chat Widget

You can also add your custom attributes to the chat widget. Those custom attributes will be saved under the contact details in Exceed, and you'll be able to sync them back into your CRM. In order to add your custom attribute simply add it into the chat script. For example, if you would like to add a lead source to be "Exceed Chat" simply add a new attribute into your script in the following way: