The best way to engage your visitors on your booth is by using the live chat feature. Your delegates will be able to post any questions or comments that will then be viewable publicly and will allow you to connect by posting a response. There are a few tools to manage your chat effectively, and this article dives right into them.
Accessing chat on the booth
You can access chat by clicking on the button at the top. The text of the button itself is configurable and can be changed depending on whether the chat is Live or Offline. You can always change the text of that button in Admin Area > Booths - General > Communications.
Viewing your chat threads
You will also have your own My Chat tab where you will see only the questions you ask, the replies to those posts as well as posts that you may have been assigned. Essentially, this becomes a space to view only your conversations.
Chat will display in easy to follow threads so you can find comments about something of particular interest to you, grouped together. If anybody responds to your message, you will see the number go up in Reply () area where you can click, view and respond to all the replies in that thread or alternatively view them in My Chat.
🆕 To Action
You will also notice that live chat has a To Action tab. This tab is like your own to-do list, when you may not always be able to respond straight away or provide all the information. Once you've dealt with the message you can simply click the tick mark to remove it from that tab. Until then, it will remain there so that you don't forget about it.
How to action a message or a reply:
You can use tick mark icon to mark your response as Actioned. Once you have marked your response as Actioned it will disappear from your To Action tab but it will remain in your My Chat.
Any un-actioned responses will remain pink until you have actioned them.
Adding attachments
You may attach a file or image to share with other users. Please note that these are for public use so content must be appropriate. Simply click on the paperclip icon to upload your attachment.
Know who is typing
The system will also let you know which users are responding to your posts by displaying ‘username is typing’. It works the other way round too, so whenever you respond back to your messages, the ‘typing’ message will appear at the top.
Know who is live in the chat
Not to be confused with a Who’s Here button on the booth that refers to live booth visitors. Over to the right, you will see which other users are currently in the chat area. If you wish to find out more about them, you can click on their profile and send a private message.
Making your chat read-only when you are offline
Some users visiting your booth when you are away may want to catch up on the chat from earlier in the day. Setting the live chat to Read Only allows them to read the previous live chat posts and comments, but removes all ability to chat from this area.
To turn it on, simply select Read Only from the chat dropdown in Booths - General > Communications. Turn your Offline contact method on and click Update (in the top right corner). The Read Only chat will be accessed by a smaller button underneath the current online/offline chat box at the top of the right-hand booth panel.
Using a Wall instead of the Live Chat
When you are offline you may have turned the Wall On, in place of the Live Chat. This enables you to let your visitors post any messages on your booth whilst you are away. When you are ready to be back online and want your Live Chat to be On, you may still want users to be able to read the previous offline Wall comments.
If this is the case, turn your Live Chat On and select Read Only from the Offline Wall dropdown. (You will need to set your Offline contact preference to No Preference) then Update your stand.
The Read Only Wall feature will display in the Wall icon on the right hand side of your booth panel.