Proactive Messaging user guide

Introduction

The LivePerson Proactive Messaging tool 2.0 allows brands to initiate conversations with consumers by sending outbound messages via SMS, WhatsApp, and the In-app Messaging channel. Once the consumer responds, it creates a 2-way conversation within the Conversational Cloud platform. This enables brands to increase their ability to connect with their consumers, increasing the probability of achieving goals and personalizing the customer experience.

The key difference between Inbound and Proactive campaigns is that Inbound campaigns require the customers to initiate the conversation with the brand first before agents can engage, while Proactive campaigns (Outbound campaigns) send the first message to the customers rather than them initiating the conversation.

Before sending any Proactive messages, brands need to ensure that the recipients of these messages have explicitly consented to receive outbound communications for that specific channel. For more details, please refer to each channel's policies:

• Twilio's acceptable policy and Messaging Policy 
• WhatsApp's Opt-in policy and WhatsApp Business policy for more details. 

Prerequisites for using the Proactive feature 

Brands will need to enable the SMS, WhatsApp, and/or In-App channels in the Conversational Cloud before using Proactive. For guidance on enabling each of these channels on LivePerson's platform refer to the articles: enable Twilio SMS, enable WhatsApp, and enable In-App. 

Important: Enabling Proactive messaging creates two bot users named: 1) prmsg-bot-user-1 and 2) prmsg-bot-user-2.  If these users are deleted, then Proactive messaging will not work. 

Product features

Getting started

There are two ways brands can send Proactive messages; either by using the Proactive Web tool, or using our API interface - Outbound APIs.

Create Campaigns from the Proactive Web Tool 

• Launch the Proactive Web Tool from the quick launch menu. 

• To create a new Proactive campaign, click on ‘New Campaign’ on the Proactive Messaging landing page.

• Follow the steps in the New campaign wizard to send out your first outbound campaign. A few additional details when creating an outbound campaign: 
  • Add recipients by either uploading the list of recipients via a CSV file or typing in the recipient phone numbers (ensure one recipient per line, recipient’s phone number must start with a country code followed by an area code).
  • The maximum number of recipients per campaign allowed in CSV is 10K. 
  • If you type in the recipient phone numbers, click on the ‘Parse’ button to get a preview of the message being sent per phone number. If there are any errors, users will see the highlighted phone number with the displayed error.

Create Campaigns via the API 

Note: Before the Proactive Outbound APIs can be used by developers, brands need to create an API Handoff in the Proactive Web tool. Once the API handoff is created, brands can use the API to send campaigns programmatically. An API Handoff is a logical grouping of a set of configurations, such as the channel to send the message, the ‘From’ phone number, the message content that will be sent, and more. When calling the Proactive 2.0 outbound API, brands pass an API Handoff ID and the API will leverage these configurations to send the outbound message.

Follow the steps below to create an API Handoff

•  In the Proactive Web tool, use the top navigation bar to go to “API Handoff” and create a new API Handoff.

• Follow the API handoff wizard to complete creating an API handoff. 
• On completion, you can use the API Handoff ID (shown below) in the API calls.

The APIHandoffs created are viewable via the Proactive Web Tool and in addition, these details can also be retrieved via APIs. Please refer to this link for details on the APIs. 

Agent side experience

When consumers reply to the Proactive messages, they are received in the agent workspace and routed as per the skills defined in the Proactive tool. Agents can view the first message sent by Proactive in their agent workspace as follows: 

For SMS and WhatsApp channels, the first Proactive message is shown in the transcript as shown below.

For the In-App channel, the first Proactive message is shown in the Agent Widget in the Agent workspace, as shown below.

Consumer side experience

SMS channel 

Twilio is the supported SMS carrier. When a Proactive message is sent the consumers will receive an SMS. Consumers can respond to this message and start engaging with the brand, as shown below.

WhatsApp channel

Proactive Messaging will send the message to the WhatsApp server. Whenever the consumer gets online, either on their mobile WhatsApp app or on WhatsApp desktop, they will receive the Proactive message. Consumers can respond to this message and start engaging with the brand. An example of a WhatsApp-rich text message is shown below. 

In-App channel

For the In-App channel, there are two key prerequisites for consumers to receive a push notification:
1) consumers must have the brand’s app installed on their device and must have previously logged in at least once
2) consumers must have the push notification enabled for the app. 

If both these conditions are met, then consumers will receive the Proactive message as a push notification on their mobile device. When they tap on the push notification, the message will be shown in the LivePerson’s in-app messaging window. Consumers can respond to this message and start engaging with the brand. An example of a Proactive message with an image can be found below.

Reporting

The proactive Web tool has two dashboards for reports:
1) Account level Analytics
2) Campaign level analytics

Account-level Analytics

To access the account-level Analytics dashboard, click on the Analytics tab on the main Proactive Web tool. Reference the screenshot below. 

Campaign level Analytics

To access this dashboard, go to the main Campaigns list page and click on the specific campaign. Next, click on the Analytics tab. See the screenshot below. 

In addition, brands can get deeper insights by using Outbound Reporting APIs. Detailed documentation for the APIs can be found here.

Limitations 

• Sending Proactive messages will fail if the consumer already has an open conversation. 
• WhatsApp rich templates are not available for the Prioritized channel.
• For SMS, there is a limit of 140 characters for the message content as per Twilio requirements. This is to ensure your outbound message is sent in a single text instead of being split into different text messages. 
• Multiple variables in the SMS channel are not supported for campaigns created in the UI. 
• Proactive Messaging cannot perform a mobile or landline check for Canadian phone numbers. As a result, messages sent to Canadian phone numbers will fail. To work around this limitation, please contact LivePerson.  
• The In-App channel has additional limitations that are documented here.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can we cancel a Proactive campaign?

The Proactive campaign can be canceled from the Web tool. Select the campaign that is in one of these states - Queued, Scheduled, or In Progress. When you select this campaign there is an option to cancel a campaign. Canceling a campaign will only cancel it for recipients for whom the message is not sent, once the message is sent it cannot be canceled.