Slack Live Chat Integration

In this article we'll show you how to easily add a Slack Live Chat integration to your customer support toolset so you can quickly respond to your website visitors right from Slack.   Essentially you can embed a Slack Live Chat widget into your website that is fully customizable and configurable with custom routing, an AI agent, and more.

With our Slack Live Chat integration with Social Intents you can answer live chats right from your Slack account on your mobile or desktop apps. You'll receive notifications on your phone for each live chat request and can chat from within Slack.

To install Slack Live Chat, simply install the app from the  Slack App market

For New Slack Live Chat Users

The first step in setting up your Slack Live Chat integration is by configuring an inbound channel in Slack.  Begin by logging into your Slack account and creating a new public channel dedicated to your live chat incoming requests:

Then choose public for the Visibility of the channel.  If you prefer to use a private channel, after adding the Live Chat app, make sure to invite the @livechat bot to your private channel:

Next, if you haven't already, sign up for a Social Intents free trial,  if you're a new user, you can choose the Slack Integration right from the sign up process here:

Next, you'll be prompts to sign into your Slack workspace.

Then you'll be directed to an Authorize Page where you will pick the live chat channel you just created and select the permissions to allow by default.  Please leave these as the defaults or you may not receive new live chats properly.  Click the Allow button to complete the authorization.

Finally, you'll be directed back to our site where you new account account has been set up.

All of your team members who have visibility to the channel will be able to receive chat requests.

Once a chat is received you can simply click on the link in the request to open a dedicated channel to that specific chat.

All chats are archived after 12 hours so they don't clutter the left-hand side of Slack.

Existing Social Intents Users

You can add our Slack integration to your existing Live Chat app.  If you are typically on your mobile phone, this is a great way to live chat on your phone using the Slack client.

In Social Intents, click on the Integrations link on the left-hand side and you'll see an Add to Slack button.

Click on this and you'll be directed to the Slack Authorization page (login to Slack or set up a new account if needed).

Accept the default privileges and choose a public channel for the Post to section.  Please note, if you select a private channel, or change a private to public channel, you may not receive chat requests correctly.  We suggest to always create a new public channel to start with.

If you prefer to use a private channel, please be sure to invite our chat bot to that channel so we can send messages to it by going into your private channel and typing @livechat into the message area and clicking send.  Slack will prompt you if you want to add the chatbot to that channel.  Click invite to complete the set up.

You can also invite the chat bot to the private channel by selecting the channel and clicking Invite Others to this Channel.   Then select the Live Chat bot:

That's it!  Click on Preview of the Live Chat app and start a new chat.  You should see the live chat show up in Slack.

Answering Chats in Slack

All new chats will be directed to the public chat channel you initially configured.

They will look like this:

To Answer the chat, click on the link starting with # - in the above case: #z-lc-testing-only.  You'll be directed to a dedicate channel created for this specific chat.

Click "Join Chat" and enter a message to begin the chat.

Answer Live Chats in Threaded Mode

In Social Intents you also have the ability to respond to Slack Live Chat messages using Threads versus dedicated channels.  In this case, all chats are routed to your inbound channel as before, but to answer the individual chats, you just reply to the thread and respond within that thread.

You can enable this mode under your Slack Settings in Social Intents.  

Here's how you would respond in a thread in Slack for inbound chats - just hover over the conversation, and click the Reply in thread icon:

Live Chat Agent Display Photos

We support displaying your Slack photo right in the live chat by default.  To enable or disable this feature, simply go to the Integrations page and choose to enable or disable this option as in the screenshot above.

Here's an example where the Slack Profile photo is used.

Chat Availability: Online and Offline From Slack

With our Slack integration we suggest you use the live chat schedule on our website to manage whether your chat widget is online or offline at any time.  

We also support manually setting the chat to online and offline right from Slack using slash commands.  You simply type a slash and your live chat command into the message area of slack to do this:   /livechat offline or /livechat online to set these right from Slack without visiting our site!  See our other slash commands below.

Slack Slash Commands

We offer a number of commands right from our Slack app.  Just type this command in the message area (at the start of a message) to execute them.

• /livechat help - to see a list of commands available
• /livechat end - to close a specific live chat.  Execute this from within your specific live chat channel
• /livechat online - change your live chat app to online.  Overrides office hours.
• /livechat offline - change your live chat to offline. Overrides office hours.
• /livechat <your shortcut name> - sends your canned message to the client chat.
• /livechat transfer #channelname - allows you to trigger and agent transfer in Slack to move the chat to another channel for another team to pick up.

Slack Slash Command Shortcuts and Canned Messages

Set up shortcuts for common questions in your Social Intents account.  You can then trigger these right from Slack using your Slash Commands.  Each shortcut is available as a slash command using this format:

/livechat <your shortcut name>

Getting the Most Out of Slack Live Chat

With Social Intents and the  Slack Live Chat Integration, you have everything you need to deliver fast, responsive customer support without ever leaving Slack. Whether you're a new user setting up your first integration or an existing customer adding Slack to your current workflow, the setup takes just a few minutes. From there, your entire team can answer chats, manage availability, use AI to handle routine questions, and leverage slash commands and canned responses to work more efficiently. 

If you run into any issues or have questions along the way, our support team is here to help!