Two weeks ago, we released our wordpress plugin without much fanfare so we’d have time to iron out potential kinks / bugs that early adopters could face. It turned out to be a non-concern, because after 2 weeks – 1200 downloads and a couple of positive reviews later – the feedback we got was our plugin was ready for show time! So here’s our official introduction of the Zopim Wordpress Live Chat Plugin:

Wordpress users now have an even more intuitive (if it was possible at all) way of deploying Zopim on their site. Simply download our wordpress plugin! Activating it is dead easy as well. You can either use your existing Zopim account or register for a Zopim account seamlessly without even leaving the wordpress backend.

Dead simple setup process

Once you’ve activated Zopim, our widget would auto-magically appear in your wordpress site. Of course at this point, the widget design would be the default one. The next step would be to style the widget and configure other settings to fit your needs specifically. You can do this effortlessly within the plugin by clicking on “Customize”.

Styling and Customization

Last but not least, remember to set Zopim up to work with your favorite IM network (Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, AIM).

Set up Instant Messaging (IM)

If you need to make additional changes or get access to advanced features such as Shortcuts, Departments, Chat Transcripts, etc.. you can still log in to our web-based dashboard using the same credentials.

Enough of us talking about it. Why don’t you write in to let us know what you think about this plugin and what can be done to enhance it? You can reach us via Live Chat or support [at] zopim [dot] com!

It’s probably not new to everyone that Zopim works awesome with the 4 major Instant Messaging (IM) networks out there, namely Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo and AIM. However, the challenging part was getting your IM set up properly. The common complaints we got were

• Hey, your IM chat bots did not add us as buddies
• Your bots are appearing offline!

As you can imagine, the biggest challenge during the setup process was getting our chat bots to add you as a buddy and getting you to accept that invitation regardless of which IM network (Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo, AIM) you’re using and regardless of which IM Client (Pidgin, Meebo, Live Messenger, GTalk, etc..) you’re using.

We have since revamped the infrastructure to fix the above problems, and the new IM setup process is as follows. On the Dashboard, under “Settings” > “Instant Messaging (IM)”

1. Select your preferred IM network
2. A Zopim bot will be assigned to you. Add him (her?) as a friend.
3. Send him (her?) a message as indicated. (#setup <key>)
4. That’s it!

Add bot to your IM

Our servers would handle everything else. Other chatbots will request to your friends. Once you’ve accepted their invitations, they will start forwarding chat requests to you.

For our existing users, rest assured that this implementation won’t affect you guys. Chats will still be transferred to and from your Dashboard to IM, and you can still use commands and shortcuts like #help to make replying easier via IM. Check out this short video to understand how commands and shortcuts work: Reply via IM video

Earlier today, we tweeted that

Zopim is currently down due to an issue with vps.net ->http://status.vps.net/?p=61 – hopefully it is resolved soon.

Our service is now back up. We will be monitoring the situation and keeping in contact with our hosting provider to get more information regarding the outage.

We do apologize for the downtime that some of you experienced, sorry!

In keeping with our long-standing tradition of listening to you our user, we’ve introduced Labs. With Labs, we hope to bring new ideas to you early in the development process, so you can give us feedback on how you want it improved before it makes its way to full production.

Labs tab is beside the Shortcut tab on the Dashboard

In this release we have also included the following features:

1. Departments

Prior to a chat, website customers can have the option to direct their chat requests to the appropriate departments.  All you need to do to set this up is to enabled Pre-Chat Form and assign agents into the respective departments.

Route chat to a specific department

2. Inter-agent Chat

You can now chat with other colleagues. Simply click on them in the ‘Agent List’ to initiate a conversation.

Chat with other agents via the Agent List

3. Delete Chat History

This feature is quite self- explanatory – do note that deleted chat history cannot be retrieved in future. Deleting of chat history is only available to account Administrators.

Do let us know what you think about these features via the “Feedback” button on the left!

We take great satisfaction (and concrete steps) in meeting our users’ expectations! That’s why we are excited to announce that some of the popular feature requests have been rolled out as part of our recent launch release. Here’s a list of some of those features. Do keep your feedback and requests rolling in via the feedback forum (accessible via the “feedback” button on the left).

Pre Chat form
This is useful for businesses who want to know the customer’s name, email and enquiry prior to chatting, and was the feature request with the most number of votes on our feedback forum.
112 votes

IP & User Blocking
Gives a peace of mind for support staff who frequently encounter spammers and abusive users
36 votes

Listen into chat
Administrators can monitor ongoing conversations and ‘listen in’ on the chat, simply by clicking on the conversation.
24 votes

Invisible Chat Bar
Hide Chat bar when all agents are offline. Another relatively popular feature amongst our users.
19 votes

Email Chat Transcript
Customers can now email the chat transcript to themselves!
6 votes

We have upgraded to more secure and reliable servers @ VPS.net, which means a faster loading time users in Europe and North America.

Save Money with Zopim Credits

To all fans out there, thanks for using Zopim and for referring friends to Zopim. We are deeply appreciative, and we want to reward you with Zopim Credits as a token of appreciation. No we don’t print money, but we can offer Zopim Credits to offset what you have to pay for the service.

It is important to us that you refer your friends – not only are you helping us grow, you are also telling us that you believe in our value. And that keeps us going. So, help spread the love!

Refer friends to Zopim directly

Introduce Zopim directly to your friends – send emails / tweet / blog about us / send a message to space, and remember to include your referral link so we know you introduced someone.

If your friend signs up for the following packages, you earn the following Zopim Credits:

• Lite (US$0.10), Solo (US$4.00), Solo Plus (US$5.00), Team (US$10.00), Business (US$20.00)

If you have 5 friends who sign up for Business, you earn a (wow!) decent $100 in Zopim Credits

We also know that you are indirectly referring customers to us when you use our service (and your visitors click on the link that points to Zopim). You didn’t exactly recommend us to that customer, but we just want an excuse to reward you anyway. If you’re happy, we’re happy US$0.05 for a lite package signed up, US$1.00 for all the other paid packages.

How do I use my credits?

Whenever you pay for your packages on Zopim, we will automatically use your credits to offset the amount payable. Yes, Zopim Credits translate to REAL MONEY saved! You can check how much credits you have anytime by logging in to your account management page. This will also show up in your invoice as “account credits”.

For our users who have been used to the old visitor list, you must be wondering why there are suddenly so little visitors on that list. Don’t worry, your website traffic didn’t suddenly dip! Here’s why..

Many of you are interested in talking only visitors who are actively surfing on your site. So there really isn’t a need to clutter your list with idle visitors who might be away from their computers or surfing on some other website. So by default, our visitor list now shows only active surfers. Don’t worry, you can still choose to snoop on or stalk your idle visitors =) Simply click on the radio button above the visitor list that says ’show all visitors’. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks like!

Visitor List

Credit to our hosting sponsors at VPS.NET for urging us to roll out this feature. To all our users out there, keep your suggestions coming =)

Plasticky Theme
In Light Coral & Olive Green

Simple Solid Theme
In Black & Fushsia

Alphacube Theme
In Dark Magenta & Light Cyan

Chat Window now available in 3 different themes, in all colors.

If it has been pretty quiet on Zopim’s blog, don’t worry, we are not sleeping on our desktops and servers. In fact, we have been working hard (as usual ;p ) on building a huge surprise for you: a renewed Zopim experience, with the features you have been asking for!

You all have made tons of brilliant suggestions on what features Zopim should have, and we have listened. And we have acted on them – some of them will be released the end of this month! Of course, these are not the only things that have occupied our attention. We have rewritten major parts of the code and tested them vigorously, to optimize performance and for preparation scaling up. You can expect, for example, a better replying via IM experience, with adding of chatbots being more reliable.

You will see a glimpse of the huge surprise by the end of this week. We will be rolling out a spanking new back end, and this release focus on making Zopim and IM clients work seamlessly:

Reflect desired status accordingly
Instead of displaying status on the Chat Bar as “Online” when you’re logged onto the Dashboard and “Away” when you’re on IM, status detection has been tweaked to become more intuitive:

• When no agents are “Online” on the Dashboard, Zopim automatically detects the status of all agents across all IM networks. So if one of your agent’s IM status is “Online”, the status of the Chat Bar will be reflected as “Online”.
• You can set your status to be “Online”, “Away” or “Appear Offline” even before logging into the Dashboard.
• If all agents are either ‘Away’ or ‘Busy’ on IM, the status on the Chat Bar would appear as ‘Away’

Improved Chat Routing
Previously, if one agent was logged onto the dashboard, IM notifications would no longer be sent to other agents. Now, Zopim doesn’t distinguish between agents logged in via the Dashboard or via IM. When customers make chat requests, all agents would receive notifications regardless of whether they’re on the dashboard or IM

Also, once one agent responds by replying, other agents on IM would no longer be “spammed” with the ongoing conversation, thus freeing their Zopim chat bot to handle other conversations (if any).

Pickup ongoing conversations from the Dashboard or IM
Once in a while, you realise you need to log onto the Dashboard to get more information about a customer that you’re chatting with via IM. Previously it was not possible to continue these ongoing conversations on the Dashboard, but now, Zopim will start any ongoing chat sessions automatically on the Dashboard! Similarly, when you log off the dashboard, any ongoing chats will be transferred to your IM as well. And the best is, your customers won’t even notice it.

Don’t forget to let us know what you think about the new changes!

<This will work for all IM Clients that allows you to forward messages to your mobile phone. Unfortunately for AIM and GTalk, this feature is only available within the US>

Are you looking for a chat solution that helps you stay connected to visitors on your website even while you’re not online? Call it Live Chat on-the-go, Mobile Sales Support, Mobile Web Chat, etc.. what you essentially want is – when your visitors leave you a chat message on your webpage, you’d be able to respond in real-time via Text Messaging or Instant Messaging.

We’ve previously already mentioned how you can do this using reply-via-im especially if you have a mobile IM-client like MSN / Gtalk on your phone.

What about Text Messaging / SMS? That’s the question many of our users have been asking. Actually you can set Zopim up to do this pretty easily, just like our customers at MyLuci.com has done, at a low cost (Only in the US).

text-messaging

1. Get yourself an unlimited Text Messaging mobile plan so that you don’t blow your phone bill.
2. Hook Zopim up to your favorite IM client that forwards messages to your phone for free. (So far GTalk and AIM have been proven reliable). Instructions on how to do this are here.
3. Configure your IM client to forward offline messages to your phone. Here are instructions for Gtalk and AIM.
4.  That’s it!