Customer channels

In Pega Customer Service, the Digital Messaging Interface lets you support multiple channels of communication between customers and customer service representatives (CSRs). Customers can use Web Messaging (chat), SMS, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple Business Chat to send messages. The CSR receives messages in the Interaction Portal and can respond to all channels from the portal. The CSR can view conversation history and leverage common phrases, suggested replies, and suggested articles. 

Now that I’ve given a brief overview of the Digital Messaging Interface, I’m going to show it in action and highlight some key functionality. I’ve logged into Pega Customer Service as a Customer Service Manager and I’m in the Interaction Portal. I’ve joined multiple queues and I’ve made myself available. Let’s start with Twitter. I’ve logged into a dummy account and will simulate contacting SuperChatCS, which in this demonstration will represent a Pega CS Client. There are two ways to contact someone on Twitter: one is to publicly tweet at them and the other is to send them a direct message. I’m going to start with the direct message. Keep in mind that unlike tweets and their replies, direct messages are private. I’ve configured the chatbot to respond to private messages coming through the Digital Messaging Interface and to recognize when a customer is trying to escalate to a human. As you can see, familiar web functionality from Pega webchat, such as sending menus of options is also possible with the channels connected using the Digital Messaging Interface. Our customer has responded to the chatbot’s response by saying that he has a General question, and he will be routed to the general queue after he answers one follow-up question.

Back in the Pega Customer Service Interaction Portal, the customer service representative is notified that there is an incoming message from one of the queue’s that they are active in. After accepting the interaction, they can view the transcript to see what was discussed with the chatbot. Note that you can see the channel and the user at the top of the chat window. As with Pega webchat, customer service representatives are able to leverage common phrases when communicating with customers via Digital Messaging Interface channels.

Let’s look at both sides if the conversation at the same time. Again, as is the case with Pega webchat, the Digital Messaging Interface supports the use of emojis.

Images can also be sent and received via the Digital Messaging Interface channels.

Now let’s look at how public tweets are handled. Just to change things up, I’m going to log on to Twitter on my phone. When the customer mentions SuperChatCS in their tweet, Pega Customer Service recognizes that it is a public message. I’ve configured public messages to go directly to a separate queue, as having a chatbot respond publicly could be risky. When the customer service representative accepts the interaction, they can see the tweet in the transcript, and unlike with direct messages, they are shown a character count out of 280, which is the maximum for a tweet.

It is critical to remember that any response will be public, as you can see in the customer view.

Now I’m going to show you how the Digital Messaging Interface can support SMS or text messages. The customer texts the number which has been configured. And as with other Digital Messaging channels, the chatbot immediately jumps in to handle the conversation. One difference with SMS and WhatsApp is that they do not support menus in the same way that webchat, Twitter, and Facebook do. When a channel does not support menu functionality, Pega Customer Service converts the menu to text and expects the customer to respond with the number that corresponds to their selection.

As with all other channels, the channel is displayed at the top of the chatbot, the customer’s conversation with the chatbot is visible from the transcript, and the customer service representative can leverage common phrases, emojis, images, and other functionality which should be familiar from Pega webchat but which will not be covered in this video.