LiveLeader provides a wealth of information about visitors. Naturally, some bits of this information is more relevant than other bits. With the new visitor summary function, LiveLeader distills the most important information and displays it so it’s immediately visible to the operator.

Based on feedback from you, we’ve also improved the email transcript function so you can use many new variables in the transcripts.

The following variables can now be used:

• $transcript$ – the transcript of the chat
• $email$ – visitor’s email
• $name$ – visitor’s full name
• $firstname$ – visitor’s first name
• $lastname$ – vsitor’s last name
• $chatid$ – unique ID for the chat
• $date$ – date/time, in default format: 26 Jun 2009 3:45 PM
• $url$ – page on which the chat took place
• $ip$ – customer IP
• $keywords$ – search keywords, if any
• $referrer$ – referring site, if any
• $city$ – customer city
• $country$ – customer country
• $isp$ – customer ISP
• $org$ – customer organization

Many of these variables are most useful when used with email chat transcript copies, which is a simple way to integrate LiveLeader with any system cabable of capturing emails, like many CRM systems.

LiveLeader now also automatically converts internet addresses (URLs) entered by the operator into clickable links. However, when an operator enters a long URL, this can take up a lot of space in the visitors chat window. From now on, LiveLeader automatically shortens long URLs on the visitor side.

Another minor new feature is the ability to capture a visitor’s name with a single input field in our survey system. Previously, you had to use two inputs (firstname+lastname).

• our expanded coverage of all of LiveLeader’s many features
• the improved live demo
• the new support site

At LiveLeader we’re so busy adding great new features that we sometimes forget to tell you about them properly, but you can now read more about queues, surveys, and all the other features that make up LiveLeader.

The embed process has also become slightly easier. Instead of embedding specific settings, you now embed a reference to a template (or to the default template). This means you can easily change settings after a chat window has been deployed, without having to re-embed the code.

We’ve also made a short screencast to take you through the changes.

Chat windows now have a new Actions menu, where you can select Push page. Enter the internet address you’d like to send the visitor to, and hit Push. The chat will continue, but the user will be sent to the address you entered.

How this appears to the user will depend on a couple of factors. If the chat window uses Continuous mode (which allows the chat window to “follow” the user around your site) and the address pushed is for your own site, the visitor will simply be redirected to the page in question. If the chat window uses Single page mode, or the address is external to your site, the address will be opened along with the chat window in a frameset (because LiveLeader supports embedded chats, and we have no way of embedding in a third-party site). If the chat takes place in a popup window, the opening window will be redirected.

We’re delighted to get feedback on new features, and we frequently incorporate customer requests into the product. Let us know!

With the desktop client, LiveLeader can:

• detect when you’re away from your computer, and change your status accordingly
• start automatically when you log in
• notify you even more clearly when a chat arrives

The user interface is just the same as LiveLeader.com. Install the free desktop client here.

Data export API. With our new data export API, all the data we save about chats can now be accessed using a simple REST API. That means you can easily extract LiveLeader data for analysis, billing or integration purposes. Documentation for the API can be found here.

Customize LiveLeader. Did you know that LiveLeader can be customized in many different ways? Here are some possibilities:

• A chat button that triggers a chat popup window
• Proactive chat invites (automatic chat invites that kick in after a certain time)
• Capturing of extra user data with a form

Get in touch with us if you want help with customizing LiveLeader, or have a look at the documentation.

Custom visitor info. If you are deploying LiveLeader in a context where you are dealing with known users, it can be helpful for chat operators to have access to this information in the chat window. Or you might want to supplement the information LiveLeader provides about visitors with your own (e.g. whether the visitor is “consumer” or “business”). LiveLeader now provides a simple way to insert this information into a chat window. Have a look at this guide.

(Note that not all features are available in all plans.)

Improved offline messages. One of our most requested features has been better offline message support. We’ve now added support for this to all plans, including the free plan. Simply select Settings > Options to set an offline message. If you signed up a while ago, you’ll need to re-embed LiveLeader to see the change (click Settings > Embed code).

Operator groups/departments. LiveLeader now lets you group operators together. This can be very useful if you want to divide chat requests between e.g. sales and technical support. Operator groups are available with the Enterprise plan. To set up an operator group, create a new template by selecting Settings > Customize > New template, and then select the Operators tab.

Google Analytics support. Google Analytics is a free must-have for the webmaster of today. If you use Google Analytics on your web site, you can now tell LiveLeader to track chats. Simply select Settings > Options to switch on Google Analytics support. Each chat session will be tracked with the name of the operator, and the address of the current page. Google Analytics support requires the Enterprise plan.

Customization improvements. In response to customer requests, we’ve added several ways you can customize LiveLeader:

• Set a maximum number of concurrent chats per operator
• Adjust the timeout for when operators are considered offline
• Override all language strings used
• Code your own offline notifications using HTML+CSS

Note that not all customizations are available in the free plan.

We’re all ears… If you have feature requests or suggestions for how we can improve LiveLeader, we’d love to hear from you:

https://www.liveleader.com/en/feedback/