How to Identify Contacts by Email and Phone NumberI
Business Goal: Collect Contact's phone number or email when you get a new Contact to identify if they are an existing customer.
Identifying an existing customer gives support agents more context on the customer. With a better understanding of a customer, agents can provide better assistance. On respond.io, Contact identifiers can be collected using Workflows and Website Chat Widget.
Benefits of Collecting Emails and Phone Numbers
Use the email address or phone number collected to:
merge Contacts when a Contact messages you from a different Channel.
be able to sync Contacts and contact properties with another CRM.
Methods to Collect Contact Identification
Here are four methods that you can use to collect Contact identifiers:
Automatically obtained from Channel's Metadata.
Ask for a Phone Number or Email using Workflows.
Pre-Chat Form on Website Chat Widget.
Identify logged-in Contacts via Website Chat Widget.
Automatically obtained from Channel's Metadata
Use this method when you are using channels that pass metadata containing Contact's phone number or email to respond.io platform.
respond.io platform automatically receives Contact's phone number or email address for the following channels:
Click the Ask for Email step to edit the Question Text. The Question Type should remain as Email. Finally, click Save and Publish to activate the Workflow.
Ask a Question step configuration for Phone Number
Click the Ask for Phone Number step to edit the Question Text. The Question Type should remain as Phone. Finally, click Save and Publish to activate the Workflow.
Additionally, you can configure the Save Response As to save the answer as a variable to reference it at a later step of the Workflow.
Continue the Workflow when the Question is Skipped
These Workflow templates are set up with a Branch Step to check if the Contact Field already contains the email address or phone number.
Condition
Outcome
Contact identifier does not exist
Ask the question
Contact identifier exists
Skip the question
Add a Jump Step to define the next step in the Workflow when the question is skipped. Often, you will choose the Step after the Ask a Question Step.
Use this method when you expect Contacts to message you via Website Chat Widget.
Unlike instant messaging channels which will provide the name of the Contact, when Contacts message from the Website Chat Widget, you’ll also need to get their name in addition to the phone number or email address.
Method Objective
To ask for Contact’s Name, Phone Number or Email Address using the Pre-Chat Form.
Feature Setup
Here’s how to set up the Contact information you want to collect from the Pre-Chat Form.S Messenger
