Hubspot is clearly not interested or not able to provide this functionality. There are various questions on forums with lots of people asking for the same thing, but Hubspot moderators just skirt the question and offer up their bots.
Ok, bots are cool, but why don’t they just answer the question directly and admit this is something they don’t want or can’t do? Or incorporate their customer feedback into the product?
I understand the frustration with Bots! They all work on a linear order of questions that customers do not seem to want to follow but the ability to chat without providing the initial email also encourages more chats to happen.
My advice is to NOT start with general questions on a chat. For example: What can I help you with? < that’s a big no!> A bot can not handle these ( atleast not in a way the users expect these questions to be handled)
So I suggest that you start your bot by giving users some options to choose from and then lead the conversation from there. Don’t have open-ended questions to start with.
Thank you.
-AM
Hi! I am the product manager live chat, this is something we are activetly thinking through right now. We are thinking about it in a very similar way to some of the suggestions being made here. We are thinking it would be a form that can be gated before a conversation or if there is no one available, as well as a few more usecases we are working through.
This is on the roadmap so stay tuned!
Thanks,
Cassie
Hi Cassie,
That is good news. HubSpot is meant to be a leader in lead capture (pardon the pun) and the fact that we can’t even ask for names and email addresses BEFORE a chat is started means we lose so many leads.
Customers never bother to fill it in because why would they? It’s not required to get started. And our agents never ask the customers for that information because why would they? It’s too cumbersome of a process.
Every other live chat solution we’ve ever used, from Live Person way back in 2008 to Zopim then Zendesk Chat as recently as before we migrated to HubSpot this year, have had this function.
I would consider it a basic requirement.
Hi @abiblu, thanks so much for your feedback. This is very much on the list for next year and totally understand your perspective.
Once I have a better timeline for the release, I will update this thread and we can make sure we get a list for beta users to give us feedback!
Thank you,
Cassie
Hi team, any update?
Hi Cassie,
How is progress on this task? Any news on beta testing it?
Morning-
We have a couple of things related to this functionality in the works. We are working first on an API that will allow you to pass the visitor information to the chat widget if they have already logged into the portal. This will allow you to send the known customers’ information to the chat widget. That will be in a public beta in July, you can fill out this form for early access.
We will be digging into adding a form like option into the chat widget later this year. We are also exploring adding feedback into the survey. We will provide updates here as we have more details.
Thank you
Thanks, Cassie. Keep us updated.
I just opened our live chat inbox and almost had a heart attack seeing the hundreds of “Unknown visitors” in the last few days alone. Looking forward to get this resolved.
We are very interested in this feature as we used to have it with other chat software
We are interested in being a beta testers jdepelteau@flexpipeinc.com
Hi Cassie
Awesome! I’m definitely interested in testing this out as well when it gets released in beta
Hi Cassie,
Any ETA for the beta test to be available?
Hi all- We are middle of development right now. We are hoping to have this out in beta in the next few weeks. I will post as soon as I have a date for the release of the beta and details for getting access to the beta!
Thank you for your interest and I will update you all soon!
Cassie
We have just migrated from Pure Chat as well and this seems to be a pretty basic function. Now more than half the incoming chats have no name or contact details. Sincerely looking forward to this! Thanks
can we please have this option? is it in beta now?
in order to use the chatbot to its fullest, we would need the option to ask for the email ahead of the first post by the user. that way, if not here, we can easily follow-up. thanks
Counting the seconds to test it..
Hi! I am interested in testing the beta for this as well. With our previous live chat function (LiveChat) we were able to accept email address and name before starting a chat with our customer service team. This is needed for us as well and I would like access to the function.
Hi Cassie,
Is the beta close to release? We’re all eager to test.
Hi, pleased to hear this has been developed as I also see it as essential to the chat. How did the beta tests go? How do we get access? Thanks
Hi Cassie,
I would be very interested in finding out more information regarding the status of the Beta Test, and would like to be part of the test if possible.
Echoing other users, this would be a game changer for your live chat feature and be an end to the dreaded “Unknown Visitor” isssue
Many thanks.