How to identify a contact in the chat?

[LukaszWiktor]

Hi,

how can I identify a visitor in the chat box? I've tried the identify API

 var _hsq = window._hsq = window._hsq || []; 
_hsq.push(["identify", { email: "${email}" }]);

but it didn't work. New chat conversations still appear as "Uknown Visitor"

I'd appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Lukasz

[IsaacTakushi]

Hi, @vruben.

I hear you and the team recognizes this is critical functionality.

They're going to devote resources to this in the new year, but I'm afraid I don't have a more concrete ETA.

[sp3]

Hello,

we are experiencing the same problem with our users, that are logged in to our platform. Having to ask them about whom they are, drastically reduces the customer experience. We have migrated to HubSpot from intercom, following of the need to have it all in one place. We had no such issues with our previous provider 😞

[cdewey22]

This is one of our top priorities for the beginning half of 2020. I should have a better idea of the timeframe in January and will update this thread and post details for a beta as well. 

Thank you and looking forward to communicating an update in January. 

Cassie

[NicolássHanckes]

We were about to migrate the chat from Intercom to Hubspot to integrate marketing and sales with service, but not being able to recognize logged in customers properly is a huge loss for us. Might need to cancel our pro subscriptions until this issue is solved.

[tbrito85]

Hello @cdewey22  do you have any news?

Thanks in advance,

[cdewey22]

Hi there! 

We will be working on this in the first quarter. I don't have an exact timeline yet but we will be kicking it off in the next month. I will update here once I have a more definitive timeline for when we expect this to be in beta. I will also make sure we get a form for beta requests here once we get closer to that date. 

Thank you! 

Cassie

[Ferdy]

Can you tell me if this works by simply allowing to add an email/identifier to the Chat functionality or will we have to rely on the tracking functionality? We really want this to work without having to use tracking.

[IsaacTakushi]

Welcome, @Ferdy.

If you include an email field in the chat itself, you will be able to identify users every time. This discussion pertains to customers who want to identify users without having to rely on the in-chat email field.

Let me know if I've misunderstood your question.

[Ferdy]

I meant, will we be able to use a LiveChat API that simply allows for putting email/identifying information to the support side, so indeed without relying on the in-chat email field. But also without relying on the tracking API/cookies. So something like:

window.HubSpotConversations.widget.identify({email: loggedInUserEmail});

[IsaacTakushi]

Gotcha, @Ferdy. Thanks for clarifying.

To my knowledge, the solution @cdewey22 mentions in this post is a Live Chat API function which would perform similarly to what you described.

[hostimi]

Isaac,

The problem I observe is that when I use:

_hsq.push(["identify", {
        email: "foo@bar.com",
        company: "Foo"
}]);

is that it will create a record in Hubspot CRM which is not always what I want.

I just want to identify the person in chat but DO NOT create a record in CRM for that.

There should be separate method for identifying in chat only, like:

window.HubSpotConversations.widget.identify({email: loggedInUserEmail});

or a flag that can indicate that, like:

_hsq.push(["identify", {
        email: "foo@bar.com",
        chatOnly: true
}]);

[IsaacTakushi]

Hi, @hostimi.

You're correct that the identify function will always create a new contact record for new email addresses.

I believe the upcoming functionality will support the use case you describe. From my understanding, it will allow you to identify visitors for chats without creating them.

[hostimi]

Isaac,

> From my understanding, it will allow you to identify visitors for chats without creating them.

yes, this is exactly what I need

[justindocanto]

Any update on this pending functionality? Running into the issue right now where chats are coming from "unknown sender" but they assume we know who they are. Being able to label who is contacting us is absolutely necessary for this to be useful to us.

[Seth_Israel]

We would love to be added to the Beta. We are going to provide our engineering team with the accepted solution to see if it improves but this issue is a serious detriment to our member's experience. Please let us know right away when an update occurs or a Beta is open. We have subscribed to the release notifications.

We need this yesterday, and this whole topic would be great for your frontline team and integration teams to know about. After all our contacts this has not been brought to our attention and we found this from our own searches.

[jmorgan]

Can we get a update on the release of this as it is stopping us from using HubSpot chat.

[IsaacTakushi]

Welcome, @jmorgan.

Please see @cdewey22's post from earlier today.

[finn]

Is there any news on this?

It is critical for our decision as to whether to choose Hubspot or Zendesk (who seems to have been able to do this for years). 

[cdewey22]

Hi- This is currently in development. We are shooting to have this out in beta by the end of Q1-2020/beginning of Q2-2020. I will reach out for beta requests when we get closer to this being released. 

Thank you for your patience! 

Cassie

[Witoomards]

Thanks a lot for the information on drinks. will be waiting for any further updates

[finn]

If this is coming in a beta in Q2, then presumably it is not solved yet...

@cdewey22 : is there any update on the exact timing of the beta release?

As for many of the other co-posters, this is critical for us as a SaaS company: we cannot ask our already logged-in users, "who are you?" when they start a chat. We must be able to pass at least the logged-in user's email to the chat widget.

thanks

[akattunga]

Hi, 

Any news on this issue?

We are trying to move from our CRM to hubspot but this issue stop us from migrate live chats from tawk.to to hubspost.

Regards

[aghost]

+1 on joining the beta.

[jmorgan]

Any update?

[Teresa1]

Hi,

We are able to use the identity method to recognize users. But on our platform, we also allow registration using phone numbers. In that case, could we recognize users by capturing their phone numbers? Currently, we have tried but found no solution.

Can anyone please help? Thanks so much.

[IsaacTakushi]

Hi, @Teresa1.

The Tracking Code API's identify method only works with email addresses (and external id values, with some caveats), so there is no way to identify a visitor or user with client-side code.

That said, you could write client-side JavaScript to pass a phone number to a backend function which searches for matching contacts using the new v3 CRM Search API. Your server could then pass this back to your application's front end.

[avichopra]

Is there an update on the solution for this? We have been waiting for this for really long time now.

[IsaacTakushi]

Hi, @avichopra.

Please see @cdewey22's latest post from Friday, 14 February 2020.

[sp3]

Q1 is behind us, Q2 is starting when can we expect more concrete answer?

We managed to minimize unknown user issues by refreshing the chat and using workarounds, we invested a lot of additional time of our developer into this... On the other hand this approach generated another set of new issues like disappearing chat during writing etc.

We're really waiting in much pain for this release, and our CX is constantly suffering.

[finn]

It was supposed to come last year, then early in the year, then late Q1/start Q2. We are now way into Q2 and still nothing. 

This is critical functionality that severely limits the value of a module that we PAY for. For SaaS companies it makes no sense to ask an already logged-in user "who are you" when they start a chat. We already know who they are, but cannot pass it to Hubspot's chat widget.

We need this now. Hubspot team: updates, please!