This guide walks you through configuring LivePerson's Connect to Messaging (C2M) to deflect incoming calls to SMS conversations.
The first step is to set up Connect to Messaging (C2M) within your LivePerson account. This powerful API facilitates communication deflection to various channels, including SMS.
LivePerson provides two approaches for IVR deflection to SMS:
- IVR Deflection leveraging API call from IVR: This method utilizes the APIs directly within your IVR system's call flow.
- IVR Deflection leveraging Voice Bot: This approach integrates a LivePerson Voice Bot with your IVR to manage the deflection process.
Setting up Connect to Messaging is required for both these approaches
Use the quick links on the right side to jump directly to the chapter that best suits your needs.
Setup Connect to Messaging (C2M)
Connect to Messaging is an IVR deflection solution that lets brands move voice calls to messages through the Conversational Cloud platform.
Connect to Messaging includes SMS, WhatsApp, Google RCS, Apple Messages for Business, or App Messaging, allowing the consumer to respond and start messaging with the brand using their mobile device
Prerequisites:
- A LivePerson Conversational Cloud account.
- SMS messaging channel enabled on your brands account.
For information on setting up a SMS messaging channel see, here.
Enable Connect to Messaging
After logging into the Conversational Cloud, click the icon above the profile badge bottom left of the image to the left, then click Connect to Messaging at the top left.
When Connect to Messaging has not previously been enabled within the Liveperson account you are working with, it will likely need enabling; you may need to reach out to your LivePerson Account Representative to enable this.
Enabling Connect to Messaging as LPA-user
If you had to follow the previous page and have logged in with LPA-username to the conversational Cloud, you can now navigate back to the Connect to Messaging.
You will now see an Activate option. Clicking it will enable the feature.
The Connect to Messaging page appears.
Creating the API Handoff
An API handoff bundles configurations like channels and their priorities. By providing the API handoff ID when calling the Connect to Messaging eligibility endpoint, brands enable the API to use these configurations for sending the IVR deflection outbound message.
Click New Handoff. The Handoff Configure page appears.
Provide the required information:
- Title: Input the name for your handoff.
- LookBack Period: Select the period duration from the dropdown menu, click the checkbox if you want to route all conversations to selected skill within lookback period.
The LoopBack Period can be set between 1 hour - 30 days, it is the time a consumer can respond to the in-app notification before it is then accepted by the default engagement should they reply after the period expires.
3. Select and Set Channel Priority: Ensure that the SMS option is enabled.
Once done, click Next. The Compose page appears.
Provide the required information:
- Send From: Select the number set up for your brands SMS.
- Message Preview: Provide the primary message template to be sent from the brand.
- Message Preview Second: Provide the secondary message template to be sent from the brand.
Consider keeping your message under 140 characters to prevent the need for multiple messages.
Prepare an SMS message template informing customers about the switch to SMS and providing instructions on continuing the conversation.
This template will be integrated into the API call.
Once done, click Next. The Confirm page appears.
Confirm the information and click Save. The Handoff is created.
The handoff ID acts as a unique ID that can be used to route to a skill or to trigger a particular bot.
Device Check
After setting up your API Handoff, click SETTINGS > Device Check. The Device Check page appears.
Ensure that the check is enabled.
Enable the option to verify if callers on your brands IVR are using mobile devices. Activate this feature if you'd like LivePerson to perform this validation. However, if your brands IVR already includes similar functionalities, it might be wise to deactivate this feature.
Once enabled, click Save.
Routing
Once you have set up the API handoff and enabled device check you must set the skills to be used for routing from the Routing section of Connect to Messaging.
Click SETTINGS > Routing. The Routing Location page appears.
The skills added are listed here.
Select the skills your brand requires for routing and click Save.
Your Connect to Messaging set up for IVR to SMS deflection is now complete, the API handoff ID is used within the required bot or the API to correctly route the deflection.
Your brand will need to integrate the Connect to Messaging flow into their existing IVR system. This typically involves adding prompts within the IVR that allow callers to choose SMS deflection and triggering the API call upon selection.
1. IVR Deflection leveraging API call from IVR
LivePerson's C2M API offers functionalities to check eligibility for messaging, send invitations to customers, and manage SMS conversations.
Here's a breakdown of the key functionalities involved in IVR deflection with SMS using the C2M API:
- Eligibility Check: Before initiating the deflection process, you can leverage the Eligibility API to determine if the caller's phone number is registered for SMS messaging with LivePerson. This helps to avoid sending SMS invites to ineligible numbers.
- Invitation Sending: If the caller is eligible for SMS messaging, you can use the Invite API to send an SMS invitation to their phone number. The invitation typically includes information about the conversation topic and a link to join the SMS chat with a LivePerson agent.
- SMS Conversation Management: Once the customer accepts the invitation and joins the SMS chat, the C2M API facilitates two-way communication between the customer and the agent. The API allows you to send and receive SMS messages within the LivePerson platform.
Implementing IVR Deflection with SMS using API
The process hinges on two key functionalities:
- Eligibility Check: Before initiating the SMS deflection, utilize the Eligibility API to confirm if the caller's phone number is registered for SMS with LivePerson. This ensures you only send invitations to compatible numbers.
- Invitation Sending: If eligible, trigger the Invite API to send an SMS invitation to the caller's phone. This invitation informs them about the conversation topic and provides a link to join the SMS chat with a LivePerson agent.
Below is an example of a successful IVR to SMS deflection:
By following these steps you can leverage Connect to Messaging to offer a seamless transition from voice calls to SMS conversations, potentially improving customer experience and agent efficiency.
2. Leverage a VoiceBot for IVR Deflection
You also have the ability to utilize a Conversation Builder Voicebot for IVR deflection.
To do this you must activate voice features, claim a number (if required), create a skill and assign the number to the skill, create a voice bot with the required flow, and assign the skill to the bot.
You can follow the steps provided to set up the voice bot configuration.
Activate Voice features
Log into Conversational Cloud.
Select Manage > Management Console from the hamburger menu. The Management Console appears.
Search for Voice bots in the search bar. The Voice Bots page appears.
Click the Click to activate option,
Scroll down, and in the pop-up window, enter your email address. Then review the terms and conditions, and check the box to indicate that you’ve done so. Click Agree.
Create a skill
For a Voicebot, when the consumer makes a call to a phone number, if the phone number’s assigned skill matches the Voice bot’s assigned skill, the Voice bot answers the call.
In this step, you create the skill that you’ll later assign to both the phone number and the bot.
Open the menu on the left side of the page, and select Manage > Users & Skills to open the Management Console.
Select the Skills tab. The Skills page appears.
Click + Add skill in the lower-left corner.
Specify the following:
- Name: Provide the skill name to be used.
- Description: Provide a descriptor for the skill added.
Click Save. The skill is added.
Make a note of the skill name provided as you will be using the same to skill when adding your phone number.
Claim a Phone Number
If you already have an existing number that you want to use with your brand, you can. But if you want to claim a number to use. You can do the following:
Open the menu on the left side of the page, and select Manage > Management Console to open the Management Console.
Search for Phone Number Management, and select it. The Phone number management page appears.
Under Add Phone Numbers, enter the toll-free or local phone number that you want to acquire, and click Search. (You can search for local numbers by region or area code.)
Click the Select button for the phone number.
Click Checkout, and then click Confirm at the bottom of the list. The connectivity profiles section appears.
Locate (or search for) the number that you just claimed, and click the corresponding Edit Details menu option. The Edit Details window appears.
In the Edit Details window, specify the following:
- Description: Provide a description for the number to be claimed.
- Skill: Provide the skill you added for use with the voice bot.
Click Save Details.
The phone number is enabled automatically and ready for use. Ensure that this number is provided to your brand to be added to their IVR system, so that the user is forwarded to the number on IVR prompt.
After this is done, next you must create a bot user and voice bot to like the bot user to.
Create Bot User
You must create a user for your bot and assign the skill that is linked to the phone number to the user.
For more information on creating a User see, here.
When assigning a skill to the bot user ensure that you assign the skill assigned to the phone number.
Set the Max no. of messaging conversations to the number of calls that you want the Voice bot to handle simultaneously. Select Custom settings, and enter the number.
Create Transfer to Messaging Credential
Log in to your Conversational Cloud account and navigate to Automate > Conversation Builder.
The Conversation Builder appears.
Click the three-dot-menu and click Bot Accounts. The Bot Accounts page appears.
Click Credentials. The Credentials page appears.
Click Add Credential. The Add Credential window appears.
In the following fields, provide the following:
- Name: Provide the name for your credential.
- Authentication Type: Select Transfer to Messaging from the dropdown menu.
Click Next. The Authenticate section appears.
In the Add Credential dialog box, provide the following:
- Client ID: Enter the unique identifier that the LivePerson C2M system uses to identify Conversation Builder as a recognized client application. Get this client ID from your LivePerson account representative.
- Client Secret: Enter the secret key that's used to verify that Conversation Builder is authorized to access the LivePerson C2M system. Get this client se cret from your LivePerson account representative.
The credential provides a client ID and client secret to establish a secure and authorized communication channel between the Conversation Builder Voicebot and LivePerson's Connect-to-Messaging (C2M) system.
Click Save.
The Credential is added and saved. Once the Credential is created you can go ahead and create the voice bot.
Create Voice Bot
You can go ahead and create the voice bot and add the conversation flow as required for your brand.
Log in to your Conversational Cloud account and navigate to Automate > Conversation Builder.
The Conversation Builder appears.
Click New Bot. The Choose a Bot Template window appears.
Select Custom > Custom Bot. The Bot details page appears.
Provide the following information:
1. Name: Input the name for your bot into the field.
2. Description: Input information describing your bot.
3. Channel Type: Select the voice option.
4. Bot Language: Select the language from the dropdown for your bot.
5. Bot Group: Select a bot group if required, from the dropdown menu.
Once done click Create Bot. The Bot Dialog page appears.
Click Add dialog. The Add dialog window appears.
Provide a name, description, and click Save. The dialog appears.
Click +Pattern. The Interaction Settings page appears.
Navigate to Patterns & Intent page, add agent and help to the patterns field. Click Save.
Click Transfer to Messaging to add the integration interaction.
Select the Transfer to Messaging credential you added in the earlier step from the dropdown menu. Click + Add JSON the Enter JSON and preview page appears.
Select the SMS channel template from the dropdown, click the option to copy the template and then paste it into the JSON column.
Update the JSON as follows:
- Replace the value for “consumerPhoneNumber” with your own mobile phone number. (Ordinarily, you’d use a variable here, but for this tutorial, you want the SMS messages to be sent to your own mobile phone.)
- Replace the value for “handoffId” with the ID of the API handoff that you created in the C2M system.
- Replace the skill with the name of the skill you created, in this case, “human”.
- Replace the value for “ivrNumber” with the phone number that you assigned to the Voice bot, prepended with “ + “. (The IVR number is the number from which the call was transferred.)
- Delete the rest of the JSON, keeping just the closing brace.
The JSON should look like this:
ivrNumber isn't required. Only consumerPhoneNumber, handoffId, and skill are required. But specifying the ivrNumber means that Voice bot's phone number is shown as the number from which the call was transferred.
Click Save. Next you must create the dialogs that will handle the success and failure flows.
For more information on setting up success and failure flows see steps 10 to 18, here.
Once done click Save.
Once the voice bot is created and tested, you need to assign the skill to your voice bot. To do this you must create an agent connector and add it to the bot user you created earlier.
Create Agent Connector
You must configure the agent connector for your brands voice bot and add it to the bot user.
Log in to your Conversational Cloud account. The homepage appears.
On the hamburger menu click the Automate tab and click Conversation Builder. The Conversation Builder page appears.
Click the voice bot created for your brand. The bot dialog page appears.
Click the ellipses menu and select Agent Connectors. The agent connectors page appears.
Click Add Agent Connector. The Add Agent Connector modal appears.
In Agent User ID select from the list the bot user you have created. Click Save, the agent connector is successfully added.
Click Start to enable to the Agent Connector. The agent connector is online.
Your voice bot is now connected to the phone number, utilising this method when a user prompts the required IVR selection they are transferred to the voice bot.
Ready to move on? Click here to proceed.
