What’s New?

7 Feb 2023

New major release has been rollout to production with enhancements below.

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17 Jan 2022

New major release has been rollout to production with enhancements below.

White Label branding

White label functions let you put your business brand to replace “2ConnectMe” in the app user interface. The detail settings – how to here.

WordPress plugin enhancements

In order to support white label functions, the WordPress plugin has to be upgraded. Due to feedback from the developers, the WordPress plugin has reverted back to the previous release which is more simpler in the integration settings.

The anonymous chats is limited to 40 minutes duration in Forever Free plan

In order to better support our subscribed users, the anonymous chats are restricted to 40 minutes duration. Our subscribed users, either with Growing business plan or Enterprise plan, will have this restriction lifted.

New Language Arabic supported

With the assistance from our users, new language Arabic is supported in the app user interface. We are still working in progress and some settings may still in English in Arabic language browser.

Adjustable height of “More Option” button on Contact Form

A new option is added to the contact form settings to adjust the height of “More Option” button of Contact Form on mobile device.

How to Upgrade the version?

Since the browser may keep the cache of past versions of 2ConnectMe Apps, it is better to clear such cache so that the latest 2ConnectMe Apps will be loaded in your next logon / usage. For how to clear the browser cache, please refer to FAQ here.

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25 Jan 2021

New release has been rollout to production with enhancements below.

Enhanced Integration with WordPress

Tight integration with WordPress. At the beginning of WordPress installation, users will be asked to register an new account. The Chat Room and corresponding URLs will be imported to WordPress local website. All these installation steps become automatic and seamless without the need to switch between 2ConnectMe Admin Console and WordPress Plugin Admin Page.

Particularly, WordPress plugin admin page will assign the correct Chat Room URL according to the selections of Chat Room and Icon of floating button. The details of enhancements can be illustrated here.

Actions Needed for Existing WordPress Website

In this release, the WordPress Website will be linked to a 2ConnectMe administrator account. Therefore, after upgrading to this WordPress Plugin release, you will be directed to Agent Logon page. You just need to use your own 2ConnectMe admin account to logon again. After logon, the latest Chat Room URLs will be imported to your WordPress Plugin for your to set it up again.

How to Upgrade the version?

Since the browser may keep the cache of past versions of 2ConnectMe Apps, it is better to clear such cache so that the latest 2ConnectMe Apps will be loaded in your next logon / usage. For how to clear the browser cache, please refer to FAQ here.

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5 November 2020

New release has been rolled out to production with enhancements below.

New Manual Payment Request Type – Physical Goods / Commodities

In Manual Payment Request, besides the existing “Online Service Provision” payment type, a new payment type “Physical Goods / Commodities” to collect payment for “Physical Goods / Commodities” sold is added to this release. Therefore, agent is able to collect payment for online service as well as some goods products sold online.

This is is a settings in the Chat Room which you can configure what kind of Manual Payment Request is allowed in this Chat Room.as shown in the figure below.

WhatsApp agent

With Mobile Agent App in Apple App Store and Android Play Store, agents can work remotely and serve customer chat 24 hours at their convenience. In this release, 2ConnectMe starts to support 3rd party app, WhatsApp, as an mobile agent app. It is NO longer a must for agents to install 2ConnectMe mobile app to serve the customer chat. Instead, any agent can serve customer chat through WhatsApp on his own mobile device.

New WhatsApp button on Contact Form

With support WhatsApp agent, new button for WhatsApp chat is available to setup on the contact form as shown below.

New WhatsApp Url Chat Room

With Chat Room supporting WhatsApp Agent, a new WhatsApp Url is available for you to put any button on your website or browser. It will distribute the chat to the WhatsApp agents evenly. Below is the screen of where WhatsApp Url is located in the Chat Room settings.

How to setup WhatsApp chat distribution in Chat Room settings and WhatsApp Agent documentation can be found here.

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28th September 2020

New release has been rolled out to production with enhancements below.

Private Chat Room

Each agent is with his own Private Chat Room. Public Chat Room shares all the settings with Private Chat Room except that the customer chat in Private Chat Room will only be distributed to this specified agent only.

Where is the url link for Private Chat Room?

In-App purchase

The In-App purchase is now an option of Pricing settings in the chat room. That means it is more flexible to have different pricing scheme for each of chat room.

In other words, if you are using Manual Payment Request before this release, you have to enable such Manual Payment Request in the Chat Room settings in order to continue using this function so that “Credit Card” payment request button is available on the Agent Phone.

Manual Payment Request

It is the existing Manual Payment Request which allows agent pushes the invoice to customer and let customer pays for the service during the chat. If you are using this Manual Payment Request, you have to start to check this option in the Chat Room Settings for agent to issue Manual Payment Request.

Automatic Charges

Automatic Charges will trigger 2ConnectMe to charge the customer automatically according to the actual duration and pricing scheme of the chat rooms. It also requires customers to provide the credit card details for pre-authorisation before the chats. The final charge is calculated at the end of chats.

It is a taxi meter like charging scheme. Initial minutes are provided for FREE. Then, it will charge for $ dollars for initial N minutes (minimum charges for initial N minutes). $ dollar will be charged even though the initial conversation is less than N minutes. After Nth minutes, it will charge at the flat rate $ dollars for N minutes  pro-rata to the remaining duration of service provided.

Please take note that

• the charging meter will be updated for every 30 seconds. The meter starts to charge the customer when either party press the red hangup button.  In case either party disconnects accidentally, e.g. due to network stability issues, for over 90 seconds without reconnection online again, 2ConnectMe backend server will still start to charge the customer automatically and both parties will be forced to terminated the chats.
• During the disconnection period and before 90 seconds timeout, the charging meter will stop counting until both parties get reconnected again. However, due to some network delay and stability, it may take up to 30 seconds for local client to detect such network disconnection.
• Again, 2ConnectMe will not store any customer financial information, e.g. credit card. The customer financial information will be sent to the 3rd party payment gateway solution provider, stripe.com. This eliminate the possibility of leakage of customer financial information from 2ConnectMe.

Agents’ own pricing scheme for Automatic Charges at Private Chat Room

Automatic Charges settings in the Public Chat Room provide the standard pricing for the service to be provided by the Agents. If needed, agent is allowed to have his own taxi meter type pricing scheme for his own Private Chat Room. Such pricing is setup in the private profile of Agent. The following new section is added to agent private profile settings.

Meanwhile, for agents’ own pricing scheme to be effective, it requires to enable such option in the public chat room beforehand as shown in the figure above).

2ConnectMe Service Charges on In-App Purchase

2ConnectMe has revised to charge 4% of transaction revenues as service charges to provide the platform to process the payment of commodity or physical goods transactions.

For the service providers who use the platform to perform consulting, performance or any other similar online services, 2ConnectMe will start to charge 10% of the transaction revenues.

2ConnectMe will set the “online sevice providers” type, 10% of transaction revenue, as a default of charging scheme. If you are using 2ConnectMe service for  processing payment of commodity physical goods, please write to us at serviceCharges@2connectme.com to apply for it now.

Chat Assignment

New Chat Assignment settings in the Chat Room provide more flexibility in distribution of chats to agents.

Service Staff Assignment

It tells 2ConnectMe distribution engine how to select agent to handle the customer chats.  Two options are provided.

• The quickest reply which means 2ConnectMe will select the agent who is the first one to reply to the request. This is the default.
• The nearest to the customer location which means 2ConnectMe will select the agent who is near to the customer place. (This option is only available for those users with service subscription for Large Enterprise.)

Assign the same service staff for chats every time.

• Once the customer chat is answered by the agent, 2ConnectMe will try to assign the same agent to handle the same customer chats in the future.
• Meanwhile, customer is allowed to ask all other agents to answer the chat as well while waiting for the last connected agent.  The screens shown below are with  “Ask All Agents” button in the chat distribution process.

Customer Interactions

• Allow customer to leave email message when the agents are busy. Without this option checked, EMAIL button below will not be shown during the chat distribution process.
• Allow customer to activate email alert when the agents are busy. Without this option checked, ADD ALERT button below will not be shown during the chat distribution process.

Email Alert

Email alert is a new function in this release. 2ConnectMe backend server will send email to agents and customers where certain pre-defined condition occurs.

1. Email sent to administrator when agent private profile is edited and saved.
2. Email sent to agents and customer when customer “Add Alert” during waiting for agent to answer. Require to enable settings in Private Profile of Agent and Chat Room Settings as shown below.

• Settings in Private Profile of Agent

• Settings in Chat Room – Chat Assignment as shown in the previous section above:

 

Public Profile @ Chat Room

Sometimes, during distributing customer chats to agents, there are scenarios to send email to customers to inform of idle agents status, Invoice Receipts, or Email message left. This public profile information will be used in such email to communicate with customers.

In other words, each chat room is able to represent your separate client company in your email communications.

Phone buttons settings

The action buttons on the customer phone and agent phone can be customised for each of chat room. That means you can control what actions can be taken by agent and customer during the chat conversation for each of chat room.

Th action buttons include

• Text Chat 
• Voice Chat
• Video Chat
• Screen Sharing
• Conference Chat
• Simultaneous Customer Chats

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9th July 2020

New release has been rolled out to production with enhancements below.

Since this release involves update on Customer Client Chat program, i.e. sticky floating chat icon on your website, please ensure the browser ‘cached image and files’  is cleared so that Customer Client Chat program can be updated automatically. Detail steps here.

Enhancements

Restrict user and Delete Chat message

New function RESTRICT USER and DELETE MESSAGE is to block the customer from send further message and delete the message received.

Improve Signalling between Agent and Customer

• Customer is automatically reconnected to the same agent even customer jumps to other pages of your website.
• Even under unstable mobile network, agent and customer can be reconnected automatically once they are both online.

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19th May 2020

New release has been rolled out to production with enhancements and fixings below. The release also includes the update on WordPress plugin (ver 1.5.0). Please update your WordPress plugin accordingly. Otherwise, strange behavior may happen.

Since this release involves update on the Customer Client Chat program (WordPress Plugin), please ensure the browser “cached image and files” is cleared so that Customer Client Chat program can be updated.

Enhancements

• Support Spanish Language.

Fixings

• The contact form height and width displayed inappropriately in mobile devices or when internet data speed is slow.
• The deletion of past chat records in contact form does not work when the contact form is being shown to user.

30 April 2020

A new release has been rolled out to production today with enhancements below. Since the release involves the update on the Customer Client Chat program, please ensure the browser “cached images and files” is cleared to ensure the Customer Client Chat getting updated. As an example, please refer to the Chrome Browser settings screen on Cache below for reference.

Improvement on Customer Client Chats

The customer client chats will be stored in browser. That means even though customer client leave your website or contact form, he is still with past chat records in the next chats. (Only supported in Google Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge browser)

New Past Chat button is for customer to switch to see the past chat records while the Contact Form button for switching back to Contact Form.

Sticky Last Connected Agent

In the future re-connection, the customer will be routed to the same last connected agent with first priority, i.e. sticky agent feature. If the last connected agent is not available, customer is prompted with option button to search All agents. (Only supported in Goggle Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge browser)

 

Google Sites Integration

Due to security constraints on Google Sites, customer is not allowed to use microphone and camera for video chats. This issue is resolved in this release with new checkbox settings (Google Sites Integration) in  the ChatRoom settings.

If the contact form is integrated with Google Sites using iFrame, it requires to check “Google Sites Integration” and “UPDATE” the settings. Then, putting the updated URL address link on your iFrame on your Google Sites.

 

Business Secure Live Chat Room (iOS App & WebApp)

Apple App review team finally approved our new release on iOS. The new release has been rolled out today.

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8th March 2020

Business Secure Live Chat Room (iOS App & WebApp)

The current release of iOS App, Business Secure Live Chat Room, in Apple App Store is outdated.

We have been negotiating with Apple App Review team since 2 months ago. We are still addressing their comments.

Therefore, you may find issues in the current release of iOS App for the time being. We hope Apple will approve our updated release very soon.

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22nd Feb., 2020

Reduced Service Fee (2%) of Business Revenue – InApp Payment

We are pleased to announce that the service fee for Business Revenue – InApp Payment is reduced from 10% to 2% of the revenue paid by the clients. Effective from 22nd Feb., 2020 immediately.

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8th Jan., 2020

New Release of Android App and Enhanced Functions

Android App (Anonymous Live Chat – ver 2.8) on Google Play Store

It is a critical release to solve the notification issue such that it will provide similar experiences as WhatsApp for new incoming chats. Users only need a single tap to answer or reject the new chats. Please go here to update your app in your Android mobile devices.

Sometimes, due to cache of Google Play Store, you may not be able to find the latest version 2.8. In that case, it is better to clear the cache data of Google Play Store at your mobile device and search again. You will then find this version 2.8.

Enhancements

Help Manual

Help manual is added to provide new user a cheat sheet for usage and integrations.

Voice, Video and Text Chat in Friends / Business

Anonymous Voice, Video and Text chat are added to Friends / Business chat. That means you can chat with your Friends / Business anonymously.

How to update the App in browser

The app will be updated automatically in your next logon.

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20 November 2019

New Business Revenue Function

A new release was rollout to production. This release is mainly to empower you to accept payments from your clients online instantly. The revenue will be deposited to your bank account directly without going through 2ConnectMe bank account. Secure receiving payment is guaranteed. Detail information is here.

22 October 2019

A new release was rollout to production including for Browser and  Anonymous Live Chat (ver 2.7) on Google Play Store.

This release is mainly to improve the notification for every new contact form arrived and while the the chats are being queued for answers.

What it means for you?

You no need to sit in front of PC to wait for customer chats. You will receive notifications from Mac OSX, Windows operating system whenever customers open your website or open the contact form. Then you may directly click the notification banner to open the 2ConnectMe Agent to SEE what the customers are doing on your website.

With complete integration with notification on mobile apps and browsers, you have full tracks and views of customers from the moment they open your website or contact form to initiating the chats to your agents.

Yes, Such advanced functions are also offered for FREE in the Forever Free account!

Enhancements

New Notifications – New Contact Form arrived

Notification whenever anyone opens your webpage with contact form icon installed or opens your contact form directly.

New Notification – Customer / Friends waiting for answers

Notification whenever customer / friends click to chat button on the contact form to start finding an agent to answer.

Settings – Notifications

Two settings are required to activate the notification Firstly, it requires to enable the Notification settings of individual agent Private Profile (Settings -> Private Profile -> Notifications). Secondly, it requires to enable the contact form notification settings (Settings -> Anonymous ChatRoom ->GENERAL for Forever Free tier account).

Agent Private Profile

Go to Settings -> Private Profile -> Notifications (Check the boxes where needed)

Please take note that

Notification can only be supported on either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser.

The settings on Browser notifications can only be configured under a browser as 2ConnectMe will ask the browser for the notifications approval. Browser will prompt you for approval. Please approve it when it is asked at first time. Otherwise, it requires to change the settings inside the browser to change such approval settings.

Anonymous Chat Room

Go to Settings -> Anonymous Chat Room -> GENERAL (Any chat room you like to enable) -> Contact Form tab

The screen below is the initial settings screen of Notification with “0” initial value which means Disabled. Please take note that whenever this is any change in Notification Settings and saved successfully after clicking UPDATE button, the URL ADDRESS LINK will be revised accordingly. It is required to update such URL address link in all those 3rd party integrations, e.g. WordPress Plugin URL, or Click to Call button on any webpage or PopUP icon on any webpage.

How to Update the App

Browser

Just reLogon 2ConnectMe service using Chrome / Firefox. 2ConnectMe App will be able to detect the version outdated and automatically download and reLogon the service again. The whole process is automatic while spending a few seconds for downloading the New App.

Android Mobile App (Anonymous Live Chat – ver 2.7) on Google Play Store

Please go to Google Play Store to upgrade to version 2.7. Sometimes, due to cache of Google Play Store, you may not be able to find the latest version 2.7. In that case, it is better to clear the cache data of Google Play Store and search again. You will then find this version 2.7.

iOS App (Business Live Chat) on Apple App Store

Apple App Review Team have been conducting a thorough review of 2ConnectMe App. Due to a lot of comments from Apple App Review Team, we have decided to put this release on Apple App Store on hold. We will make all the changes required by Apple to be released in Nov 2019.

Why Notification is not shown?

System Design

The system is designed such that

• when the user already logon the service using the browser, there will be NO notification delivered to this user. It is because the user is able to see all these customer status from the main Dashboard. Notification reminder is no longer needed.
• when the chat is connected to an agent and chat is terminated now, the customers / friends want reConnnect to agent again. In that case, the customers / friends are designed to route such chat to the same agent answering his chat before. In that case, no notification is shown as such chat is only for the previously connected agent.

Please check the following settings again.

• Is the Agent Private Profile is setup properly under Chrome / Firefox browser? The status of check box should be shown checked as indicated below.

• Is the chat room enabled with Notification? The best practice suggest 5 which means 5 minutes for the sending notification cycle for a device as indicated below.

URL address of Chat Room Updated in 3rd party integration.

Please copy and paste the updated URL address of chat room to your 3rd party integration.

Browser Cache issue

If you checked the above points done and still find not all notification shown, there may be the case of Browser keeping the outdated configuration data. We recommend clearing the cache data of browser to check it again.

Enhancements

• Tight integration with Android Notification to improve user friendliness for new incoming chats.
• To improve performance of loading the image files, e.g. company poster banner file in public profile, poster image file on top of contact form,  from 2ConnectMe Cloud drive.
• Tight integration of release of Android App rollout and 2ConnectMe backend system.

Issues fixed

• The agents should have their own picture image file in the private profile.
• Language localisation in Android is added for language Chinese, French and Portuguese.

How to update

• For those running in normal browsers, they need to logout and login the 2ConnectMe Service again. During the updating process, it may require to re-login again automatically.
• For those running in Android App, the old app starts to prompt the warning to ask for immediate update of 2ConnectMe App in order to continue to work. Due to cache in Google Play store in the local mobile phone, the latest 2ConnectMe App may not appear in the Google Play store. In that case, you have to clear the cache date of Google Play Store in your local mobile phone. Then, you will find the 2ConnectMe App (ver 2.5) in the Google Play Store which you need to update to continue to work.

The following new functions are added.

In the previous releases, after the chats finished, agent and anonymous customer friends are unable to contact each other. In this release, we provide a new contact channel through the direct chats where the anonymous customer friends are able to search the contact address by means of name, email address and Tags in the Public Profile.

Public Profile

In order to let public users to search your profile, you must provide more details information in Public Profile about your company or yourself as follows. (The previous “Company Profile” has been renamed to Public profile). By default, the Public Profile is not shared. the Public profile is shared to public only when the check box “Allow public to view” is checked.

Cloud drive for storage of image files

For those image file in Public Profile, Private Profile and the Banners in Chat Room configuration, we start to provide cloud drive storage. Please take note that such cloud drive storage is shared with public. Everyone in the internet is able to see these images.

For the existing URL link of image files stored in your website or private drive, we still support them. No change is needed in your existing settings if you use URL from your private website or private drive.

Optimisation for Business and Personal usage

2ConnectMe optimises the app for different usages in Business and Personal. It can be set in the Public Profile as shown below.

New Friends / Business Menu

New Friends / Business menu provides a permanent channel for chats between annonymous customers friends. The system will search the Public Profile with Name, Email or Tags to propose contacts. Once the chat button is clicked, it will be routed to the agents of the business to answer the chat.

Increase size of File transferred

For those account with Forever Free plan, the size of file transferred is increased from 1M to 3M. For those account with subscriptions, the size of file transferred is increased from 5M to 6M.

Restructure of Settings menu

All the settings related menus are structure to a single place Settings as shown bleow. It is more Mobile Users friendly.

In other words, 2ConnectMe is able to support PopUp Form & Icon on Shopify and any other frameworks. We have detail example to show such integration on Shopify.

With that floating icon installed on webpages, all the advanced features, e.g. SEE Customer Screen, Auto Whisper Text, Customer Browser History, Proactively Initiating Chats, all become available to any websites regardless of frameworks.

Setup of Html codes for each of chat room.

Agent Role on Customer Phone

Agent role is the description shown on the customer phone while customer is waiting for agent to answer. The default is name “Agent”. In this release, this name can be modified according to your business needs of this chat room. For example, it can be “Doctor”, “Teacher”, “Tutor” or any description which best tells customer (caller).

Language Menu Visibility in Contact Form

In this release, it is allowed to hide the language menu which is the default of new chat room as shown in the figure above.

Enhancements on Agent Desktop

Concurrent Agent

New Concurrent Agent button is provided to create another live agent for handling concurrent customer chats. No limitation on the number of concurrent agents. It is subject to your processing power of your local PC desktop.

Multi-Parties Chats (Conference & Monitored Conference)

When an agent is handling concurrent chats, he is even able to have conference chats among all these customers chats. Just press the  icon to add other parties to join the conference.

Conference chat and Monitored conference

Agent can select either monitored conference or a normal conference chats. For monitored chats, every text chat sent by the customers must be approved by agent before sending to other parties of the conference.

For normal conference chat, every chats will be broadcasted to customers and agent automatically.

After conference chats successfully made, status are updated.

How to: Monitored Conference

Whenever chats are communicated between agent and customer, the agent has to press the Share button  near to the chats to broadcast to the other parties of conference.

Meanwhile, the agent main screen also shows such Auto Text, red in colour, on customer profile. Just in time, it helps agent to pay attention to serve this customer with higher priority and better service. The agent resources, the most valuable resources in a call centre, can be utilised in the most effective way.

Triggers Setup

In Hotline Chat Room menu, it can configure filters (conditions) to select particular web pages or customer clicks on the web page and stays there for some time as follows.

After the changes made and saved, the contact from URL address link will get updated. You have to update the corresponding 3rd party integration, e.g. WordPress / MailChimp.

30th March 2018

Enhancements on Email sent to customer

2ConnectMe is able to forward customer messages to your registered email address of your administrator account, i.e. your user id. The email content is enhanced such that it will include your own company name / personal name in the email subject header.

It is also allowed to modify this company name / personal name at different chat room. A new tab for “Customer Email” is included in this chat room settings.

Enhancements in User Interface

In order to fit 2ConnectMe App to those small screens fo Apple iOS devices, the user interface of 2ConnectMe has been further simplified. The screens for settings of Chat Room / Hotline is re-designed so that users are able to use small screen mobile devices to configure the settings of 2ConnectMe.

Congratulation! Enjoy our 2ConnectMe service for free for lifetime!

Downsizing of Contact Form

• We have been hearing our users that the contact form is too large to fit in their websites. The contact form has become more slimmed as  shown below.
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New Portuguese Language Supported

• Besides Chinese Language, a new language Portuguese is supported as well. Thanks our end users for supporting such translation!

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Enhancements

Exchange Files and Photos between Customer and Agent

• You can enjoy instantly exchanging any files with customers. Communication with customer has become never been efficient before. Below is the screen of a single call record. No limitation on file types. All files are supported. They are all FREE! For those free-tier-accounts, each file is limited to 1M in size.

Improvement on Call Records

• The Call Records function has been fully re-written. Browsing the customer call history becomes much easier. The COUNTRY of customer about where he comes from is also captured in the call record.  Below is the screen for illustration.

Agent Status

• Agent status is also rewritten to indicate their online status if they are ready for serving incoming call. The screen below is self-explanatory.

Customer Queue Indicator

• When there is any customer call waiting for agent to answer, an indicator for Customer Queue is flashing to alert agent of serving customers.

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Enhancements

PopUp form with more functions

• It provides additional Direct Phone Call and Direct Video Call at initial PopUp. It means website visitors only need a single click the “PopUp” Phone or Voice call button on your landing page to reach your company staff with voice and video communication as needed.

Contact form with new phone and video call buttons

• With new phone and video call buttons at contact form, website visitors are able to initiate phone call and video call to reach your company staff.

Each hotline chat room comes with independent Contact Form

• Instead of a single contact form for all the hotlines / chat room, you are provided with a new contact form with independent styles and configured format for each of hotline chat room. That is the reason you have to reconfigure your existing hotline chat room GENERAL, e.g., with a new contact form. (Refer to screen below)

PopUp form with more styles configurable.

• It provides options to configure each of field of contact form. Also “mandatory” field choice is also configured. (Refer to screen below)

Pre-configure website visitor call types allowed

• It provides option to configure what call types allowed for website visitors for each of hotline. (Refer to screen in WordPress plugin description below.)

WordPress plugin – Business Chat Room (ver 1.1)

Enhancements

1. The size of PopUp form is automatically adjusted according to its operation need. No size configuration needed from this release onwards.
2. Icons are provided for Chat, Phone, Video and Mail with size Large (50×50), Medium (40×40) and small (30×30). You are free to select according to your nature of PopUp form.
3. Support Popup direct Phone Call and Video Call.

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