Collecting customer data with custom information and variables

Gather information about customers and pass it to Bold360 to help agents achieve business goals.

You can pass custom information and custom variables from the HTML code for a Chat Button, Customer Monitoring, or Conversion Tracking. This article covers the variables that are available per HTML code type.

Chat Button Variables

Select the Pass custom information about customer option when generating Chat Button HTML.

vr: customer reference
Passes any desired information about a specific customer.
vn: customer name
Passes the customer's name. This variable passes the value of the Name field from the pre-chat form.
vi: customer information
Passes any desired information about a specific customer.
ve: customer email
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Email field from the pre-chat form.
vp: customer phone
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Phone field from the pre-chat form.
lc: language code
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Language field from the pre-chat form.
iq: initial question
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition or Auto-Invite, this variable passes the initial question from the pre-chat form or pre-chat auto-invite form.
Note: The iq variable must be inserted manually into the WindowParameters section of the Chat Button HTML code.

Values are passed when the customer initiates a chat. Values are shown on the agent workspace together with the incoming chat.

Customer Monitoring Variables

Select the Pass custom information about customer option when generating Customer monitoring HTML.

vr: customer reference
Passes any desired information about a specific customer. An initial value is not passed to this variable via the agent workspace.
vn: customer name
Passes the customer's name. This variable passes the value of the Name field from the pre-chat form.
vi: customer information
Passes any desired information about a specific customer. An initial value is not passed to this variable via the agent workspace.
ve: customer email
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Email field from the pre-chat form.
vp: customer phone
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Phone field from the pre-chat form.
url: URL
Pass the customer?s current URL (the URL of the customer's current page).
Tip: When using Customer monitoring HTML on a site that requires registration, values can be passed once a customer signs in to their account. Use the Data Validation feature when passing sensitive data.

All variables are passed from one page to the next and remain set until a new value is passed. This allows for the Customer Monitoring to maintain the associated value throughout the visit, as well as passing those values to the Conversion Code (see below).

Conversion Tracking Variables

Select the Pass custom conversion information and Pass custom information about customer options when generating Conversion Code HTML.

Important: When implementing Conversion Tracking, you must ensure that your Customer monitoring HTML, Conversion Tracking HTML, and Chat Button HTML are all associated with the same website.
ca: conversion amount
Passes the conversion amount. Requires a number (with a decimal point for decimal values).
cr: conversion reference
Passes the conversion reference (such as an invoice or order number). This is a uniquely valued parameter. Duplicate conversion references are not allowed and will not trigger new conversions unless you change either the conversion reference or use a different conversion code (or leave it blank).
ci: conversion information
Passes any desired information about a specific customer. An initial value is not passed to this variable via the agent workspace.
vr: customer reference
Passes any desired information about a specific customer. An initial value is not passed to this variable via the agent workspace.
vn: customer name
Passes the customer's name. This variable passes the value of the Name field from the pre-chat form.
vi: customer information
Passes any desired information about a specific customer. An initial value is not passed to this variable via the agent workspace.
ve: customer email
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Email field from the pre-chat form.
vp: customer phone
When using a pre-chat form as part of your Chat Window definition, this variable passes the value of the Phone field from the pre-chat form.

How to Set up Custom Variables

This section helps you implement custom variables and put them to use to solve business needs.

Variable values remain the same from page to page unless changed. With this in mind, we do not recommend using both Chat Button custom variables and Customer Monitoring custom variables on the same page. A good example of why this is not necessary would be when a customer comes to your site and signs into their account. The Customer Monitoring code sets the custom variables appropriate to the information from the customer's account. The customer then decides to launch a chat, these variables are then passed into the Pre-Chat form and pre-populate the form for the customer. By having the variables also available in the Chat button code, it opens the possibility of having the values from the Customer Monitoring code overwritten by the Chat Button variable assignment.

Passing Custom Variables on Pre-Chat Forms

You can pass custom information to Bold360 using custom variables via Chat Button or VMS code with the WindowParameters directive. The number of custom variables is not limited.

Note: Custom variable values cannot be updated once the chat is started, as opposed to the Conversion Tracking variables mentioned above.

To add a custom parameter to your Chat Window definition:

  1. In the Web Admin Center, go to Channels > Chat > Chat Windows > [select or create an item] > Pre-Chat Form > Custom fields > New Custom Field.
  2. Set the field Type to Hidden.
  3. Add the parameter to the VMS or Chat Button code on your page via WindowParameters.
    Important: The variable name must start with customField_.

    Let's say that you need to pass the following additional variables:

    • CampaignID
    • VisitorFromID
    • CreativeID

    In this case, construct the WindowParameters directive as follows, where value1, value2 and value3 are the respective values:

    var WindowParameters="customField_CampaignID=value1&customField_VisitorFromID=value2&customField_CreativeID=value3";
    _bcvma.push(["setParameter", "WindowParameters", WindowParameters]);
Note: Special and unsafe characters must be escaped. With JavaScript, use the encodeURIComponent() method to convert such characters instead of escape().

Result: The custom variable and the new values now appear in the Chat Details window.

Tip: Add your custom field to the grid by selecting Grid Preferences > Column Chooser and dragging the field over the grid header. This is a per-agent setting.