(Written by Haadi Jaffer)
Today, we have various channels to communicate with customers, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Webchat, Telegram, and more. The problem arises when a user reaches out via one channel, like Webchat, with a question and later follows up through WhatsApp with the same query. This creates two separate chats in the system with different content. When the agent tries to find the previous query, they end up searching through multiple chats, which can be frustrating.
Without the right tools, it’s tough to keep track, leading to frustration for both your team and your customers. Imagine a person is reaching out on Messenger, your chatbot is asking a bunch of questions to get them signed up, then 1 day later they reach out on your website and interact with your chat widget there and need to go through the exact same process all again?
That is extremely frustrating for that person and might be the reason why they walk away resulting in you losing your lead or customer.
That’s why we developed Single Sign-On (SSO), to eliminate fragmented communication and streamline the process.
How does SSO work
To explain this let's call SSO your main account you create when signing up to let's say UChat. You will have an email and password to log in. This give you access to all the same information no matter the device you log in from.
The different channels the user is interacting from can be seen as those different devices. The main account credentials give access no matter the channel or device.
With the SSO feature, you can:
Effortless Login: Customers can log in using platforms like Google or Facebook or Email, creating a unified profile.
Real-Time Syncing: Updates data instantly across all connected channels into SSO Profile.
Customizable Login Flows: Tailors login processes to fit each platform seamlessly.
Setting Up SSO Login Flow
UChat’s SSO is easy to set up and highly customizable. The first step is to go into your chatbot and then go to settings at the bottom left menu. From there you will find SSO settings and will bring you to this overview:
Basic Setup: Head to the “Basic” tab and fill in the required details.
You also have Advanced Options: Use the SSO URL system variable to create login flows for platforms where links or buttons may not work as expected.
A Real-Life Sneak Peek
Let’s bring this to life with an example. Imagine your business uses WhatsApp and web chat to communicate with customers. With SSO enabled:
A user logs into their profile using their Google account on web chat.
And sends a message to the chatbot
Later, the same user messages you on WhatsApp and looks like this
And then sends a message to the chatbot. The result? Both of the chats you can see in a single place.
You can see on the right side that now both webchat as well as WhatsApp are connected to this SSO profile meaning from this point onwards any conversation held in either channel can be tracked and seen in the SSO account of that user.
You can also easily switch between the connected users. just press one of the profiles on the right side and it will send you to that specific chat conversation with the user.
This is extremely convenient as a business to keep proper track of the same user in various channels.
Why SSO Is a Must-Have for Businesses:
⏱️ Time-Saving for Your Team: Automates profile syncing, freeing agents to focus on solving issues.
😊 Happier Customers: Consistent, seamless interactions build trust and loyalty.
Enhanced SSO Actions
We recently added powerful SSO Actions, giving you even more control. You can find these options in the flow builder by adding an action node and choosing advanced actions. It will look like this;
Find SSO User
Search for a Master Profile by email to instantly pull up details like connected channels. This is perfect for managing accounts or troubleshooting. So example could be if you like the chatbot to see if an existing profile exists, check connected channels and do some pre troubleshooting for your support team before handing over the conversation to the team.
Send Flows Across Channels
Guide users seamlessly between platforms, like following up a web chat query with a WhatsApp message.
Pro Tip: For platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook, stay compliant with the 24-hour messaging rule by using message templates for re-engagement.
Create SSO User
Easily link profiles with the same email into one unified account. This action has been added recently and allows you to overcome potential objections from users as opposed to when you are asking them to log in with their Facebook or Google profiles.
In most cases you will ask for the email anyway right?
So why not use that to create that SSO account without any additional effort from their side.
Below you can see how the action will look like;
This will help you link all the profiles with the same email and create one SSO account based on Email and keep everything in sync without the user ever to log into anything else ever again.
Now as you can see we created an email SSO profile and attached 3 different channels to it. These will now be in constant sync with each other. So where one channel gets a tag added so do all the others so wherever the user is interacting from they will always be able to continue the conversation and same logics for conditions and actions will apply.
Link and Unlink Profiles
Need to add or remove a specific channel from a user’s profile? Do it effortlessly. For example this could be needed when a bot user wants to unsubscribe. you can then look up all the connected profiles and unsubscribe them with a little automation by sending the unsubscribe and maybe even delete from bot action. And this is great because now you do not have to find them manually and do the same which saves a lot of time!
Get Linked Channel Users
Fetch a list of all channels connected to a customer’s Master Profile. Use this to tailor marketing campaigns or analyze behavior.
Dive deeper into SSO Actions here.
Are you going to be using SSO?
Now that you have seen the power that SSO has are you going to be using it in your setups? Or maybe you are already doing so but did not know half of the possibilities you have and can use?
We hope this article gave you the insights and you are ready to get things implemented.
