Engage

Engage is the customer communications hub of the store. This centralized Hub improves the organization and efficiency of the shop when interacting digitally with Customers. And most importantly, it is a tool to help insure Customer inquiries are not missed.

General eMail and/or SMS reply messages directed to the store will display in a central communications center where they may be Assigned to a Customer, TO DOs created, Appointments Created, Assigned to a Shop Staff member or marked Completed.

A complete Audit trail of interactions is made and review-able anytime to see the COMPLETE history of the digital communications and User actions taken.

The Engage form is comprised of two sections. The Upper eMail section displays the messages of the eMail Account's INBOX. The Lower Section is the actual content of the eMail. Any eMail attachments are listed below the content and may be individually downloaded to the local User's workstation for viewing.

Select eMail by clicking the eMail row. Once selected, Actions buttons may be executed. Multiple eMails may be selected by checking the box toward the left on same row as eMail (usually used for bulk Deletions) .

The store must have a Personal SMS mobile number (available from BBL by request for a small monthly fee) before Customers are able to reply to SMS messages sent to them from the store.

Sync Button Action

Once the iMap eMail settings are entered (read Setup Section below), clicking the SYNC Button will import all emails within the eMail account's Inbox and allow them to appear in the Upper eMail grid where they may be reviewed and actions performed.

Audit Trail Button Action

First, select a single message by clicking it's row. Then clicking the Audit Trail button will display all the past action details performed upon the message, including Users, date & time. Performing any task on the message, as assigning a User, making an appointment & others will cause a entry to be made into the audit trail for later reference if needed.

Selecting a eMail to Read

Unread messages appear BOLD (dark black). Click on any single message to read it. This will remove the BOLD setting from the message indicating it has been read. It is also marked READ within the email service.

Selecting a single message within everywhereRetail will trigger the process to attempt to link the message based upon the message FROM email address or phone number within the message body (as in CASE of a SMS sent to the store) to an existing customer. If an existing customer match is found, the email message is automatically inserted into the Customer's email history. Incoming SMS messages linked to a Customer are automatically inserted into the SMS history of that customer.

How to Select Multiple Messages

Show Completed only? (checkbox) ... When checked, ALL Messages with a Completed date will appear withing the grid.

Limit to User ... When a User is selected, only messages assigned to that User will be displayed.

Search ... Filters the message grid column to text matches of the entered text of the Search box.

Tip: Each column may be filtered additionally by clicking the antenna icon and entering a Boolean expression.

Action Buttons

Available message actions after selecting an message..

To-Do (add) ... Once the message is assigned to a Customer, the function will create a To-Do task & automatically link to the customer.

Appointment (add) ... Once the message is assigned to a Customer, the function will allow for any appointment type on any available date to be created for the Customer.

Email (reply) ... Once the message is assigned to a Customer, this function allows an email message to be composed and sent to the Customer. eMails sent are automatically inserted into the email history of the customer.

SMS (reply) ... Once the message is assigned to a Customer, this function will allow an SMS message to be Composed and sent to the Customer. SMS messages sent are automatically inserted into the SMS history of the customer.

Assign to User ... Allows the message to be assigned to any store user.

Link to Customer ... Will link the message to the selected Customer. When selected, a Customer lookup form is displayed so the User may locate the proper customer to link the message to.

Phone numbers of SMS replies or of eMail addresses of eMails received will be automatically link to the first Customer match containing the email address or phone number.

Customer (add) ... Creates a new Customer Profile & links the message to the new Customer.

Completed ... Enters the current date/time into the Completed column for the selected message(s). Once you are finished with a message Mark it Completed via the Completed button and it will disappear from the message list

Delete ... Deletes the message permanently from the Engage message grid and your online email account. This does not delete the message from any Customer eMail or SMS history.

Inbox Tip

Within your eMail account, using your normal eMail client program or using the eMail service's browser based eMail client, keep the inbox organized.

Engage pulls in all email within the INBOX with a click of the SYNC button function. Once email is synchronized to everywhereRetail, and assigned to customers, it is a good practice to move messages from the eMail INBOX to another folder or even delete the messages using the eMail client program. Fewer eMails within the inbox makes for faster sync time and less emails to review within everywhereRetail. Deleting eMails from within the eMail account does not remove them from everywhereRetail when they have been Assigned/Linked to a customer. This communication history, found at the customer profile level, is a powerful feature and keeps ALL Users abreast of any communication to the Customer!

Deleting messages from within the ER Engage module deletes email messages from within Engage and the online eMail account permanently.

Setup

Administration -> Setup -> Stores -> iMap email section

The Engage Communications Hub accesses a iMap server to import/sync the store's eMail messages. The iMap access credentials are entered in the Store settings. The iMap services is usually provided by the Shop's eMail service provider. Request the iMap settings from the service provider such as gMail, GoDaddy or Office360 (or any other).

Outgoing eMail & SMS messages utilizes everywhereRetail's email services. SMS message replies and eMail replies are sent to the shop's email service provider which the iMap settings are used to interact with.

In Multi-Store implementations, each store may access the same eMail iMap services. Or each store may have different iMap accounts. This would be a preference of store management. In other words, does each store have their own email account or do all stores share the same account. ER can support either scenario. Credentials may be re-used store by store or different credentials may be entered store by store. The Engage Dashboard imports/syncs messages for the logged in User's assigned store, using the credentials entered for that store.

Some iMaps eMail servers have settings that need to be enabled to "Allow Less Secure Apps" to access the email service. Such is the case for gMail, Yahoo & others. Oftentimes this is just a on/off setting. Other providers could require a special password that must be created and inserted into the credentials section of everywhereRetail. Please consult your email service provider for instructions.

Google Settings

Login to Gmail -> Go to Less Secure Apps page link: https://myaccount.google.com/lesssecureapps
It will show the below page.
Just Drag the Slider to Turn On

Yahoo Settings (Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com)

Log into your yahoo account
Click & Open following link https://help.yahoo.com/kb/generate-third-party-passwords-sln15241.html
Login using your Yahoo credentials
It’ll show below screen to Allow apps that use less secure sign-in.
Just move slider to turn on
OR generate a special App password for everywhereRetail and enter that password in the Store Settings -> iMap section