CHAT REFERENCE –

A NEW TOOLJ I N W U

J A N I S F . B R O W NU N I V E R S I T Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L I F O R N I A

N O R R I S M E D I C A L L I B R A R Y

BACKGROUND

•Old chat tool was no longer supported by AIM•Old chat tool was not obvious to users•Needed a new chat tool for new site launch•Other options didn’t fit into our criteria

WHY WE CHOSE OLARK?

• Accessible-floating chat bar on every library webpage and Libguide page• Easy customization and installation• Affordable and reasonable price• Many features that allow us to interact with users better• Interactive chat report and data analysis function

CHAT REFERENCE OLD VS NEW

Old New

CHAT INTERFACESUser End

Chat is offline.Chat is on.

CHAT INTERFACESLibrarian’s End

Browser/OS/Desktop or Mobile Device/Location info

Chat History/Visit History/How to Get to the Website On Campus or Off

Campus/ Hospital or Academia

What page user is on when initiate the chat

Visit History/User Information

Action Shortcut

Desktop Notification

ACTION SHORTCUT• Transfer: Transfer a conversation to another operator.• Block: Ignore all messages from a user for 24 hours• See: Activate co-browsing feature. Highlight and help visitor navigate around

page they’re on.• Unfollow: Stop receiving page-change notification for the visitor.• Tag: Add tags to the conversation to help find groups of conversations more

easily in the future. e.g. !tag followup.• Transcript: Returns a chat transcript link that s viewable by all operators on the

account.• Send: Forward a chat transcript via email during a chat conversation with a

visitor.• Feedback: Send a Chat Rating to the visitor at anytime during your conversation.

DASHBOARD

REPORTS

OLARK IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS

SETTINGS

PRICING

PLAN COMPARISON

FUTURE PLAN

• Explore under-utilized features and train librarians to take advantage of these features• Examine past chat history and provide better reference

experience• Analyze chat stats and come up with meaningful

interpretations, such as determining staffing schedules, etc.