Leveraging Webhooks with In-App Chat to Increase Engagement ---- 3 min read

One of the essential features in Channelize.io is Webhooks. You might have seen the term Webhooks in Channelize.io App Settings and probably have wondered if this is something you should use. The answer to that would be a big YES if you are looking to perform Action Events corresponding to some Trigger Events in the In-App Chat.

But, before that, let us first understand…

What Webhooks are and how they work with Channelize.io? 

Webhooks are “HTTP callbacks”. Webhooks are generally prompted by some events inside your Channelize.io Services. Whenever an event like this occurs, Channelize.io service runs an HTTP request to the specific URL configured in the Channelize.io Dashboard for the Webhook. You can configure Channelize.io Webhooks to invoke events in your primary website/application based on actions that occur in your Channelize.io application.

Difference between Webhooks and API requests:

Webhooks are pretty different from the APIs as the former works on Event-based Output Mechanism while the latter works on Request-Based Output Mechanism. 

Webhook Events currently supported by Channelize.io (any action can be performed when the below are triggered):

• Create a Conversation: Triggers when a new conversation is initiated.
• Send a Message: Triggers whenever a new message is sent in a conversation.
  
  

Some Popular Use-Cases of Webhooks 

Here, we have listed some relevant and compelling Use-Cases on the use and benefit of Webhooks. You can also suggest here what Use-Cases you want to use Webhooks for.  

1) To increase User Engagement

• Send Custom Notifications: You can use Webhooks to send users custom notifications like SMS Notifications or Email Notifications to engage your offline or logged out users, and to get them back to your application.
• Auto-connection request: For Use-Cases like Dating, Social-Networking, etc., upon sending the first message to another user, you can use Webhooks to trigger connection request i.e friendship / follow OR interest in connection. The other users can then decide if they want to initiate a conversation or not.

2) For Monetization

• Prompt to Upgrade: Add a revenue stream to your business by allowing Messaging for only Premium Users. Whenever a user with a free plan initiates a conversation, a prompt message can be shown to upgrade to the Premium version.
• Users Activity Analysis: Businesses can keep track of the chat activity of their users to check how they are performing on their platform. You can use Webhooks to analyze messages sent and conversations created by an individual, and based on their level of engagement/activity, you can provide them with some personalized offers, discounts, etc.

3) For Analytics

• Continuous Chat Backup & Monitoring: Based on your Use-Case for messaging, you might want to maintain duplicate copies of all or selected messages on your server too. Using Webhooks, you can save copies of such chats and messages on your server.
• Conversational Insights: Webhooks, along with Backup and Monitoring, can be used to generate beneficial insights about the users and the keywords they are using most. Such analytics and insights can help you uncover hidden opportunities for business growth.

How to use Webhooks with Channelize.io? 

Follow the below-mentioned steps to configure Webhooks with your Channelize.io API.

Step 1: Login to your Channelize.io dashboard and navigate to the Webhooks section.

Step 2: Click on Add Webhook.

Step 3: Register your endpoint URL where you want to receive the webhook payload.

Step 4: Select the required events from the list of Events. You will receive the webhook payload for the events you have selected here.

Step 5: Click on Save Changes to enable Webhooks.

Step 6: You can also Edit/Delete or Enable/Disable the Webhooks. Editing Webhook will allow you to update the endpoint URL and selected events.

Conclusion

The benefits of using Webhooks are endless – Instant notifications, Increasing User Engagement inside and outside the App, Analysis of relevant information, Immense Monetization Scope, Automations, etc. are some of the many benefits that can be achieved. Enabling Webhooks can be useful for various industries using In-App Chat.

In Contrast with API, where you have to manually check the status of new data that too in a regular interval of time, Webhooks can pass the pre-requested information to any other specified App on an event triggered. This brings us to yet another critical benefit of Webhooks – Higher Efficiency with a Lesser Headache.

For more details on setting up Webhooks on Channelize.io, check out the detailed Webhooks documentation.

We will soon be releasing Webhooks for more events. Stay tuned for updates and if you have any suggestions for which you would want to see Webhooks in near future, then please let us know by clicking here.