8x8 Co-browsing

8x8 Co-browsing allows customer support agents to assist customers remotely via a shared browser. Either walk a customer through a task via phone or chat as you observe their screen or, if required, take control of their cursor and demonstrate how to perform the task as the customer observes. With co-browsing, you can empower a website or any browser-based application, and offer live, hands-on assistance to customers in a way that most effectively answers their questions.

A customer in need of assistance must initiate the remote session, generate a unique session code, and communicate it to an agent via phone or chat. The agent then uses the code to establish a remote session. The Co-browsing session takes place concurrently with a call or a chat for communicating the session code and assisting the customer.

Features

  • Visual, real-time web page assistance: Monitor and assist customers in real time through browser instance shared by the customer.
  • Mouse tracking: As a customer, easily follow along by viewing the agent’s mouse location and movement.
  • Platform details: Access information about the customer’s platform.
  • Multi-domain support: The Co-browsing session continues to work if the user navigates to sites under different domains, assuming that Co-browsing is also available in those new domains. Sub-domains are included in multi-domain support.
  • Sub-domain support: The Co-browsing session continues to work if the user navigates to a site that is hosted in a sub-domain, assuming that Co-browsing is also available in that new sub-domain.
  • Form co-filling: Co-fill forms on websites.
  • Customer privacy and security: During a Co-browsing session, if the customer is filling a form and entering sensitive information such as SSN in a form, it can be encrypted and hidden from the agent.
  • Highlighting: Agents can highlight content on web pages and call out information to customers during Co-browsing. Highlight key elements on the page with drawing tools.
  • Auto-fit: Agents can automatically scale the browser view to fit customer's view settings. If the customer's screen is bigger than the agent during a Co-browsing session, agents will have to scroll constantly. With the ability to auto-fit, agents can enable “Auto-fit” to automatically scale the view to fit agent's view settings or manually increment/decrement the zoom level to the desired value.
  • Privilege control: You can control the extent of remote help agents can offer using Co-browsing mode. It varies from a basic view only mode to complete control of the browser instance. Take control of the customer’s screen, with their permission.

Limitations

  • Co-browsing only supports an in-browser zoom level of 100% (default value) from the customer or agent. Any other value from the customer or agent may cause unexpected behavior, such as scrolling issues.
  • Co-browsing only works on secure (HTTPS) web pages.
  • Adobe Flash components, including videos, and Java applets are not supported.
  • Anything that is external to the current page is not supported. This includes the file browser window that is open when selecting a file to be uploaded.
  • WYSIWYG editors (such as AceEditor, CodeMirrorEditor, CKEditor, tinymceEditor) are not supported.
  • Native tooltips are not visible between the two parties.
  • Web pages with iframes from different domains are not supported, though web URLs from multiple domains are supported.
  • If the web page opens a new browser window and the content has Co-browsing, this new window replaces the content on the agent side.
  • A web page must have the correct HTML syntax/markup for Co-browsing to work properly; for example, there can be no duplicated HTML IDs on the same page.

Supported browsers

Co-browsing is supported on the following browsers:

  • Google Chrome version 70 or later
  • Mozilla Firefox version 48 or later
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10
  • Microsoft Edge (all versions)
  • Apple Safari version 9 or later

You can test your current browser's security standard compatibility. For information about agent workstation technical requirements, see your contact center supervisor, or refer to the Technical Requirements for agents.

Known Issue: If you use Internet Explorer to run 8x8 Contact Center applications, you may encounter high memory usage. To resolve this issue, clear your browser cookies and cache, activate the setting to clear history, clear history on exit, and reboot.

Note:  Co-browsing is not supported on IE 11 in compatibility mode.

Note: Firefox requires the QuickTime plug-in for audio features.

Use case

The following example demonstrates how a given website can be empowered with 8x8 Co-browsing.

Let us review an example of a travel company website visited by customers wanting to book their dream vacations. The website offers many travel packages and options to choose from. It requires customers to identify themselves by filling in a form. The travel site wants to offer remote, hands-on assistance to the website visitors. To enable live, hands-on assistance, the travel company should use 8x8. The Co-browsing feature allows website visitors to initiate a remote session with the customer support agent and get hands-on assistance remotely.

If a customer navigating this website seeks hands-on assistance, they can initiate a remote session with a customer support agent in a few clicks. Click on a help link on the web page to generate a code. Communicate this code to the representative. The representative uses this code to establish a two-way hands-on Co-browsing session.

Use Co-browsing modes

By selecting one of three Co-browsing modes, you can control the extent to which agents can assist customers remotely. Co-browsing can be enabled in one of the following modes via code snippet. If you do not provide a mode in the code snippet, full-control is the default mode:

  • full-control (default): This is the default mode. In this mode, agents have full control of the customer's browser session, including synchronized navigation and the ability to highlight and co-fill a form on the web page. The agent's cursor movements and mouse clicks are in sync with the customer, and vice versa.
  • partial-control: In this mode, agents can highlight and control the browser navigation, but do not have the privileges to fill any forms on the Co-browsed page. All HTML form elements are disabled on the agent side, alerting agents with the message "Forms cannot be edited on the agent side".
  • no-control: This is a view-only mode. Agents can observe the customer’s navigation, highlight, and offer guidance.

Notes:
-The highlighter works in all modes.
-In the full-control and partial-control modes, we cannot prevent agents from controlling form elements that are not native to the browser, such HTML drop-down.