It's essential you fully understand and apply security and compliance measures before linking a customer in Chat to a contact record in your account.
Once you or the customer enter an email address into Chat, we check to see if the email address already exists in your account. There are three possible outcomes of this:
Email address does not exist.
Email address exists but is unverified in Chat.
Email address exists and is verified in Chat.
Whether you're using the in-chat email address request feature or entering details manually, these same verification statuses apply.
If the email address does not exist
Suppose the customer enters their email address and they do not already exist as a contact in your account. In that case, we register them as a new contact using the pre-set double opt-in regulatory settings.
To set this up, expand the User menu then go to Settings > General > Account settings > Regulatory settings.
Learn more in the section Email regulatory settings.
Once the customer completes the double opt-in regulatory settings, we add their contact details to the Chat contacts list and automatically link their Chat session to their contact in your account.
If the email address exists but is unverified in Chat
When an email address exists in your account, but we have not verified it with the Chat session, Chat preliminarily links the Chat session with the contact details. In this case, you can see the customer's details, but we warn you of the unverified status with a warning exclamation mark.
When a customer is unverified, you must verify them before discussing any account-specific details.
Learn how to verify a Chat customer in Verify an email address received in Chat.
If the email address exists and is verified in Chat
When an email address already exists in your account and is verified, the customer must have previously verified themselves in a Chat session. We show you that a customer's email address is verified with a green check mark next to their name in Chat.
When a customer is verified, you can discuss their account details with them.
Troubleshooting: Verified customer is no longer verified
There are occasions when a previously verified customer might appear as unverified:
They're using a different browser or device.
They've cleared their browser local storage.
They're using private browsing (incognito mode) in the browser.