Integrate Offerchat Live Support Chat with Pidgin and Chat with Your Customers from a Desktop App

I love Pidgin!

It’s my favorite instant messaging client and I have used for years. If you’re Pidgin dependent like me, chatting with all your contacts from various chat services (GTalk, Facebook chat, Windows Live Messenger, etc.), you’ll be thrilled to hear that you can now integrate your Offerchat live online chat account with Pidgin and chat in real-time with your site visitors from this desktop app.

Pidgin for the uninitiated: what is Pidgin?

Pidgin (formerly Gaim) is an open-source, multi-platform instant messaging client based on libpurple which supports commonly used instant messaging protocols and thus, allows me to log into various chat services from one application (in this case Pidgin).

If you want to separate live chat customer service chat from your browsing activities and get more conspicous notification alerts, installing an instant messaging client on your computer and integrating your Offerchat live chat account is one clever solution.

How to Integrate Offerchat Live Chat with Pidgin

Step 1

Open Pidgin on your computer.

Step 2

Click Accounts or press Ctrl+A on your keyboard. A new dialog box will appear.

Step 3

Click the Add button to start integrating your Offerchat account.

Step 4

Set the right Protocol by clicking the dropdown menu and selecting XMPP.

Step 5

Fill out your username, domain and password. The username should be the email address you’ve registered for Offerchat without the ampersand (@) and the dot (.) characters, thus, just the letters. Tick “Use this buddy icon for my account” to set a profile picture to appear on the live chat widget on your site. A screen will appear to let you choose a picture from your image files.

Step 6

Click the Advanced button and set Connection security to “Use encryption if available” from the list of dropdown options.

Step 7

Finally, click the Add button.

Congratulations! You have integrated your Offerchat live chat account with Pidgin. You will now be monitoring visitors on your site, receiving and replying to their chats through the Pidgin instant messaging desktop client.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

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(Click the image to enlarge)

Chat with us at the Offerchat homepage or send us a message from the Feedback button on the dashboard if you have questions or need help on integrating your Offerchat live online chat with Pidgin.