Branding your chat client

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated November 14, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Branding your chat client

    ServiceNow enables you to customize your chat client interface with your company branding, including logos, bot avatars, UI colors, fonts, and support menu details. This customization enhances user experience by aligning the chat interface with your corporate identity. Branding configurations are applicable to web chat and mobile clients but do not extend to conversational integrations such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, or Facebook Messenger.

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    Key Features

    • Multiple Branding Configurations: Create unlimited branding profiles to tailor chat interfaces for different organizational needs within your instance.
    • Custom Branded Bots: Besides the default Virtual Agent bot with a ServiceNow avatar, you can create unique bot profiles by adding new active users with custom avatars in the User [sysuser] table.
    • Supported Branding Items: Customize organization images (logos and bot avatars), UI colors and fonts (using Hex or RGBA color codes), and the chat support menu (contact info, call hours, phone numbers, email, and menu icons).
    • Chat Support Menu Customization: Modify menu text, icons (must be .svg format), visibility of menu items, and add new items to provide relevant support information.
    • Public Access Control: By default, the chat widget is accessible only to authenticated users. To allow unauthenticated users, enable Public access in Conversational Interfaces settings.

    Practical Application for ServiceNow Customers

    To implement custom branding for your chat client, prepare your company logos and bot avatars in supported image formats (.jpg, .png, .svg, etc.) and determine your preferred UI colors and fonts. Create new branding configurations to suit different user groups or business units. For custom bots, add active user profiles with unique IDs and avatars, then select these bots when configuring branding. Customize your support menu to display accurate contact information and use high-resolution single-color SVG icons for clarity.

    This branding capability ensures your chat interface is consistent with your company’s visual identity, improves user trust, and enhances the overall support experience across web and mobile chat platforms.

    Customize your chat interface with your own brand, including company logo and bot avatar, UI color schemes, fonts, and the chat support menu displayed to your users.

    Note:
    For new customers onboarding from Vancouver onward, the chat widget is only accessible to authenticated users by default. To allow unauthenticated users to access the chat widget, enable Public access in Conversational Interfaces > Settings > General. For more information, see Enable public access to the chat widget.

    Multiple branding configurations

    You can create any number of branding configurations for an instance. These branding configurations apply to the web chat and mobile clients and don't apply to the Conversational Integrations for Slack, Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, and Facebook Messenger.
    Note:
    Branding for bots in the Conversational Integration with Microsoft Teams is available through the Microsoft Teams app customization feature. For details, see MS Teams branding for the conversational integration in Now Community. For information about branding bots in Slack, see Configure branding for your Virtual Agent bot in Slack.

    The default branding configuration includes the Virtual Agent bot, which has a ServiceNow avatar. If you want additional branded bots, create a user profile for each bot in the User [sys_user] table. Give your bot a unique user ID, name (for example, Acme), upload the photo (image) for your bot avatar, and make your bot active. For details on adding users to your instance, see Create a user.

    Once created, you then select the bot to be used in a configuration. A branded bot can be used in a single configuration or in multiple branding configurations.

    Supported branding items

    Conversational Interfaces provides a default branding configuration that you can customize. To change the default configuration, create other branding configurations, or modify the chat (support) menu, gather and prepare the following files and information:
    Organization images
    Images of company logos to be used in your chat windows. If you're using Virtual Agent, the images of avatars to be used for branded bots.

    Images must be in .jpg, .png, .bmp, .gif, .jpeg, .ico, or .svg file format. The images can be high resolution, but the image display is scaled based on the aspect ratio. Keep in mind that if chat is run in its own browser window, a thumbnail of the branding logo displays automatically in the browser tab.

    Colors and fonts
    Colors and fonts used for the various user interface items, such as chat bubbles, buttons, and notifications displayed.

    If you want to change the color of interface items, determine the Hex number or RGBA color for those items. When you specify the Hex or RBGA colors during configuration, you can immediately see your changes in the example chat window. To learn more about Hex numbers and RGB color specifications, see HTML Color Names (W3CSchools).

    Figure 1. UI items in the chat window
    Elements of the Virtual Agent interface including category, links, button background, menu buttons, and input background.
    Chat menu items
    Contact information for your support organization, such as support call hours, call center support phone number, and support email address. You can customize information in the support menu by adding or changing menu items, including the text and icons displayed. You can also control the visibility of the menu items (show or hide menu options).

    You can also change the default menu icons or add icons for new menu items. The icons must be in .svg file format. For better resolution, use a single-color icon.

    Figure 2. Chat menu
    Contact support information displayed in the default Contact support menu in the web chat window.