Rich media

Rich media is a collection of visual and interactive message types that empower agents to resolve customer issues from within the chat window, including:

  • image-rich carousels that display product options

  • interactive forms for completing a checkout flow

These features enable you to reduce customer service time while improving customer satisfaction.

In the Nuance Digital Engagement Platform, rich media refers to the following components:

  • Rich Media standard is a set of JSON definitions that define rich media experiences. It is a powerful, open-ended, and highly customizable standard that supports combining multiple types together to create unique widgets. Nuance uses this standard across all front-end offerings, so that you define a widget once, and then use it in scripts in:

    • web chat (both desktop and mobile)

    • Nuance's Mobile SDK (iOS and Android)

    • (eventually) third-party channels that support them (Apple Business Chat, WhatsApp, Google's Business Messenger, etc.)

  • Rich Media widget engine is a JavaScript application that renders the Nuance Rich Media standard into HTML. This engine supports displaying rich messages that provide a more interactive digital experience for end users. While Nuance uses this in its chat applications, it is also available as a standalone app so that you can create your own chat windows that can harness rich media. For details, see Widget reference.

  • Note: You can also use the separate Rich Media engine that is part of Nuance's Mobile SDK.

  • Rich Media widgets are the user-interface objects that end users interact with on their devices. The Rich Media widget engine creates these objects from the Rich Media standard.

Depending on which agent sends the widget, there are different locations for configuring and delivering rich media:

  • Nuance Agent Interface: Script writers can add rich media into a Live Agent's script tree, enabling agents to easily send out rich media to enhance customer journeys.

  • Nuance Virtual Agent Studio: Content writers for Nuance virtual agents – either Nina or Mix – can add rich media to intents.

  • Agent Engagement API / Nuance Virtual Assistant Adapter (NVAA): If you manage your own virtual agent, you can send rich media widgets through the APIs as easily as you send text messages.

Pre-requisites

To test sending and receiving your own rich media, you need:

  • an agent to send the rich media, which can be:

    • a custom application that uses the Nuance Agent Engagement API

    • a Nuance Virtual Assistant

    • Nuance’s Live Agent Interface

  • a chat application with Nuance’s Rich Media Engine, which can be:

    • a Nuance-deployed web chat application

    • your own custom web app that incorporates the Rich Media engine

    • a mobile app built with the Nuance Mobile SDK

Documentation scope

This documentation explains how to:

  • create non-interactive rich media widgets

  • create simple interactive rich media widgets

  • send rich media widgets from an agent

Note: This documentation does not describe how to create pre-chat guides and post-chat surveys. Additional work is required for your chat program’s configuration to support reporting for Nuance Digital surveys. For any work that is out of scope, please contact your Nuance representative.

Documentation structure

The rich-media documentation provides an overview of the Rich Media content and describes the configuration required to set up the Rich Media widgets. It has the following sections:

  • Widget structure and components: An overview of each section of the JSON structure, and how to interact with each part of the device. This includes configurations that all rich-media widgets use.

  • Send rich media: Instructions for sending rich media from Agent Desktop, Mix Studio, and Agent Engagement API.

  • Widget reference: Configuration instructions and examples for each widget.

Notes:
  • To build your own rich media, read each section in sequence.
  • To get started quickly, read about specific media types to access templates.