Setting up a communication channel

Welcome! Let's get your communication channel up and running. Having a dedicated channel helps ensure smooth communication with your customers. Follow the steps in this guide to create your own inbox, set up an email redirect, and configure your DNS records.

Creating your inbox

The first step to establishing your dedicated communication channel is creating an inbox.

  1. From the dashboard, navigate to your settings, then to the "Channel" section

  2. Click the "+ Add channel" button

  3. In the form that appears, fill in the "Name" and "Channel email" fields. The inbox name is how it'll appear on your dashboard and to messages sent to your customers, while the email is where messages for this inbox will be sent.

  4. Click "Create a channel" to create your channel

Setting up an email redirect

To create your channel, you will need to set up an email redirect. This will ensure all emails sent to your channel email are forwarded to Fernand.

  1. Head over to your email provider's settings page—this may look different depending on your provider

  2. Locate the "Forwarding" or "Redirect" section

  3. Enter your channel email in the "Source" field, and the Fernand email we provided in the "Destination" field

  4. Save your settings

Setting up your DNS records

Setting up DNS records helps authenticate your communication, ensuring emails from your inbox reach their destination without getting flagged as spam. You'll need to set up one TXT record and two CNAME records.

Setting the TXT record

TXT records are used for various purposes, including email verification.

  1. Go to your DNS provider's page. Find the DNS management section, and click on the option to add a new record

  2. Select TXT record from the drop-down list

  3. In the Field Name or Host section, usually you can just enter @ or leave it empty

  4. In the Value or Text section, enter the TXT value we provide

  5. Save your changes

Setting the CNAME records

CNAME records are used to point a subdomain at a different domain name. We'll add two of them:

  1. Using the same steps as before, select "CNAME record" from the drop-down list

  2. Enter the specific subdomains we provide in the Host field

  3. In the Value section, enter the destination hostname we provide

  4. Repeat the process for the second CNAME record

  5. Save your changes

With these steps completed, your dedicated communication channel is ready to go! Enjoy seamless, secure communication with your customers.

Creating your support widget

In addition to our email channels, you can set up a support widget on your app, product, website or any property that lets you include custom JS.

fernand-live-chat-support-widget.png

Our support widget lets visitors or users find their way through your most important links via a customizable, embedded support widget on the bottom right of your page. It also lets them contact you, either via a live chat or contact form interface, and lets them fully browse your knowledge base content without ever leaving your product.

To embed our support widget on your site, you need to add this Javascript function to all the pages on which you want it to be shown. We recommend embedding this in the <body> tag towards the end of your page, where your footer code lives, for example.

<script>
(function (w){if (typeof w.Fernand !== "function") {var f = function () {f.q[arguments[0] == 'set' ? 'unshift' : 'push'](arguments);};f.q = [];w.Fernand = f;}})(window);
Fernand('init', { appId: 'your-organization-name' })
</script>
<script async src="https://messenger.getfernand.com/client.js"></script>

For more detailed information on how to setup your support widget, read our help article.

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