Live chat profanity filter: a feature dive

Warning: messages from customers occasionally contain strong language.

Customer service interactions are best conducted with a polite tone. But, as much as (most) customers try to remain civil, manners can slip in the heat of emotion. As a result, messages occasionally contain profanity.

For some, it’s an emotional rant. A complaint that the customer needed to get off their chest may contain the offending words. For others, lost tempers result in a temporary lapse in judgement.

And unfortunately, there are also the times where inappropriate language comes as part of targeted abuse.

Whatever the reason, your chat window is no place for that kind of language. Enter WhosOn’s live chat profanity filter.

What is a live chat profanity filter?

A live chat profanity filter helps customer service teams keep chats clean and professional. It serves to protect your conversations from inappropriate language and abusive curse words.

Maybe it’s a chat with a riled-up customer whose language has gone awry. Or perhaps an internal chat between colleague that gets a bit too colloquial.

Whether it’s external or internal, WhosOn’s profanity filter spots and masks those language slips.

As a result, agents don’t have to read profanity, and your records stay clean and professional.

Who uses the profanity filter?

Anyone that uses your chat channel can experience the benefit of the profanity filter.

First, chat admins can toggle the profanity filter on and off. Once enabled, WhosOn will then identify and mask any profanities sent through the chat window.

Any swearing customers will then trigger the profanity filter. As will cursing employees via internal chat. Essentially, anyone that swears in a chat session will see the profanity filter in use.

In turn, recipients of inappropriate chat messages also see the filter in action. WhosOn will mask the offending words in the incoming chat messages.

This masking means that supervisors reviewing chat transcripts will also see the effect of the filter. (Profanities stay masked in transcripts, too.)

Why is the profanity filter useful?

The live chat profanity filter keeps your chats clean and professional. More than that, it helps you protect your agents from abusive language.

You’re no longer allowing those customers who swear to assault your team with inappropriate language. Instead, you’ve put up a shield that stops profanities in real-time.

This helps your agents feel safe and supported at work, which in turn boosts morale. And happy agents can provide better quality service.

How does the profanity filter work?

WhosOn comes with a pre-set profanity list. This list contains over 750 of the most commonly typed inappropriate words and their various (mis)spellings.

Your profanity list can be edited if needed, too. (For example, ‘bloody’ might be filtered for a banking website, but not for a medical website.)

During a chat session, WhosOn scans chat messages for the words included on this list. When someone sends a message containing a profanity or blocked word, WhosOn automatically masks it.

In other words, it filters out the bad words in real-time.

Importantly, WhosOn’s profanity filter works server-side. This means that it blocks the inappropriate language during the chat session, in the client and in your chat transcripts.