Requests API: From Any System

Stella Connect offers an API to automatically trigger the distribution of customer feedback requests, allowing you to streamline the process for gathering real-time customer feedback without impacting your agent’s workflow.

Any system or database that knows that an interaction occurred and which two people were involved can be used to trigger Connect requests, typically with just a day or two of work by a developer.

Details are outlined below, and the Stella Connect implementation team is available to answer any questions you may have.

Step One: Request and Retrieve Your Test Credentials

Activate Your API Credentials

To get started, click on the Integrations tile in the Stella Connect Admin Console.

To enable your API credentials, specify an email address to be used for testing and monitoring. This email address will be used for the following purposes:

1. As the recipient of all test auto-triggered Connect requests (those sent with Test credentials)  
2. Alerting: In the event that more than 5% of requests result in error within an hour, Stella Connect will notify you at this email address.

Retrieve Your Test API Key

Once activated, the Integrations page will display your Test and Production API keys, a link to the API status page, where you can monitor results, and a direct link to the Integrations section of the Stella Connect Help Center.

Step Two: Configure Your System to Auto-Trigger Requests

Structure the API Calls

• accept: application/json
• content-type: application/json
• x-api-key: YOUR API KEY

In order to trigger a Stella Connect request, your system will need to identify just five items for each interaction:

1. The customer’s name
2. The customer’s email address
3. Either the agent’s email address, or an employee ID that matches the agent’s ID in their Stella Connect profile
4. The channel of the interaction (phone, email, chat or custom channel)
5. A transaction ID (typically a case number, ticket number, Interaction ID, order number or other identifier)

Send requests to the Stella Connect endpoint at https://api.stellaconnect.net/v1/requests using the following schema. Only the fields marked in bold are required.

{
  "customer": {
    "name": "Jane",
    "email": "janecustomer@example.com"
  },
  "employee": {
    "custom_id": "522743",
    "email": "paulagent@blancapeak.com"
  },
  "channel": "chat",
  "ext_interaction_id": "5000f00001ClBXZ",
  "external_url": "https://na63.salesforce.com/5000f00001ClBXZ",
  "do_not_send": true,
  "tags": [
    "product-defect",
    "return",
    "vip"
  ],
  "brand": "blancakids",
  "language": "en",
  "country": "us"
}

For example:

Note: Clients utilizing Connect’s advanced features like tagging and multi-brand will populate additional fields in the API call. See Sample Stella Connect API Structure for more examples.

Configure Your System to Send API Calls for Each Eligible Interaction  

It is a best practice to send a Stella Connect feedback request after every service experience.

In addition, Stella Connect contains logic to validate each request, manage suppression periods (for example, do not send a customer more than one Stella Connect request in a 7-day period) and handle unsubscribes, so your triggering logic does not have to account for this.

However, you can also configure your integration more granularly. See Best Practice Business Rules for Auto-Triggering for more details.

Step Three: Monitor and Confirm Test Results

Note: During the testing period, your agents will continue to send requests manually.

All Test API calls that you send to Stella Connect will be sent to your API test email address and also display on the API status page inside the Stella Connect Admin.

Each API call that you make to the Stella Connect endpoint will return either:

• A request_ID if the request was successful

• An error if the request was unsuccessful

We recommend that you monitor the integration in test mode for a week to ensure it is working as you expect it to:

• Ensure that the number of requests is in line with your expectations  
• Understand and address the root cause of any errors. See Troubleshooting / Maintenance for details.  

Step Four: Go Live

To start sending requests to customers, you’ll just need to start using your production key and then turn each channel into “integrated” mode from the Stella Connect Admin.

Switch to Your Production API Key

Once you complete testing, return to the Integrations page and retrieve your Production API Key. Replace the test key with this production key inside your system.

Enable the Integration for Each Channel

Enable the integration for each channel from the Stella Connect Admin > Integrations page.

For example, to turn on the integration for phone and chat but keep email in manual mode:

Once this step is completed, your integration is LIVE and sending requests to customers automatically.

Notify Your Team

Let your team know that you are now automatically triggering requests!

• If you have enabled the integration for all channels, the manual send box will disappear completely
• If you have enabled only some of your channels, the manual send box will only work for the non-integrated channel (in the above example, the manual send box would only be used to send email interactions)