When planning to utilize Live Chat, there are several ideas to share for the best implementation. We will review setups for both the system and administrator and also for the Live Chat agents.
Administrator Setups
- Determine if you will initially rollout one department OR multiple departments.
- If you plan to rollout one department initially and have other departments join later, be aware of the number of agents you can define now and again later. For example, if you plan to rollout two departments, don't initially set up department #1 with all 25 seats for Live Chat (unless you plan to purchase more Live Chat seats later).
- If you need to increase the number of Live Chat seats, please contact your Client Success Manager (CSM)
- Once you determine how many departments will go live initially, set up each agent for their department(s).
- If an agent spans multiple departments, you can assign them to more than one department on the Live Chat user's setups.
- Define the Live Chat hours available for each department and/or Live Chat agent.
- Review your department's peak hours on the chatbot as a guide for when to also utilize the Live Chat agents.
- Publish the Live Chat office hours schedule on the welcome message of your chatbot OR include it on your department's webpage.
- Consider adding to the bot's welcome message the option to engage with a Live Chat agent by adding text along the lines of "please type 'live chat agent' to speak with someone in the office directly."
- During setup, review the "Who's Online" page to ensure the Live Chat agents are set up correctly for their department(s).
- Define department standards for when Live Chat agents should set their Live Chat status from "Available" to "Away". For example, if an agent will step away for more than 5 minutes, they should set their status to "Away".
- At the end of Live Chat office hours, determine the cut-off time for when agents should accept a new conversation. For example, 15 minutes before the close of office hours, the Live Chat agents can accept their last conversation of that day. If there are no other live chat agents available, then before you set yourself to "Away", consider assigning all remaining chats to yourself before setting yourself to away so you can manage those chats prior to the end of the day. If the last available agent sets themself to "Away" before picking up the remaining chats, and another agent does not become available within 2 minutes of the last agent setting themself to "Away", then the student will receive a message that there are no longer any agents available and are prompted to leave a message or return to the bot.
- This process should follow the same standards you have for phone conversations. For example, ask for the student's first name, last name, student ID, email, and any other personal identification information for your school.
Agent Setups
- Define a standard process for handing a Live Chat conversation from one Live Chat agent to another Live Chat agent.
- When the new agent is "Available", transfer the conversation using the "Assignee" choices. After selecting the new agent, the conversation should include an introduction of the new parties, an exchange of contact information, and the manual update of the Live Chat conversation from one agent to the other agent.
- When the new agent is "Away", determine the best manual process for sharing the information with the new agent. For example, an email should be sent (outside of Live Chat) to both the new agent and the student. The conversation should include an introduction of the new parties and an exchange of contact information.
- It is not recommended to transfer a Live Chat conversation to "Unassigned" within your own department or to a different department unless there is at least one active agent available for that department.
- If there is no agent available for a different department, the student/end-user would need to wait until another Live Chat agent is "Available" and picks up the conversation.
- Define a standard process for when Zoom calls should be utilized between the Live Chat agent and the end-user.
- Define any suggested canned responses that should be set up for the Live Chat agents.
- Define any suggested notifications, both visual and auditory, for the Live Chat agents while working the queue.
- Define the process for ending a Live Chat conversation. For example, at the end of Live Chat office hours, determine the cut-off time for when agents should accept a new conversation. For example, 15 minutes before the close of office hours, the Live Chat agents can accept their last conversation of that day. Assign any remaining chats to themselves before setting the status to “Away”. This will help avoid students/end users waiting in the queue at the end of the day AND help Live Chat agents to manage their remaining Live Chat conversations in the queue. When an agent sets themselves to "Away", this will not automatically turn off an existing Live Chat conversation.
- A Live Chat agent session will automatically timeout after 60 minutes of inactivity. Be sure to engage with your browser every so often where the Live Chat session is active to avoid being timed out.
- When needed, additional agent(s) can join an existing Live Chat conversation (that is already assigned to one agent). In this case, the next agent(s) will assign the conversation to themselves and join in the existing chat.