How to handle incoming conversations

Depending on the configuration set by the Contact Center administrator, the agents will have two options when handling incoming interactions:
1. If auto-assignment is not set from the Human Handover settings page, agents will be able to pick up chats directly from the queue
2. If auto-assignment is set to route incoming chats to agents, agents will receive incoming interactions in their inbox

In the next session, you will find how to answer incoming interactions, whether auto/assigned by the routing engine or self-pickup from the queue.

Managing agent's presence and chat trays

To answer incoming interactions, agents will need to:
1. Log in to UC and then navigate to the chatbot builder
2. Make sure they belong to a team
3. Change their presence status to "Available"

Agents can see the assigned teams and change their presence status on their profile icon, as shown below:

The agent's tray shows open and closed conversations. Open conversations are categorized into three brackets:
1. You: Current ongoing conversations between the login user and the customer.
2. Assigned: All the conversations are assigned to all other agents/admins or bots within the selected team. For example: if the team is handling three conversations, all the members of the team will see three conversations on the "Assigned" tab, no matter how many conversations each member has.
3. Unassigned: Conversations that the agent could take from the queue

Agents can look for previously closed conversations by going to the "Closed" tray

Answering an incoming conversation

When auto-assignment is not set (agents took interactions directly from the queue):
1. From the Unassigned tray, the agent chooses the conversation from the list of conversations
2. Agent presses the "Take Over Chat" button
3. The conversation is moved to the "You" / "Assigned" inbox, and the agent can start chatting with the user.

When auto-assignment is enabled (routing engine assigns interactions to the agents):
In this case, the agent will receive the incoming conversation directly under the "Assigned" / "You" tray. Choosing the conversation from the list of conversations will enable the agent to start chatting immediately with the user on the chat panel.

The chat panel

In open conversations, agents will be able to:
1. Send to the user plain text, attach files or send images and emojis from the text box.
2. See the status of the last messages sent on the supported channels (message status: sent, delivered, and read)
3. Add notes to the ongoing conversation from the text box. These notes will not be visible to the user. You can mention another team member by adding the Login ID
4. Reproduce multimedia files sent by end-users and zoom in on pictures
5. On the right panel, the agents will be able to:

• See the user's information or add any additional information as required (i.e., Name, Phone, Email, WhatsApp display name - if available - and add additional fields)
• See the details of the current conversation
• See the list of interactions between the user and the business.

Conversation History allows the agent to have the context of the user's requests and offer a better service. If the previous conversation was assigned to the team where the agent is currently working, they can open it.

Canned Responses

Agents can use any of the canned responses assigned to the team, which can be customized using variables to improve the customer experience. When creating the template, the admin user defines these variables, which are delimited by the # (hashtag) character.

The agent can select the template from the text editor by clicking on the canned response icon, which will display the canned response selector.

On the canned response selector, the agent can search for one of the templates assigned to the team, which will be inserted into the text editor by clicking the Copy to text panel. If the message includes some variables related to the chat session, those will be populated automatically and displayed with their value in the text editor. The agent must fill in the variables that are not associated with the chat session (delimited by the # character) before sending the message.

Agents can also insert a canned response directly to the Compose panel. The list of matching templates will be displayed using the shortcut // by typing the first characters of the canned response title. Once the template is displayed, press the Enter button to insert it in the Compose panel.

Transfer a conversation

To transfer the current chat:
1. Select the "Transfer" button on the chat panel
2. Choose the team queue, skill, or agent from the drop-down list.
3. Press the "Transfer" button on the pop-up.

The conversation will be transferred and registered within the chat history.

Finishing a conversation

To finish the ongoing conversation with the user, the agent will press the green ticket on the upper right side of the chat window.

Search for a conversation

Agents can search a specific conversation by using the search engine at the top of the agent console. The search engine allows agents and admin users to search by the assigned team, status (open or close), assignee, any word used in the conversation, a date range, or sender address.

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Searching for a conversation assigned to the Virtual Team

• Under "Virtual Team" you will find all the conversations assigned to a bot. If you want to search for a conversation assigned to a specific bot, choose one from the filter below the team selection.
  • Agents can't search for conversations assigned to bots by default. Only admin users have this right. For enabling agents to get access to conversations assigned to the bot, on the "Team Human Handover" preferences page enable this feature