SingleComm's Omnichannel messaging system is a powerful communication tool that allows agents to chat with customers through a variety of channels, all from within CX Route.

As an agent, you are able to:

  1. Make Yourself Available to Receive Incoming Chats
  2. Receive/Send Chat Messages
  3. Use the FAQs
  4. Disposition the Chat
  5. Switch Between Chats
  6. Make Yourself Unavailable for Chats



1. Getting Started

In order to use the omnichannel feature as an agent, you will need a username and password to log in to CX Route.

To make yourself available to receive customer chats: 

  • Click on Agent in the left-hand navigation bar

    *Available menu options may differ

  • Click Available in the top right


    Available agents are able to take calls OR receive chats, they cannot do both.


    *The messaging displayed in CX Route says Available to pick up calls. Please note that this means the agent is available for either.

  • Once you are in an Available state, and if you are part of a team connected to any campaigns that have messaging, new messages will appear on the screen.
    *The following is an example of a Webchat



2. Chatting With a Customer

  • From CX Route:
    • Incoming question appears on the left
    • Customer name appears at top, followed by the website and page from which the chat was initiated
    • Customer Details: The following info will be pre-populated on the right-hand side of the screen when the chat begins*. These items are programmed into the html on the originating website. For more information on setting up different channel types, click here.
      • Name
      • Email
      • Phone
      • Site
      • Page
      • IP
        *Customer Details (Name, Email, Phone) are currently being collected on webchat conversations only. When a customer initiates a chat from your website, and they click SEND, they will be prompted to input their information.


        Once the form is filled out and they click Start Chat, the info will be sent to the queue and an assigned to an available agent.



        Be advised: Anything that was typed into the Send Message box BEFORE the Customer Information was sent WILL NOT be transferred to the agent as part of the conversation. The agent will receive a blank chat window and it is up to the agent to start the conversation.
  • To respond, type your message in the text box at the bottom of the screen and hit Send



    • Once you enter a response, it will appear above as part of the conversation



Accessing the Message History

To give a conversation context, an agent may need to access the session history. From here, an agent can see the exchange of messages that has occurred previously.


Not every Omnichannel chat will start and end with the same agent. In the case of email, where the back and forth sending/receiving of messages may occur of a number of days or weeks, the session history will provide all of the background on what has already transpired.


^^^ In the above example, an incoming chat has been picked up by an available agent. Before asking the customer any details about their inquiry, the agent can check the history to see if the relevant information had already been supplied.

  • Click the History tab on the right (above Customer Details)

    ^^^ Agent can see that this customer had a previous interaction with another agent 35 minutes ago. If this customer had multiple sessions, they would all be listed here with the most recent at the top.

  • Click the down arrow to expand the conversation

 
Using a custom disposition of "No response" or "Waiting on response" would further indicate that the previous session was not resolved, but terminated because the customer did not respond immediately.

  • Click View Chat Log
  • The agent can quickly review the history to get the context of the customer's inquiry

    ^^^ In this example, the customer had asked about an upgrade to express shipping. The agent now has the information they need to proceed with the chat.

Session history will always appear to the right of the agent's chat panel and can be accessed at any time during the chat.



3. Using FAQs

If the campaign has a set of FAQs configured, you can use these to respond.
*FAQs are added as part of the creation process. For more information and step-by-step instructions, click here. 

From the chat page:

  • Click the FAQs button to the right of the Customer info 


  • Click the question that pertains most to the customer inquiry
    • Based on the number of FAQs attached to the campaign, you can also use the search function to narrow down the list.
  • Review the FAQ, and if it is applicable, simply click Use Answer to push the pre-written text into the response area. 

  • Click <Enter> to send to the customer


FAQs are a time saver! Click and send! 
Reminder: They can also be edited. See the example above. 
The customer already mentioned that they chose Rush shipping. The pre-written response mentions Rush and Ground shipping times.

It is FAST and EASY to personalize the answer by editing the response in the text area before you respond.




4. Dispositioning the Chat

Once the conversation has ended, you must Disposition the chat in order to save the data that has been captured (if any).

There are 2 locations from which you can disposition the chat:

*Both Disposition buttons function the same.

  • Click Disposition to drop down a list of available options

    *Dispositions are added as part of the creation process. The above example shows only the default disposition options. For more information on creating custom dispositions and step-by-step instructions, click here. 

  • Click on the appropriate disposition for the session
  • If you also want to go on break, click the Want to take a break? checkbox
  • Click Submit Disposition to be returned to the Answer/Make Calls page

    If you have any other open chats, you must disposition them all before your status will change from Available to On Break. Agent status remains as Available if there are any active chats in your queue.

    *This "in progress" message is displayed whenever there are active chat sessions.



Auto-Disposition/Timeout

Omnichannel chat conversations, regardless of channel type will timeout after 4 hours of no activity. The conversation will auto-disposition with a value of Abandon, even if that is not one of the available dispositions assigned to the campaign.
For webchats and in some cases, Facebook Messenger, or any other chat that may be fragmented over a longer time period, the agent may need to disposition the chat after a set amount of time with no response. A reply from the customer would then trigger a new session and session ID.
*Session History is currently being developed and will be available in a future release.




5. Switching Between Chat Conversations

Agents have the ability to chat concurrently with multiple customers, regardless of the channel type (Web, Email, Facebook, SMS).

Subsequent chat tabs will appear, and you can click on whichever you wish to interact with. To provide context and for ease of identification, the campaign that is associated with the selected chat will also be displayed.
The chats will remain active even if the tab is not currently displayed. The chat does not end until it is dispositioned.

*The current maximum number of chats an agent can participate in is six.



6. A Note on Disabling Chat Mode

As an Agent, your status options are Available, On Break, and Offline. When you are Available, you will receive either calls or chats, depending on the configuration of the campaigns you are assigned to. You cannot switch between the two. If you wish to receive calls only, you will have to request that your supervisor remove you from the campaigns that support chat messaging.
At this time, there is no way for the agent to disable one component.