Managing Conversations

The Agent Workspace: Managing Messaging Conversations

Once you start handling conversations, you should move down the conversation list according to priority. Once you handle a customer, more customers can come in, and when you finish the conversation you will be taken to the next conversation in the list.

Taking Incoming Conversations

You can now see the number of incoming conversations in the navigation bar. A notification will appear on the Agent Workspace icon indicating the number of conversations with incoming messages, and an orange dot will appear on the conversation in the list that has a new incoming message.

Once you start handling conversations, you should work through the conversation list from top to bottom. Once you handle a customer, more customers can come in, and when you finish the conversation you will be taken to the next conversation in the list.

Conversations that reach your workplace have already undergone detailed analysis and prioritization. Based on the configurations selected by your contact center manager, there are three ways to accept incoming conversations into your workspace:

Auto accept: This means conversations will automatically enter your list and be sorted without any action on your end, and your conversation list will automatically update when a new conversation is added. This is a more popular configuration for call centers.
Advanced mode: For this option, incoming messages will ‘ring’ in your workspace and you’ll have to manually click to open and move this conversation to your conversation list, sorted by SLA. If you do not click to accept an incoming conversation and other agents are available, it will circle and ring to other available agents.
Manual mode (Ring All Agents): This option means a conversation will ring all online agents simultaneously when an incoming messaging conversation comes into the Conversational Cloud. Given 2 agents answer at the same time, an indication to a “losing” agent after one was assigned.

Understanding the Context & History

There are several tools in place to help you access the information you’ll need to provide excellent service and understand your consumers and their intent.

Conversation Summary: This dedicated widget enables you to write notes and comments after finishing a conversation. It has been enhanced to support the entering of multiple notes by several agents, allowing you to see a log of comments for context. Since the connection may be ongoing, these notes will help you quickly catch up on the conversation and keep other agents in the loop should it be assigned to them in the future.

Conversation History: For repeat customers, any previous messaging history will display in the Conversation History widget.
Consumer Info: This widget automatically displays important information about the consumer who is messaging you. This information will include the source channel of the conversation or any custom variables collected by your contact center.

Replying to Customers

You can reply by using free text, but we recommend using predefined content. Your contact center manager would have created a set of quick answers to the most common inquiries that you can easily enter into the conversation. By choosing predefined content templates, you can lower your average response time by saving time that would have been spent typing out responses. Some predefined answers will have associated hotkeys that will enable you to enter responses even more easily.

Capturing Notes within The Conversation Summary

Conversation Summary is a dedicated widget that enables you to write notes and comments about the conversation. Since the connection may be ongoing, these notes will help you quickly catch up on the conversation and keep other agents in the loop should it be assigned to them in the future.

Conversation Actions

While conducting a conversation, there are a few actions you can take:

Transfer Conversation: Select a skill to transfer your conversation to. Use the search bar to find the relevant skill. Once you do this, the conversation will move out of your workspace and enter that skill’s queue.

Hide conversation: If you have an inactive conversation that doesn’t require your attention, this option allows you to hide the conversation window and send the conversation back to Open Conversations.

Copy as plain text: This action opens a window that includes that text of the conversation that can be copied to anywhere you need, such as into a CRM record.

Use Rich Conversations to make your conversations more engaging

There are many tools at your disposal that can be used to foster relationships and carry out effective conversations. Rich Conversations enhance the consumer experience by providing a richer, more engaging channel of communication.

Predefined Content -- You can reply by using free text, but we recommend using predefined content. Your contact center manager would have created a set of quick answers to the most common inquiries that you can easily enter into the conversation. By choosing predefined content templates, you can lower your average response time by saving time that would have been spent typing out responses.

Some predefined answers have associated hotkeys that will enable you to enter responses even more easily. Now, you can configure your own hotkeys for predefined content. Simply start typing the shortcut into the conversation and all of the relevant options will display.

Emojis -- Both you and the consumers can utilize emojis within the conversation. While consumers have the full array of emojis available, the ones at the agents disposal are more selective. The emojis available to you are ones that can be construed as professional and relevant to business conversations. Please refer to your brand guidelines and language to determine which emojis are appropriate and how often and when to use them.

Rich Conversations -- For most channels, Rich Conversation capabilities such as carousels and quick replies are available. Based on your contact center set up, you may have custom widgets at your disposal that enable you to send product catalogues, images or other rich content.

View the customer’s screen using CoBrowse

For cases when you can better assist the consumer by viewing their screen, you can start a CoBrowse session with them. This will enable you to view their browser, move their mouse, highlight areas of their screen to provide better service. If you have the appropriate permissions, you can also take over the mouse and fill in forms on their behalf. Click here to learn more about CoBrowse.

Closing Conversations

The nature of messaging conversations is that they are ongoing and can be resumed at any time. However, in order to manage agent work streams and ensure consumer requests have been fulfilled, conversations can be marked as ‘closed.’ A closed conversation can be reopened again - either by the consumer or by the agent - with the entire history kept intact.

The conversations can be marked as resolved or closed, either by the consumer or the agent. Within the conversation window, customers have ‘options’, one of which is to select to close a conversation. For messaging channels such as SMS or Facebook Messenger, where a custom ‘options’ table is not available, customers will not be able to mark conversations as closed.

As an agent, you can close a conversation when you know that it has been resolved. Closing a conversation is done via the drop-down menu within the conversation window.

It is important that you close conversations as soon as you are confident that they are resolved in order to clear your work queue and keep your performance KPIs accurate.

Auto Close for inactive conversations

For conversations that are awaiting a consumer response, the auto close mechanism will automatically close these conversations after a length of time that has been defined by your contact center manager. Conversations will not be subject to auto close if they are pending an agent’s reply or if you have set up a manual trigger.

What happens when a conversation is closed?

Upon the closing of a conversation (whether done by the customer, the agent or automatically) the Post Conversation Survey will be triggered to the customer (requires setup by Administror). This survey is comprised of CSAT, NPS or other custom questions.

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