Webchat overview

Administrators can define how webchat sessions are routed to and from Contact agents.

When a customer clicks the webchat button on a company’s website or handset app, the request to webchat appears in the queue alongside traditional voice calls. The token used in the request is used to select the queue within Contact.

Agents can select individual webchat requests from the inbound queue(s) and respond to them through their web interface by using their webchat window to reply. An agent may select webchat requests from a queue even if they have webchats already assigned to them.

Each agent can handle up to a configurable number of webchat sessions simultaneously (Webchat > Webchat Queues > Advanced tab > Maximum Number Of Webchats Per Agent).

During the webchat, identification of the caller is the responsibility of the agent, as there is no CLI or email address available.

The webchat session is logged in the built-in CRM system. Any previous interactions are made available to the agent handling the webchat (based on the contents of the system’s built-in CRM).

By default, voice calls are given a higher priority over webchat sessions (or emails or work items). If an agent has a webchat in progress (but not in wrapup), they are still available for calls and so, if a call arrives and no other agent is available, they will be interrupted to handle the call, even though the webchat is not finished. (A busy agent is only given the call if there are no other agents available.) However, when a webchat is complete and the agent is in the wrapup period, no calls are given to the agent until they complete the wrapup for the webchat.

When handling a webchat, an agent can pause it temporarily. This “parks” the webchat and leaves it in their Inbox, ready to be activated again later. This allows the agent to retain ownership of the webchat without being considered to be actively working on it, so that they can handle the webchat at a later time. An agent may want to do this if they are switching between items and want to handle this webchat when it is more convenient to do so. Both webchats in progress and in wrapup can be parked.

Note: If an active webchat is parked, the amount of time already spent on the webchat is stored and the timer restarts when the webchat is made active again. If a webchat in wrapup is parked, the wrapup timeout is also paused, and resumes from where it left off, once the webchat is reactivated.

If an agent is interrupted by a call while handling a webchat, their active webchat will be parked automatically (deactivated and left in their Inbox), ready to be activated again later. After the call is completed, the interrupted webchat resumes automatically. If the webchat customer ends the interrupted webchat from their webchat box while the agent is handling the call, the webchat will automatically resume in the wrapup state after the call is completed.

When an agent logs out, any webchats that are active or allocated to them are returned to the current webchat queue.

Profiles are supported within companies. Each company administrator can assign a Webchat Queues profile to a user login to define which webchat queues that are used in the company the user can see. The webchat queues profile may permit the user to see all of the company’s webchat queues or only some of them.

Note: To support webchat on their website (that is, to run the webchat client), each company must add specific JavaScript code to their web page. An example code snippet, highlighting the additional code that someone would have to add to their web page, is provided. You can copy the code to the clipboard to be picked up by whoever is in charge of the company’s website and added to their own web pages.

Parent topic: Webchat management