How to assign service queues?
[update of How to assign service queues? Help Center]
In this article, you will learn how to assign an attention queue and an agent role within the platform.
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
To understand how to assign a queue and role to agents, follow the step-by-step below:
- Step 1 : Access the option "roles" (Menu > Agents)
- Step 2 : Click on "+ New Agent" to add a new agent or on the pen to edit an existing agent.
- Step 3 : Asigna los roles.
The functionalities available in the environment for creating or changing a role are basically the same, the only element that changes is the email request. When the role already exists, it is not necessary to include the name or email address.
Glossary:
Name : After registering on the platform, you must have a super administrator profile to be able to change your user name. Otherwise, you will only be able to change the alias.
Filters : Choose the agent that will be directed to a queue. The filters allow limiting the cases that the agent can view in their list of conversations; for example, in the filter called "my chats", the agent can only see the cases that were assigned to him/her. In the case of the filter by the WhatsApp channel, the agent will only see conversations from such a channel.
Queues : The queue in which the agent will stay. Queues allow conversations to be on hold while they are referred to the specialized area related to the user's query. Examples: support, sales, billing.
Priority: What is the level of priority that will be directed to that agent? It is divided into: never (will never receive conversations), low, medium, and high. The priority defines the order in which the agent will receive the user's message. If an agent is assigned a "high" priority, they will receive conversations before an agent who is assigned a "medium" priority. Also, the priority can be configured through the agent's custom roles. Thus, if the agent has normal priority (by default) and has a custom role, the priority indicated in the role will be considered. In case the agent's priority is different from the normal one, then it will be considered over the custom role's priority.
Slots : The number of customers to be assisted by the agent. Once the defined number of slots is reached, the bot could say, for example, "all our agents are busy". Thus, if the agent has 5 slots defined and 3 are occupied, they will be able to receive two conversations.
Slots can be configured in various sections of the platform. They are listed below in order of priority:
- The slots defined for the agent
- The slots defined in the custom role
- The slots defined by queue
- Finally, the general slots as defined in https://go.botmaker.com/#/configuration/livechat.
For example, if an agent has no slots defined (i.e. slots=0), the slots defined at the time of role assignment (if any) are used. If there are no slots defined in the roles, those defined in the service queue will be used, and, if there are none, those defined in the system by default will be used.
If no slots have been defined in these sections, the system considers 20 by default.
Custom roles : You can create custom roles and choose one of those roles. To create a custom role, go to Menu>Roles, and click on +Add role i n the lower right corner of the screen.
Alias: You can place the user's name to appear in the conversation for the customer. It will appear above the message in bold.
For further information, you can refer to the related article: How to add an agent?
How to direct the service to a queue?
After creating the service queue and assigning it to the agent, you must create an intent for the customer to be directed to that queue.
_ Important: _ in order for customers to be directed to a queue only during opening hours, you need to create a specific condition. Read more about this below.
To understand how to structure the intent that will redirect the customer to a queue, you can follow the step by step:
Step 1 : Create an intent for the service queue by clicking on the topic where that intent will be included.
If you do not remember the step by step to create an intent, you can refer to our article: How to create an intent
- Step 2: Route the intent to a service queue
At this point, you must select the type of response as "action" and then select "Agent>Set Queue".
_ Note: _ When creating the "Set queue" action, you need to type the name of the queue to which you want to forward the customer. If you have more than one queue, you will need to create another intent directing the customers to specific queues.
Now, all the customers having the intent you created, will be directed to the service queue.
Restricting by service hours
The opening hours can be set from the "live chat" option in the "configuration" menu. (Menu > Settings > Live Chat)
Also, when you configure the intent of a service queue, it is very important to set a condition specifying that service hours customers will be redirected during service hours only.
To understand this configuration, you can follow the following step by step:
Step 1 : Create the intent to direct customers to the service queue.
Step 2 : Select " when + add condition" to restrict the activation of that response.
Step 3 : Select how these conditions should be interpreted.
Step 4: Define the opening hours (open or not). Condition for the time when the service is not available.
It is important to note that the variable "isOpenNow" defines that the opening hours is true if it is open or false if it is closed.
Note: as of the Flow Manager/Mutibot implementation, you will now find the "isOpenNow" variable as "During Opening Hours" (Project>During Opening Hours) but it operates in the same way.
It works similarly if you created custom schedules for each queue. In this case, the variable will have the name you assigned to it.
Timeout
During a conversation with a human agent, you can define a timeout and choose an intent to be executed when the specified timeout is reached for both user and agent inactivity. In this configuration, you can only configure the inactivity per service queue, and the same intent is always executed (the one you have selected for user timeout).
To set it up, follow the step by step below.
Step 1 : Go to Menu > Configurations > Live Chat. Select the queue you wish and click on the Edit Queue icon ( pen )
Step 2: Define the timeout you want to apply for the user and for the agent. In the following image, you can see that you defined a timeout of 60 seconds for the user and 30 seconds for the agent in the queue "Queue_2". Remember to click on save!
Step 3: Select the intent you want to execute on timeout.
Done! Timeout is already set.
Timeout Intents
When a customer is referred to a queue, they can go through different stages. To improve your users' experience, we created predefined intents that you can use in the following situations:
1- The user is waiting to be assisted.
Among the predefined intents, you will find one called "User waiting for attention". There you can define a response to send to the user in this situation, using the variables that are available to you.
The variables are:
- ${activeOperators}: number of agents working at the moment.
- ${activeSlots}: sum of slots configured for currently active operators.
- ${userWaitingPosition}: user position in the waiting queue.
- ${userWaitTimeSecs}: estimated time the user will wait in seconds.
- ${userWaitTimeMins}: estimated waiting time the user will wait expressed in minutes.
See how the variables are used in the example below.
2- The user entered the queue, was assigned an agent and is about to be assisted
Among the predefined intents, you will find one called " User assigned to agent". There, you will be able to define a response message to send to the user. See the example below.
3- No agents were found in the queue to which the user was referred
Among the predefined intents, you will find one called " User encountered no agents". There, you can define a response to send to the user in this situation. See the example below.
Assign to specific agent
In the intents, you can assign to specific agents to take the conversation. To do so, follow the step by step below.
Step 1: Set a variable in the intent " User assigned to agent" to call that agent.
Step 2: Now, in your assignment intent, you will add an action ˜assign conversation to specific agent' with the condition if the variable ${operadorFijo} has data , and in the action parameter you will add that variable as well, as follows:
Note: Remember that before the "Assign conversation to specific agent'' actions, you must have a "Set queue" action with no conditions.
Step 3 : Below that action, add an action ˜assign conversation to agent˜ with the condition > if ${operadorFijo} has no data:
Step 4: Enter the variable, which must contain the agent's id or email. Choose the configuration you want regarding the agent's availability. If you activate the option "must be available" and/or "must have an available slot", you will be able to select an intent to send to the customer when the agent is not available.
Step 5: Click on Save.Done! The assignment was already configured!
Deactivate agent
Within the intents, you can deactivate agents. To do this, you must select the response type "action" and then select "deactivate agent".
By considering all these settings for assigning agent roles, you will be able to optimize the dynamics of your conversational flows and modify the parameters if necessary.
Remember to visit our Help Center for further information.