Once you’ve determined your live chat operating hours and which departments and agents will be chatting with users, it’s essential to set everyone up for successful collaboration. As you get started, be sure to:

• Determine how many agents you need online at any given time depending on traffic and the average number of chats received during a specific hour.
• Decide on departments — or Groups, as they’re called in Chatra — and whether you want to have a first line or tier one support agent take every chat then transfer to other departments — like sales or marketing — as needed. Alternatively, you may want each department to manage their own chats from start to finish.
• Figure out how agents will distribute chats between themselves. When all chats are in the queue waiting, one agent could grab a bunch, while another could decide to work on one at a time. Make sure to set expectations for every agent to avoid anyone being stuck taking on too much.
• Decide if chats will be assigned to a department automatically based on the page or website where the visitor initiates the conversation or if visitors can choose the department.
• Create a dedicated place where agents can chat with each other and other departments, like Slack channels or some other internal, company-wide messaging tool.

Transferring Chats

To collaborate successfully, it’s critical to determine how chat transfers will be handled and for every agent to follow the guidelines consistently.

As you decide your transfer rules, be sure to:

• Create a clear guide for when a chat should be transferred to another agent or department.
• Make sure all agents have notifications on and set up properly and are logged into the internal messaging tool everyone uses — like Slack — so they can communicate with each other quickly and privately during chat sessions.
• Determine when group chats, which allow multiple agents to chat with one customer simultaneously, may be necessary and set up parameters for handling such a chat as the initial chat agent.
• Set expectations clearly. If an agent needs to transfer the conversation to a person who is not available at the moment, should they have the customer wait or tell them the agent will reach out via email later? Either way is fine as long as everyone’s on the same page.

Observing Chats

In Chatra, agents can see chats of other agents in the “all” tab and choose to join the conversation if needed. This feature can come in handy when a manager is training a new chat agent. They can silently follow a chat and only jump in if the agent is making a mistake that’ll frustrate the customer. Once a chat is over, they can provide the agent with feedback and help them spot the areas to work on improving or where they’re all good.

Observing chats is also useful when an agent wants to see how their teammates work. No matter how experienced a chat agent is, seeing how someone else handles a chat is frequently beneficial. No one knows everything and different styles result in different outcomes, so observing other chatters is a great way to expand their skillset.

Or if an agent spots a chat from a customer who they recall helping previously, they can jump into the chat along with the other agent to share any details they may have or provide extra context to the agent behind the scenes to make the conversation go more smoothly.