Chatting With Customers
Before You Begin
- Administrators: Double check that the Chat toggle is turned on for your Beacon.
- Make sure you’re available to chat by setting your User availability to Available.
- Get familiar with the Help Scout chat interface.
Working With a Live Chat
Accept Your First Chat
User Availability and Maximum Chats
Add Contact Information
If you have disabled Require Email to allow anonymous chats, your visitors can start a chat without entering their information. When a chat is started, the visitor will show in chat as Unidentified Visitor. If you gather their email address while chatting with them, populate that email address on the sidebar to allow a quick view of customer history. If you have enabled transcripts, they will receive a transcript as long as you enter an email address before the chat end.
In the case of a mistaken address, you can unlink the customer from an unidentified chat by clicking the Undo link in the chat conversation in Help Scout.
Explore Visitor Details
Add Tags
Explore the Shortcut Menu
The shortcut menu in chat makes responding and finding information quick and easy. Check out About the Chat Shortcut Menu for a full rundown!
Assign a Chat
Chat Timeouts
Active Chats
If a chat has been accepted by a User it will remain active as long as chat messages are being exchanged. If there has been no customer response in 25 minutes, the Help Bot will advise them that the chat will close soon if they do not respond. After 30 minutes of inactivity the chat will automatically end.
Missed Chats
If no User accepts a chat after 5 minutes, Help Bot will apologize to the customer and close the chat. Any messages the customer sent while waiting will be saved in the chat transcript that will go to your Unassigned view as an active conversation. Any Users who were available at the time a missed chat occurred will be automatically set to Assign Only and a notice will display on their screen.