Using Zendesk Chat

This article decribes how to chat from the standalone Zendesk Chat dashboard. For information about chatting from within Zendesk Support, see Using Zendesk Chat in Support.

This article contains the following sections:

• Responding to or initiating a chat with a visitor
• Transferring a chat
• Chatting with other agents

Responding to or initiating a chat with a visitor

This section describes basics of how to chat with visitors to your website. To learn about chatting with agents, see the next section.

Answering a chat

To start chatting with a visitor, click Serve 1 request in the bottom left corner.

You can add images, emoji, and send customers requests to rate your chat, using the buttons in the bottom left of the chat window. Emoji and images are enabled by default and cannot be turned off. Chat ratings must be turned on (see Measuring visitor satisfaction with chat rating)

Starting a proactive chat with a visitor

You can proactively start chatting with visitors by selecting them from the Visitor List. From the Visitor List, you can see details about all the visitors currently on your website, including their location, the page they're on, and their chat status. For example, you might want to reach out to visitors who have items their shopping cart but are taking too long to complete their purchases.

For more information, see Browsing your site's visitors.

To start a proactive chat

1. From the dashboard, click Visitors.
2. Click a visitor's name in List mode.

   

3. Type your message in the chat window and press Enter to send.

Viewing visitor details

• Click the History icon in the chat window to review the visitor's chat history. Click on a conversation to view its transcript.
• Click the Info icon in the chat window to view or edit the visitor's contact info. This is the information that will be used for the ticket requester if you create a ticket from the chat.

Ending a chat

When you're finished with a chat, click End Chat to end the conversation.

Transferring a chat

Transfer chats to other agents or to departments. Keep in mind the following when transferring chats to departments:

• You can transfer the chat to another department or to a department you're in as long as you're not the only agent online in that department. If you transfer it to a department you're in, you won't get the same chat again.
• Transferred chats are added to the bottom of the chat routing queue.

To transfer a chat to an agent or department

1. Select Invite Agent/Transfer to Agent or Transfer to Department from the chat window's Actions drop-down menu.

   

2. Select a department from the drop-down menu or enter an agent.
3. Click Transfer.

Chatting with other agents

You can chat with other agents either by adding them to an existing conversation with a visitor or in a separate chat without any visitors.

To add another agent to a chat with a visitor

1. Select Invite Agent/Transfer To Agent from the chat window's Actions drop-down menu.

   

2. Enter the agent in the Agent Email field.
3. To leave the chat and have the other agent take over, click Transfer and Leave. To add the agent and stay in the conversation, click Invite.

To chat with another agent

• To start a conversation with just you and another agent (no visitors), click Team on the from the left bar, then click the agent's name to open a chat.