You can specify how incoming chat requests are automatically distributed to agents with Chat routing settings.
This article includes the following topics:
Understanding and configuring basic routing options
There are two options for how incoming chats are sent to your agents:
- Broadcast: All agents get notified of all relevant chats, and the agent has to click on Serve Request to start serving the chat. This is the default setting.
- Assigned: Chats are evenly assigned amongst online agents, such that only one agent is notified of each incoming chat at any time. If they miss an assigned chat, that chat will not be routed to them again.
Note: If you enable Hybrid Assignment mode, assigned routing behavior changes. See Configuring Hybrid Assignment Mode.
Incoming chats are assigned to the online agent currently who's been available (i.e., not serving a chat) for the longest time. If all agents are actively serving chats, the chat is assigned to the agent currently serving the fewest chats. If multiple agents are tied for the fewest chats, the chat is assigned to one of those agents in a round robin fashion.
Assigned chats appear in animated tabs at the bottom of the dashboard.
- From the Chat dashboard, select Settings > Routing > Settings tab.
- In the Chat Routing section, select a routing method.
- Click Save Changes.
Configuring chat limits
- Broadcast: When agents are at the specified chat limit, they will no longer be notified of incoming chat requests, and they will not be able to serve chats through the Serve Request button.
- Assigned: Agents will be routed incoming chats only up to their chat limit.
Note: If you enable Hybrid Assignment mode, assigned routing behavior changes. See Configuring Hybrid Assignment Mode.
- Account: Set one limit that applies to all agents in your account.
- Agent: Chat limits are configured in each agent's profile. You can specify whether only admins can edit agents' chat limits or agents set their own limits.
Chat limit settings have no effect on your widget or its online status. Even if all agents are at their limits, visitors can still initiate chats, which are then queued until an agent becomes available.
To enable chat limits
- Go to Settings > Routing > Settings tab.
- Next to Chat Limit, select On.
- Next to Limit Type, select Account or Agent.
- If you selected Account, enter a value in the Maximum Chats field.
- If you selected Agent, chat limits are configured in each agent's profile:
- With the Assigned routing method, select the Personal Limits check box that appears for agents to set their own chat limits in their profiles.
- If you're using the Broadcast routing method or using Assigned but don't select the Personal Limits check box, set a chat limit for each agent's profile. Select an agent to edit under Manage > Agents and enter a value in the Chat Limit field.
- With the Assigned routing method, select the Personal Limits check box that appears for agents to set their own chat limits in their profiles.
- Click Save Changes.
Configuring additional settings for Assigned routing
If you selected Assigned routing method, there are additional settings you can configure.
Configuring skills routing
Configuring Hybrid Assignment Mode
This setting applies only if chats are Assigned and chat limits are enabled.
Hybrid Assignment Mode gives agents the option of serving additional chats once they've reached their chat limits. Agents will have the option of clicking the Serve Request button to pick up additional chats. If this option isn't enabled, agents can see incoming requests but aren't able to click on the button.
To enable Hybrid Assignment Mode
- Go to Settings > Routing > Settings tab.
- In the Hybrid Assignment Mode section, select the Allow Hybrid Assignment check box.
- Click Save Changes.
Configuring reassignment
This setting applies only if you're using Assigned routing.
With this option enabled, if an agent doesn't respond to an assigned chat for a while, the chat will be automatically reassigned to another agent. If this option is not enabled, (if Reassignment is set to Off), once a chat is assigned to an agent, it is not automatically reasssigned to another agent.
- Go to Settings > Routing > Settings tab.
- Next to Reassignment, select On.
- Enter a number of seconds in the Reassignment Timeout window. For example, if you want chats to be reassigned after 15 seconds with no response, enter 15.
- Click Save Changes.
Configuring automatic idle settings
This setting applies only if you're using Assigned routing and have enabled Reassignment above.
Enable this setting to automatically set chat agents' status to Away or Invisible after a specified number of chats are automatically reassigned. Agents are notified when their status is changed.
To enable automatic idle status
- Go to Settings > Routing > Settings tab.
- Next to Automatic Idle, select On.
- Enter a value in the Chats Reassigned field.
- Select a status option next to Idle Status.
- Click Save Changes.
Monitoring chat routing data in Analytics
- Acceptance: the percentage of assigned chats that were served by agents out of all the chats routed to the agent
- Capacity (beta): The estimated amount of chats that can be served by the account in a given period of time. The capacity is a function of 1) the number of agents logged in, 2) the average chat duration of an account and 3) the chat limit set by the agent.
38 Comments
The Configuring Hybrid Assignment mode link is broken (you are not authorized), guess it's just an anchor link to a section in this article.
Thanks Jacob for reporting the issue, updated the link so it should work now.
Hello, I'm not able to resend a french (for example) chat to French agent. Can be done this automatically? I mean, if for example a French person write "Bonjour", is it possible this chat be opened or resend automatically to French Agent?
I'm trying to do it reading this article and these two:
https://chat.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212679657-Automatically-route-chats-to-departments
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203663346-Detecting-an-end-user-s-language-from-an-email-message
But don't get the result.
Thank you in advance.
About Chat Reassignment, it says "With this option enabled, if an agent doesn't respond to an assigned chat for a while, the chat will be automatically reassigned to another agent."
Will the chat be reassigned to available agents in the same department? Or will it ignore department and assign it to any random online agent?
Hi! thank you for your answer. The message should be reassigned to agent in the same department but in other language.
Thanks.
Hi there, what if one department wants "Assigned" and the other Department wants "Broadcast".
Please help us configure this down to the department level.
Hi Heather,
Thanks for sharing your request. Currently, routing settings are tied to the account and not the department. We have no plans in the next 6 months to change this behaviour but do understand the need to have department level routing settings and your feedback have been shared with the relevant teams.
-Ramin
Hi there
Regarding "Note: Chat limit settings have no effect on your widget or its online status. Even if all agents are at their limits, visitors can still initiate chats, which are then queued until an agent becomes available.", is there a way to stop customers from being able to join the queue? If I'm the only person on chat and am at my chat limit, I don't want customers to be still seeing the option to chat with us.
Thank you
Fiona
Hi Fiona,
Currently, this functionality does not exist with the routing feature. There is an ongoing product feedback post about it here that you can vote/watch for future updates: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360029595353-CHAT-LIMIT-STATUS-CHANGE-WHEN-REACHED-MAX
Thanks,
Ramin
Thank you - I have added my comment to that thread.
As a workaround, what would be best practice - do you or anyone else have any advice?
I will be the only agent to start with and I don't want to be overwhelmed. Should I put myself as 'invisible' as soon as I have as many chats as I can handle? I don't plan on adding a schedule to our chat for now, since I won't be able to be on it all the time during my work day.
Thanks!
Hi Fiona,
Yes, the best mechanism is to change your status to invisible when you do not want more chats being assigned to you.
If all agents are offline/invisible, it will change the widget status to offline and depending on your account settings it will show the offline form/contact form or not show for new visitors on your website.
-Ramin
Thank you, Ramin. That's very helpful!
Hello!
How can we change an agent chat limit via API?
Hi Laurent,
Unfortunately, you cannot change agent limits using the REST APIs today.
-Ramin
Hi.
Is there any way to set Reassignment timeout per agent level via API? Or to avoid reassignments for specific levels (keep chats assigned to him)?
Hi Andrei,
Unfortunately, that functionality and level of customisation for the reassignment timeout feature does not exist and we have no plans in our 2019 roadmap to address it.
-Ramin
Hi Ramin,
I see. Is there any way to prevent automatic reassignments for specific agents / chats?
Reassignment is a global account setting, you cannot set different behaviour for specific agents.
What is considered "serving a chat"? If the agent has been chatting and the customer hasn't replied in a while, and the agent hasn't posted in a while yet both parties still have the chat window open, does that count as an "active chat"? In other words, if I have one agent who is really aggressive with closing chat windows and others who leave them open, will the first agent get more chats assigned?
@Neil
Serving a chat is once they accept and start chatting. If the customer hasn't replied in a while, it is still considered an active chat until the customer is idle for 20 minutes (I wish there was a way for an Agent to "end the chat" but there isn't.). If this customer replies after the agent closes the chat window, the chat will be reassigned to the next available agent.
If one agent is aggressive with closing chat windows and others leave them open, it will depend if the end users reply back or not after a given chat window is closed as to who will get more chats assigned....
Not sure that answers your question exactly, but hopefully helps!
@Heather R, that is exactly the info I was looking for. Does Zendesk make that information available anywhere in their online documentation? I couldn't find it.
I don't recall if I've seen it in documentation. I just happen to know from ferreting out stats and trying to make sense of them. I like to keep my Chat window up on the home page so I can see visitors and who they were assigned to. I can see if one person didn't serve the chat and it got rerouted (30 seconds). You can't get that info afterwards in a play by play the way it is visually there. I digress.
The thing is, Chat should technically assign to the next available agent who is idle longest, so hopefully it evens out when an agent doesn't take the action you'd expect.
@neil & @heather,
Our documentation has been updated to reflect this expected behaviour on chat sessions and timeouts:
When do chats time out
I hope that clarifies everything!
Dean
@dean, that is great, thanks for updating the docs.
Hey Dean Kenny I have a question, or one of my developers do. How does the offline chat message get routed and how do we change it? Currently our chats get assigned while we are online but when we are offline and have our offline chat form option, the form gets broadcast to all our agents. How do we change this routing of the offline chatbox form to match that of the chat while we are online, namely being assigned?
Hey DeAndrea,
I can see logged a ticket with our support team and they have answered your question, great!
Note for others following: this depends on what Chat Phase you are on, so it's worth checking out this article: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022183734-Managing-Offline-Form-settings
Thanks!
I would like to confirm that for the chat routing to work as above, we would need to use Zopim chat. Can we integrate 3rd party chat to Zendesk and make sure of the routing ?
Hi CW Hong,
Yes, that is correct. You cannot use a third party for your routing.
Thanks,
Dean
Hi, I've encountered the following problem, we have a department that is supposed to take French chats from our French website and a German department for chats from our German website .
If an agent from the French department is online, and there are no available agents from the German department, the "Live chat" option is still going to be displayed in German website because the French agent is online, granted the German chat won't be routed to the French agent.
Is there the possibility to only show the "Live Chat" option if there are agents from that specific department with the online status.
Thank you in advance, and apologies if the question is a bit weird
--
Just found this related article https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022192234 , but I would like to know if there are any other solutions?
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