Question
Can I set a chat trigger to fire when my agents are offline? What is the Account status condition, with Online and Offline options, used for?
Answer
It is not possible to create a chat trigger that fires when all agents are offline. Chat triggers that send proactive messages will only fire if at least one agent is online.
Sending messages via triggers is meant to start prompt a chat conversation that ultimately connects with a live agent if the visitor chooses to respond. For this reason, at least one agent must be online to be ready to take the live chat conversation that results from a customer responding to a triggered message.
Triggers were not designed to handle offline proactive conversations. Offline messaging to customers can be handled in either the offline form, or through contact forms in the Web Widget.
Then why does the Account status condition exist?
The Account status trigger condition, that includes Online and Offline options for triggers to fire, is designed for triggers that do not send messages but do other things like add tags or set departments on widget load.
2 Comments
Thanks for outlining all of this, however I have a question regarding the Offline status option:
Is it correct to assume that any status trigger condition which includes Online and Offline options are designed to do things like add tags or set departments on widget load?
I'm attempting to add a tag to chats that are meant to route to a particular department if all of the agents within it are offline, however this doesn't seem to work.
I have the trigger set to run "When a visitor has loaded the chat widget" and the conditions are set as "Department status > (Department name) > Offline". Yet when I test this out, no tag is added to the Offline Message email that is created.
I've also tried setting this to run "When a visitor requests a chat", which also does not appear to work.
Is there a way that I can tag the Offline Messages from customers intended to land in a particular chat department, but don't make it into the chat queue?
Hi Jennifer,
If I'm understanding you correctly, I would think that this trigger should work for offline chats. Would you mind sending along a screenshot of all of the trigger conditions? I want to see if there is anything else possibly interfering with this function.
Thanks!
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