| Announced | Release timeline | Release Status |
| May 19, 2021 | June 28, 2021 - July 19, 2021 |
Rollout Complete |
Sometimes, you want certain agents to be available for high tier escalations or an important customer call while not being distracted by taking routine calls from the queue.
To address this need, we are delighted to announce that in the next few weeks, a new Transfers only agent state will be added to the existing agent states for all Zendesk Talk customers except customers on Talk Legacy and Lite plans which do not have call transfer functionality.
This new state can help you boost your team's efficiency by designing a better escalation process where specific agents can make themselves available to take only priority calls or escalations transferred by an agent.
Use this announcement to get a preview of the new experience and start planning how to incorporate it into your workflow.
What is the behavior of the new Transfers only state?
The key behaviors are highlighted below:
- A person in the Transfers only state can only be transferred a call from other agents. They can’t be directly routed a call from the queue and they will not be available for group transfers.
- An agent in the Transfers only state can make outbound calls.
- This new state will be available in the Talk dashboard for reporting purposes. See How can I report on the new Transfers only state?
- Additionally, the Transfers only state includes an improved agent call transfer search interface. See How will the agent experience change?
- More details about this new agent state will be released closer to the launch date. Click the Follow button in the upper right corner of this article to receive updates. You can also ask us questions and share feedback in the comments section at the end of this announcement.
How will the agent experience change?
The agent experience will change in the two areas highlighted below:
- Talk agent availability dropdown in the call console
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Agents will see the new state represented by a blue ring followed by the name Transfers only as shown in the screenshot below:
- Agent call transfer search in the call console
- After the release, agents will now see an improved and more accessible user interface as shown in the screenshot below.
- The search list will be divided to highlight agents and end users separately.
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Names of agents who are not available for transfers will be grayed-out
How can I report on the new Transfers only state?
Reporting on the Transfers only state will be similar to the reporting for other Talk agent states such as Online, Away and Offline.
- A new metric “Total Transfers only time” is added to the Talk dashboard providing the total amount of time an agent spent in this state and its averages.
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You can also change an agent’s state from or to Transfers only from the Talk dashboard as shown in the screenshot below.
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We also plan to include the new “Transfers only” state in the Zendesk Talk Availabilities and Stats API. See below for the changes:
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Changes to the Availabilities API
API Call JSON Attribute updated/added Change Status Show availability & Update availability agent_state The agent's state. Allowed values are "online", "offline" or "away" or “transfers_only". Updated -
Changes to Stats API
API Call JSON Attribute updated/added Change Status List agent activity agent_state The agent's state. Allowed values are "online", "offline" or "away" or “transfers_only" Updated List agent activity transfers_only_time Total time agent's status was set to “transfers_only" New List agent activity online_time Total time agent's status was set to "online" or "away" or “transfers_only" Updated Show agents overview (Talk Professional and above) average_transfers_only_time Average time agent's status was set to “transfers_only" New Show agents overview (Talk Professional and above) average_online_time Average time agent's status was set to "online" or "away" or “transfers_only" Update
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Changes to the Availabilities API
When will the new experience be available and how can I gain access?
Transfers only agent state will be released in a phased rollout starting June 28, 2021 till July 19, 2021. There is nothing required from your end to gain access or switch on the functionality, it will be available by default on your instance sometime during the rollout period.
16 Comments
Glad this will be introduced, we expected it from the beginning.
It would be nice if you could be an agent to prioritise transfers while also picking up calls to your group as a lower priority.
We were hoping for this sort of feature for a while so great to see! However, one big problem is costs. From my understanding, it seems that you double-charge for transferred calls. (once as the incoming call and again as an outgoing call that is being transferred).
In case we wanted to take full advantage of this new exciting feature, how can we avoid extra costs? Will Zendesk consider charging the incoming, transferred calls the same way as a continuous incoming call?
Will this feature be available for the Talk Advanced plan? It's a legacy plan, but it does have call transfer capability, so it's not clear to me if we will get the update or not. Thanks!
I would like to see a screenshot of the Talk app if agent attempting to transfer, uses search experience, begins with a group name but finds that group has no agents in Online or Away statuses but does have agents in this *new* Transfers only status. I'm cautiously optimistic that the search results would list out those agents so that they may be selected for the transfer (whenever the group cannot be transferred to).
Hey everyone,
Thanks for reaching out and giving feedback!
Hi @... ,
I am glad! Hope it meets your expectations!
Hi @...
With “Transfers only” state an agent will only receive call transfers by other agents. To also receive calls from the queue agent can change the state to “Online”. When “Online” agent will receive both normal calls and call transfers.
When an agent is anticipating a priority call transfer, “Transfers only” state can be selected for sometime and return to “Online” when done. Will this solve your use case?
According to current behaviour - If an agent is already on a call, a new call cannot be routed or transferred, so if agent is already busy on a routine call he/she will not be able accept any priority call transfer.
Hi @...
We are not making any change to how we charge for the call transfer functionality.
We only charge for the active call legs (outbound and inbound) with the call.
With call transfer functionality there can be different phases such as agent to agent consultation, complete transfer or conference. Each with different active legs incurring different costs.
Thanks!
Hi @...
Yes, the new state will be available to Talk advanced plan as well.
Hi @...,
Thanks for highlighting your concern. Let me get back to you with additional screenshot of the experience you highlighted. Will update you when I have attached it.
Thanks!
It would be great if someday you can view a ticket and see if someone is on the phone within a ticket. Right now if 6 people are looking at a high priority ticket there is less than zero ways to see if someone is calling the customer or is already on the phone with the customer.
Hi @...,
we need to adapt the new status "Transfer only" to our custom API, which can measure our Working Time and control Talk status.
Can you let me know when API information is ready?
Thanks.
Tobias
Hey @...,
I have edited the article to provide more details on the upcoming API changes. Hope it helps!
Thanks
Rohan
Hi Rohan,
are you sure it will be "Transfer only" or more transfersonly or transfers_only for API?
Usually, ZD API is always without "space" and lowercase.
Thanks.
Tobias
Thanks @... for highlighting it. You are totally correct its "transfers_only". I have edited the article.
@...
It would be great to have a status indicator in Support Talk indicating if a rep was currently active on a call in Sell Voice.
I'm absolutely loving this! Thank you for implementing it.
When will it be made available in the Android app?
Apologies for looking at this negatively, but could this be used to avoid calls? An agent could deliberately change their status to Transfers Only, and unless we have someone watching the real time dashboard we would not know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Zendesk does not have an innate way of displaying historic data on what call status a colleague is using, so if I was looking back at the previous day's data, I would have no way to see if someone used this status to avoid a call - if there is a way of displaying exactly what statuses were used that would be of great help. Alternatively, is there a way of disabling this feature or limiting it to certain colleagues?
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