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Mystery ‘We’re Offline’ Message — Agents are Available



Posted Oct 28, 2024

I've been losing my mind over this issue for way too long. We use Messaging (not classic), and have just one simple flow setup to get the customer to an agent as quick as possible. Sometimes, not every time (I haven't been able to find any kind of pattern), after the customer fills out the required form, they are given the usual message I write telling them they are being transferred, but then 3 seconds later, they are also given a message stating “We're offline. When an agent replies to your request, you'll get an email at (customer's email address)” even though we are open and agents are available. Often, a support agent is able to grab the chat and continue right after the message. 

Something I have noticed: Even though the bot has the same name, there is no avatar. So, this tells me it's from a different section than what I built for the current flow as I created that avatar specifically for the current flow setup, but have used the “VanillaBot” name in the past. 

I checked the history of the ticket, and I can't find anything that would even point me in the right direction:

 

I've checked every section I could possibly think of. I've went through all sections in the Admin Center, going through every section in each option. Even going though every single trigger (we have a lot), webhooks, ticket settings, schedules, and basically everything at this point. 

 

The schedule is setup correctly as there are agents available and they even grab the chat after. 

 

I checked all the settings in the older Chat section as well, but couldn't find anything that would push an automatic message, nor mentions anything about us being offline. 

 

One thing I just did and will have to wait to see if it does anything, is I disabled the Operating Hours within the Chat section. I have business hours configured in the Objects and Rules > Business Rules > Schedules section. I doubt that was it, though. 

 

If anyone can point me in the right direction, or has had something like this happen, I would love to stop pulling my hair out over this and stop making ourselves look like goofs by saying we're transferring them, then saying we're closed, then having the agent connect. Not the most professional. 


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4 comments

This morning, I saw this one come in. The correct bot transferred to an agent as normal, the mystery bot replied that we were closed, the agent answered, the customer replied, the mystery bot said we were closed again… After this, there was some back and forth between the customer and the agent with no mystery bot reply, it mentioned it again near the end of the conversation.

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I found some information that might be helpful. Although it says “VanillaBot” from the agent's view, when I view as a customer, I see it listed as “Answer Bot”. So it appears this is caused by Answer Bot somehow. I even inspected the elements for a chat (from the customer's view) and the avatar's url is showing a completely different path, which makes me think it's some kind of integration, not something I've built:

 

Answer Bot's avatar:

src="https://accounts.zendesk.com/flow_director/assets/default_avatar.png"

 

My Bot's avatar:

src="https://vanillasoft.zendesk.com/flow_composer/assets/bot-avatar/01J44ABVWE8D7CV9WKQ16CRT6Z"

 

However, I can't find any settings to adjust or any other information how this could be my answer. It's just additional information I found and thought it might be helpful. 

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An update:

 

I reached out to the Zendesk support folks which had suggested I go into the Objects and Rules > Tickets > Settings section and disable “Switch messaging conversations to email” in the Continuous Conversations area, which I did. Since the issue is intermittent, I'll have to wait and see if the issue returns, but since I have disabled it a few hours ago, it hasn't come back. I'll update this thread if the issue returns to keep this up-to-date, otherwise this was the fix.

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This article kept me from pulling my own hair out. Thank you!

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