Summary

Messaging needs to improve the Agent Transfer functionality for end user.

• Firstly it should be able to communicate when no agents are currently available in hours (due to being maxed out on chats or status--i.e. only some but not agents are away/offline.
• Ideally, it would ask the user if they want to wait when no agents are available in hours
• At the very least, we should be able to push a message to users still waiting/unserved after a period of time (this is not possible with current trigger options in chat settings).

Description/Use Cases

Zendesk has built Messaging to be used asynchronously and handoff to an agent even when none are technically available.  We use live chat today and have for years, so our customers contacting us via widget have come to expect a real time/live/synchronous experience.  

Regardless, setting expectations in Messaging is very important as each end user is different and may or may not want to have an asynchronous experience when they start a conversation.

While we can use business hours to handle an after-hours scenario, there is no graceful way to indicate when we are unable to respond quickly in hours.  In the transfer step you can only say I’ll look for an agent for you, and FYI it may take a while. 

Current Chat triggers for Messaging are lacking and can’t be used to help in this situation:

• While you can use a trigger to send a message after x seconds/minutes it is too basic, i.e. you can say send a message 5 minutes after a conversation is requested, but, it doesn’t check if the conversation is still unserved/end user is still present...so that could mean that the message is sent while the end user is chatting to an agent
• While you can build something for account/department status being away/offline, that doesn’t help in the situation when no one is available because agents are maxed out on conversations (agent status does not change in this situation, so neither will account/department), or a situation when some agents are offline/away and others are maxed out.

Impact

Not clearly communicating availability of agent support when an end user initiates a Messaging conversation is a poor customer experience.  For those end users used to--or needing--a real time conversation it is going to drive down satisfaction/NPS, and ultimately lead to attrition.