In order to improve their online experience for consumers, many brands aim to provide visitors on their website with as much information as they can about potentially long wait times. Live Assist offers a variety of creative engagements to communicate to consumers when no agents are online (during off-hours) and during busy times when they have no capacity and long wait times are expected. In this way, consumer expectations are managed and potential frustration is avoided.
There are three states for chat: Online, Offline and Busy states.
The state will change based on the status of the campaign's agents, as well as the maximum wait time:
• Offline - when no agents are online
• Online - agents are online and available; the expected wait time is shorter than the maximum wait time
• Busy - at least one agent is online but with no capacity to handle consumers as the expected wait time is longer than the maximum wait time for the skill
Configuration
The default setting for the Busy state is off. In this case, if ignore max wait time is enabled, consumers will be directed to a survey, if agents are offline or offered chat, if agents are online. If the Offline state is also disabled, consumers will only see a creative when agents are online.
The Busy state can be enabled, and its behavior fully configured, in the Engagement Studio.
• Once enabled, the Busy state will mean that when at least one Agent is online, but has no capacity, the Busy creative will be displayed to the consumer.
• By default, this will be the Offline creative, but a new creative can be configured by the Campaign Manager.
• Clicking on the Busy creative will lead to an offline survey by default.
• The Campaign Manager will have the option to change the Busy state’s default behavior and allow visitors to enter queue, by selecting ‘ignore max wait time’.
The Busy state is available for all engagements except overlay, offsite and messaging engagements.
To Configure the Busy state:
1. Go to the Campaigns page and select an existing Campaign.
2. Click Add Engagement.
3. Choose a creative in the Engagement template gallery and click Next.
4. In the Engagement Studio, click ‘Online’ in the top left corner, and a menu with configurations for the three chat states will drop down.
5. Choose which states to enable and disable - a full explanation of the conditions and outcomes of each state is provided in the table below.
6. Click Next and continue with the setup of the engagement, selecting Done when you have finished.
This table provides a summary of the conditions and outcomes of each of the three states: