Assign and transfer chats

You decide which agent sees which chats with agent rules, and move a chat from one person to another with transfer. Both matter once more than one person answers customers.

Who can do what

See Team and roles for adding people.

Agent rules: limit which chats an agent sees

An agent rule ties an agent to an attribute. Once it is set, that agent only sees and resolves chats from customers who have that attribute value.

For example, give one agent the tag wholesale and they only see chats from wholesale customers. Give another the attribute Language set to Hindi, and they only see customers who chat in Hindi.

1. Go to Manage → Agents.
2. Click the filter icon on the agent's row.

3. Choose the attribute, and the value the agent should handle.
4. Save.

flowchart LR
    C["Customer writes"] --> Q{"Which attribute does the customer have?"}
    Q -->|"tag: wholesale"| A1["Wholesale agent"]
    Q -->|"Language: Hindi"| A2["Hindi-speaking agent"]

The rule only works if the attribute is there. An agent with a rule only sees chats from customers who have that value. Set the attribute before the chat needs routing: at import, from a chatbot question such as "Which language would you like?", or by hand in the chat profile.

Transfer a chat to another agent

Managers and owners can take over a chat and hand it to someone else.

1. Go to Live Chat and open Intervened Chats.
2. Click the chat you want to transfer. The agent currently handling it is shown.
3. Click Take over.

4. Open the Transfer to list and pick the agent.

The chat moves to the new agent, who can reply straight away. The agent who had it loses access to it.

Before taking over, a manager can stay incognito and monitor the chat. It is a quiet way to check how a conversation is going, or how a new agent is doing, before stepping in.

When to use them

Transfer when someone else knows more. A question about a bulk order, a refund, or a technical problem should go to the person who can answer it, not bounce between agents. Tell the customer you are passing them on, so the change of voice does not surprise them.

Transfer before someone leaves. When an agent's shift ends, or they are leaving the team, move their open chats to someone else first. Chats left with an agent who is gone are invisible to everyone else until they are resolved. Turning on auto-resolve catches the ones you miss. See Live Chat settings.

Use agent rules for real specialisms. Rules suit a language, a customer type or a product line that needs different knowledge.