How do I transfer a chat using the webclient for staffing?

 

When answering chats, you may come across a situation where you are not the best resource available to help a guest.  Say a guest has a question about Topic A and it just so happens that another colleague of yours who is currently staffing chat is an expert on Topic A.  Or say that your organization is large and has many departments and the guest comes into Department A's queue with a question about Department B.  In these sorts of situations, the guest will receive the best outcome by being connected to another operator or department for immediate assistance.  That's where transfer comes in.

Or maybe your organization staffs the chat service in shifts.  You might want to transfer a chat that has not reached a natural end yet.  You can transfer a chat in progress to someone else so that the guest can continue to receive assistance from someone else when your shift is over.

Transfer button:

In the webclient, the transfer button is the third from the left among the chat management toolbar buttons and has left/right facing arrows.  Click that icon button to start a transfer.

Note: In the webclient for staffing, each conversation window contains a chat management toolbar just above where you type. If you do not see the chat management toolbar for a chat, then that chat did not come over a queue and you cannot transfer it.

 

Chat transfer dialog:

After the transfer button (shown above) is clicked, you'll see the chat transfer dialog. 

 

Do I transfer to a queue or to a user?

You have a choice between transferring the chat to a queue or to another user.  The appropriate choice for any given chat depends on the circumstances that led to your decision to transfer the chat.  Let's revisit our earlier examples.

Are we trying to connect the guest to a specific, single colleague that happens to be an expert on Topic A (or that is relieving you from your shift)?  Then you'll want to transfer to "users" and select your colleague's username from the list;

Are we trying to connect the guest to Department B, not any specific individual?  When you transfer to a queue, the transfer will be offered to all the available users staffing the queue at that time, so your transferred chat can automatically go out to more than one person, assuming more than on is available.  Just like with regular chats for queues, only the first person to send a message will "win" the transferred chat and get connected to the guest.  To transfer to a queue, you'll want to transfer to "queues" and select Department B's queue from the list:

Once you've made your choice -- user or queue -- click OK to transfer the guest.

 

What does the guest see after you click OK?

The guest is notified that they are being transferred.  Specifically, they receive the message "transferring... please wait"

Once another operator claims the transfer, the conversation continues.

If you change your mind about the transfer after clicking the OK button but before the other user or queue has answered, you can cancel the transfer and re-claim the chat by sending a new message to the guest.   If you send the guest a new message before someone else has picked up your transfer, but you still want to transfer, you can simply transfer the chat again.

What do you see after you click OK?

You'll receive a message that the chat is being transferred.  And another message once another operator responds.

It is worth mentioning that the tag for followup feature is similar in that both transfer and tag for follow-up are designed to get guests the help they need.  The key difference is in timing.  Transfer is used when the guest can get immediate help from another available operator during a chat.  Tag for follow-up is used when the guest cannot receive immediate help during the chat from any available operator and needs to be contacted (usually by email) at a later time with follow-up information.

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