Live Chats in Queue

On occasion, live Chats are directed to the queue instead of an agent. Generally, there are three reasons why this occurs:

1. In order for a live chat to be assigned to an agent, the agent must be logged in to SmarterTrack and the agent's status must be set to receive chats for the corresponding group. If all agents are either logged out or are not receiving chats, the chat will be directed to the queue. Note: If all agents stop receiving chats at logout, the live chat icon on your site will indicate that chat is unavailable, though customers can still submit their questions as a ticket from the live chat window. This will prevent chats from filling the queue during non-business hours.
2. Administrators have the ability to set live chat limits for agents. If that limit is reached, new live chats will be sent to the queue until an agent's workload falls below the set limit. For example, to prevent a company's agent workload from getting out of hand, the administrator may set SmarterTrack to limit agents to five active chats. Once an agent's active chats load falls below five, the system will assign additional live chats based on the chosen distribution method.
3. If a group is set with the Pull From Queue live chat distribution method, chats will sit in the queue until selected by an agent versus being automatically assigned to an agent.

By default, users who are waiting in the queue will see a message with a count of the number of users ahead of them. However, that message can be customized at the live chat Departments settings.

For information about how SmarterTicket assigns live chats from the queue, see Live Chat Distribution Methods.