Agent Chat Console

Overview

At times, there would be scenarios where the end-users need assistance from a support team where the bot is unable to resolve certain requests. Agent Chat Console interface allows Support Agents from various Support Groups to manage and respond to multiple inbound requests from users who want to chat with a Support Agent during a conversation with the bot.

An end-user can request to get help from a Support Agent in the below scenarios:

  • The user has a question that could better be answered by a Support Agent.

  • The Virtual Agent or Bot is unable to resolve the end user's request.

  • The bot is not able to identify the relevant skill to fulfill the user's request.

  • The user is unable to provide the required valid data to the bot to proceed.

  • The bot has identified a skill that is not meeting the user’s needs.

In any of the above cases, the end-user can request to chat with an Agent from a Support team using the ‘Transfer to Agent’ system skill configured for the Tenant. Refer to the article Transfer to Agent Skill for more information on how to trigger a transfer to the agent process.

Once a conversation/request is transferred to the Agent/Support group, the chat is changed from the Virtual Agent context to Support Agent Context for the end-user. In the Agent Chat Console, the conversation is now available in the waiting queue of the selected Support Agent group, from where Agents can accept the request.

Launching Agent Chat Console

Agent Chat Console is available to all the users who are part of the ‘Default Support Team’ group or any other Custom Support group in your tenant. Support Agents can log in to the Agent Chat Console and assist the End-Users with their queries.

The Support Agents who are not part of any active Support Group cannot access the Agent Chat console.

To launch the Agent Chat Console, perform the following steps:

  1. Log in to the Luma application.

  2. Click on Agent Chat Console on the left navigation to launch Agent Chat Console.

The Agent Chat Console mainly consists of the below sections:

  1. Waiting: This is the Support Group’s queue. All active user requests assigned to the logged-in agent’s support group(s) and awaiting assistance are queued here. This queue is common for all logged-in agents that belong to the same support group. The queue holds requests on the 'First come first' basis. Every chat request with the queue holds the following information.

    1. User information like name, username, chat channel, group as configured in Tenant settings by the Administrator/Developer. Refer to Manage Agent Chat Console Settings for more information.

    2. Timeout, i.e., time remaining before the user requests timeouts. This indicates how much time the user requests could stay in the waiting queue. As a Tenant Administrator, you can configure Waiting queue Warning and Critical timeouts. Refer to Manage Agent Chat Console Settings for more information.

  2. Ongoing: This is an agent-specific queue and holds all ongoing conversations accepted by the Support Agent. Once a Support agent Accepts a conversation from the Waiting Queue, the conversation is moved to the Ongoing queue. For every conversation in the list, the below information is available:

    1. User information like name, username, chat channel, group as configured in Tenant settings by the Administrator/Developer. Refer to Manage Agent Chat Console Settings for more information.

    2. Timeout, i.e., time remaining before the conversation timeouts. This indicates how much time the user requests could stay idle in the Ongoing queue. As a tenant administrator, you can configure User and Agent timeouts. Refer to Manage Agent Chat Console Settings for more information.

    3. New message indicator: An amber dot appears next to the conversations which have unread messages. It alerts the Support Agent about any new messages received from the End-users that may need to be addressed.

  • If associated with multiple Support groups, pending user requests from each group will be available in the Support Agent’s Waiting queue.

  • To view the Support group associated with the user request, the “Support Group → Name” field should be added to the ‘Additional User Info’ section on the Manage Agent Chat Console Settings page.

3. Closed:

This is an agent-specific queue and contains the conversations closed due to Agent Idle Time Out, User Idle Time Out, Agent Closed, User aborted the conversation. The queue allows the Support Agents to review historical conversations when required. The Conversations are automatically moved to the Closed queue as soon as the support Agent “Removes“ the conversation from the Ongoing queue. Refer to the End Conversation section for more information.

User information like Firstname, Lastname, username, chat channel, group and other details configured in Settings are available is available for every conversation in the queue.

The Support Agent can sort and filter through the conversations on Chat End Date, Users, Support Group, and Chat Status. To filter the conversation list,

  1. Click on the filter button.

  2. Select the one the required filter:

    1. Chat End Date represents the date of the user conversation. You may select the predefined ranges like Last 24 Hour, Today So Far, Yesterday, Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days, etc., or select Custom to view conversations between specific dates. The date range is set to Last 7 days, by default.

    2. Users represent the list of the end-users with whom the Support Agent has interacted to date.

    3. Support Groups list all the support groups the Support Agent is associated with.

    4. Chat Status represents the status or reason due to which the conversation was ended, such as Support Agent Ended Chat, End-User Aborted Chat, Support Agent, or End User Idle Timeout.

  3. Click Apply.

4. Conversation Section: This section displays the details of the user’s current and previous conversations with Luma. The Support Agent can select a user request and review the ongoing request and the chat history before accepting the request.

The following information is available in the section:

  1. Conversation History: Once a conversation in Waiting Queue is selected by a Support Agent, the user’s conversation with the virtual agent or bot is populated.

    1. Messages in GRAY on the left represent End-user messages with the Virtual Agent or the Support Agent.

    2. Messages in ORANGE on the right represent messages from the Virtual Agent to the end-user

    3. Messages in BLUE on the right represent messages from the Support Agent. These messages could be from the current logged in agent or a previous agent chat conversation as well.

  2. Additional User information like name, username, chat channel, and group up to 6 fields can be displayed to identify the user better. These can be configured in the Agent chat Console settings screen by the Tenant Administrator. Refer to Manage Agent Chat Console Settings for more information.

Managing End-User Requests

Once a User request is transferred to the support group, the conversation is available on the Agent chat console awaiting action from a logged-in support agent. The Support Agent can perform the following activities.

Accept Conversation

A Support agent can follow the below steps to Accept the user request in the Waiting queue and start conversing with the user:

  1. On the Waiting Queue, select a user request to initiate the conversation or view the user's chat history. You may use the search field to search for a user request by information like username, group, channel, etc.

  2. The user’s chat history will be populated in the Conversation details section.

  3. Click on the Accept button to start conversing with the end user.

  • The agent can respond to the user request only after the request has been accepted.

  • Once a request is accepted, it is moved to the Ongoing queue.

  • If the request is incorrectly assigned, Support agents can transfer the request to another support group. Refer Transfer Conversation section.

  • Once a request is accepted, agent can see the Conversation start and elapsed time on the top of the screen.

Execute Support Agent Actions

Once the Support Agent accepts the user conversation, it is moved to the Ongoing queue, and the Support Analyst can assist the end-user with the request. While interacting with the user, the Support Agent can perform predefined actions on the user’s behalf such as Logging a ticket, Viewing Worklog for a ticket, Booking a Conference room, etc.

These Support Agent Actions are predefined by the Tenant Administrators. Refer to Create Support Agent Actions for more details.

To execute the action, follow the below steps:

  1. Select the required conversation in the queue.

  2. Click on the Support Agent Action button.

  3. On the Action menu, select the Support Agent Action to execute. All Actions associated with the Agent’s Support Group are listed in the selection list.

  4. Obtain the information from the end-user and add it to the form fields.

  5. Click Submit to execute the action.

  6. On successful execution, the response from the action appears as a message. You can share the required information with the end-user.

  7. In case of an error, the following message appears. The Support Agent can retry executing the action.

  8. In case the conversation times out or the end-user aborts the conversation, the Support Agent Action is not executed and the user conversation is closed.

Transfer Conversation

There may be scenarios when the end-user accidentally or unknowingly selects an incorrect Support group while requesting to speak to an agent. Furthermore, the support agent may also identify that a request should be processed by another support team after interacting with the end-user. In such cases, as a Support Agent, you can transfer a conversation available in your Waiting or Ongoing queue to another Support group.

To transfer a conversation, follow the below steps:

  1. Select the required conversation in the queue.

  2. Click on the Transfer to Another Group button.

     

  3. On the Transfer to Another Group menu, select the required group from the list of Available Support Groups, i.e., groups that are working at the moment within the Business Hours.

    1. If at least one Agent associated with the group is logged in to the Console, the group appears Online and is available for request transfer.

    2. If no Agents are available for the group, the Agent count is displayed as zero, and the group appears Offline. Requests cannot be transferred to such groups.
      Refer to Creation of Groups for more details on configuring Business Hours for a Support group.

      You may also search for a Support group by typing in the name in the Search box.

       

  4. Click on Transfer.

     

  5. On the confirmation alert box, click OK to confirm the conversation transfer to the selected group. You may click on Cancel to abort the transfer.

     

  6. The conversation will now be removed from the current queue and start appearing in the Waiting queue of the selected Support group.

End Conversation

A user conversation in Agent Chat Console can end in the following scenarios:

  1. User Request is Complete. Once the End-User’s problem is resolved, the Support Agent can use the Remove button to end the chat. On the End button click, a pop-up is presented to the Agent to confirm. On clicking Yes, the Agent ends the current conversation.

  2. User Exits Conversation: When an End-User exits an Ongoing conversation with Support Agent using the Abort/Exit command, the conversation becomes inactive. The inactive conversation can now be removed from the queue using the Remove button to end the chat.

  3. Conversation Timeout: When a conversation between the user and the Support Agent times out due to Agent Idle time out or User Idle time out, the conversation becomes inactive. The inactive conversation can now be removed from the queue using the Remove button to end the chat.

When the conversation ends due to any of the above reasons, the conversation is moved back to the Virtual Agent context from the Support Agent context. The Virtual Agent fulfills all further requests from the user.

Notification Alerts

As long as the Support Agent is logged in to the Luma Bot builder, the Agent is considered online and available to resolve user requests. For effective user support, it is essential that all user requests are actioned promptly and are not missed, even if the Agents are not active on Agent Chat Console or are working on other applications.

Luma sends the following alert notifications to the logged-in Support agents, who are not active on Agent Chat Console when a new request appears in the Waiting queue or a new message is received for a conversation in their Ongoing queue:

  1. The browser tab blinks with a Red status indicator with the text: "Notification Alert."

  2. Alert sound to the Agent. Audio Autoplay should be enabled on your browser to receive the sound alerts.

  3. A Red status indicator appears on the Agent Chat Console menu in the left-hand navigation.


    The alerts stop once the support agent accesses the Agent Chat Console page. The new request in the Waiting queue is highlighted to draw Agent’s attention to the new conversation added to the queue.

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