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Documentation

Talking to customers in Chat

9 min read · #crm · #chat

Where it lives

Open Chat in the menu of your shop or your organisation. What you see depends on your job position, not on a list somebody keeps by hand:

  • Customer Inbox - the working screen. You have it if your position is customer service on that shop; that makes you an agent on its website chat, WhatsApp and email at once.
  • Supervision - the same screen for whoever oversees chat, with the power to take over, write in and close any conversation without being routed one. See Overseeing chat.
  • Phone calls - the notes of every call logged on the shops you work.
  • Reports - the figures, for a shop, an organisation or the whole group.
  • Settings - working hours, the mailbox and the channels.

When somebody changes position or leaves, their access follows on its own and the conversations they were holding go back to the shop's queue.

Three channels, one inbox

The rail on the left lists your shops with what is waiting and active on each channel. Whoever oversees chat can switch several shops on at once and read them as one list.

Taking a conversation

The inbox has two lists, each with its count: My Chats and Colleagues' Chats, the ones somebody else is holding on a shop you also work. Within them, Waiting is what nobody has picked up, Active is in hand and Closed is what was closed today. Assign to me makes a waiting conversation yours; Take Over takes one from a colleague who has gone to lunch.

Then it works like any messenger: type and send, add an emoji, attach images and documents, up to 30 files at a time (see Answering emails in Chat for which files). Translate lets you read the customer in your language and answer in theirs.

Every file you pick shows above the message box before you send, with an x to take it off. A file that cannot go, the wrong format or too big, is named in red under the box. A message that does not reach us gets a red mark and the reason under it, with Send again; it is never silently dropped. ⋮ → Pictures and files shows every picture and file of the conversation, the customer's and the team's.

A sent message cannot be edited, because the customer already has it. Take back removes it on every channel and tells the customer. Redact strikes selected text - a card number, a password - out of a message for good.

The customer at your side

The side panel shows who you are talking to: contact details, last orders, invoices, what is in their basket, and a link to their customer page. Under that are their last three conversations in a line each, and how often each topic came up over twelve months.

The Chats tab lists everything else the same person has written to us, on the website, by email and on WhatsApp, newest first. It finds them by their customer account, the email address they write from and their WhatsApp number, guests included, in every shop whose chat you can see; a conversation from another shop carries that shop's code. Click one to read it.

Every conversation is given a one-line summary and a topic from a fixed list - where is my order, missing or damaged, return or refund and so on - so you know what the customer wanted before you answer, and the reports can count it.

Guests who are really customers

Many guests are customers who are simply not logged in. Every guest message is checked against the same shop: the email they gave, an order number they wrote, the number they write from. When something matches, the row says Probably and the customer's name, and the side panel shows what it went on, marked not verified.

It is a suggestion and you decide. Anybody can type somebody else's email, and a linked conversation puts that customer's orders in front of you. Confirm links the conversation; Not them removes the suggestion for good. A customer of a sister shop, or somebody on the same company domain, is shown as a hint that cannot be confirmed.

When nothing matches, Find account looks the customer up for you: by the number on WhatsApp, by the email otherwise. If that finds nobody, search the shop's customers by name, reference or email and pick the right one. Unlink customer undoes a wrong link.

When nothing identifies a guest who writes like an existing customer, they are asked once, automatically, for the email on their account or an order number. This happens on the website and WhatsApp, never by email.

One WhatsApp contact, two conversations

A WhatsApp contact has one conversation per shop. A binned conversation comes back when the contact writes again, instead of a new one starting beside it. When an older second conversation of the same number is still there, the side panel says This contact has another conversation in this shop; Merge into this one moves all its messages, notes, tickets and tasks into the conversation you have open and bins the other one. The same number writing to two shops is two real conversations, because each shop writes from its own WhatsApp number: those are never merged, and both show in the Chats tab.

Automatic replies

Some messages go out without anybody writing them, and they show in the conversation as grey notes. When the shop is closed, the customer is told when it opens again. If they are reporting a problem with goods, they are also asked for the details you will need, such as the order number, photos, and the products and quantities. Outside working hours, an AI answer can also go out on its own for a question the AI has learned to answer well.

These replies are not turned off when one goes wrong: they are how we learn what works. Under each note is Wrong?. Click it, write why it was wrong (for example, "the customer had already given the products and quantities") and press Mark as wrong. The reason is required, because it is what we use to correct the replies. A wrong AI answer also stops AI answers on that kind of question for the shop going out on their own for a while. Marking a closing-time reply or a request for details as wrong does not stop it: it goes on being sent until it is corrected.

Noise

A stranger's first email or WhatsApp message is checked as it arrives, so an automatic report, an out-of-office or a supplier circular is not counted as somebody waiting. A known customer is never checked and nothing is deleted. What is certain - no-reply senders, bounces, mail sent to a list - is put aside into Ignored or Spam, marked as automatic with the reason, and comes back with one click. What is only likely stays in the queue with a Possible noise label. Voicemail notices always stay: that is somebody who rang.

When you put a conversation aside yourself, Ignore as asks for the reason from a short list. Report spam on an email also blocks that sender for the mailbox. Ignore, Spam and Create Ticket belong to whoever holds the conversation; supervisors keep the override.

Phone calls

The phone button at the top of the inbox logs a call. Press Start Phone Call when you pick up: a timer runs, your colleagues see you are on a call, and no new conversation is handed to you until it ends.

When you hang up, choose the shop, say whether you spoke to a Customer or a Guest, and write what came out of it: what was asked, what you agreed, what happens next. The call cannot be filed without that, because it is what the next agent reads. End call files the notes on the customer's conversation and in Phone calls. Cancel call throws it away and keeps nothing.

A call left running closes on its own after an hour, with a warning ten minutes before. Only a call you ended yourself counts as time on the phone. Call notes are read by the people who work that shop and by those who oversee it. The full guide is Taking a phone call.

When it needs more than a conversation

  • A ticket. ⋮ → Create Ticket carries the customer, the shop and the conversation with it, and can hold the chat open until the work is done. See Raising a ticket from a chat.
  • A task for a colleague. When another department has to do something, ask them with a task rather than a message that scrolls away. See Asking a colleague for something.
  • Share to Slack sends the conversation, or one message, to a colleague who is there.

Ending well

End chat closes the conversation and tells the customer; Reopen picks it up where it stopped. A conversation with a blocking ticket cannot be closed until that ticket is settled. Nothing is ever deleted: a closed conversation stays on the customer's record.

A conversation can also end without you. If the ticket was raised with Let the developer close this chat ticked, then whoever settles that ticket has their closing note sent to the customer here, signed off as a developer, and the conversation closes. On WhatsApp, where a message can only be sent within a day of the customer's last one, a conversation settled later is closed in silence and the ticket says the customer could not be told.

Reports

Chat → Reports counts the three channels side by side over the period you choose. A conversation is one the customer actually wrote in; a widget somebody opened and left is not counted. It shows what was started, answered and is still open, the time to first reply measured against the hours each agent actually works, a table per agent and per shop, what customers wanted by topic, a year of satisfaction, how often guest suggestions were confirmed or turned down, and how often a noise verdict was reversed.

Because reply time is measured against working hours, each agent's hours in their employee record need to be right.

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