Engage Voice | Managing cases
All messages allow you to manage your messages by grouping them into folders so you can easily look up, respond, and organize messages from customers. Customers can send multiple messages that can’t be managed in just one folder, so it is common for admins to create custom folders to store your messages.
In addition, you can easily look up a message by manually scanning through each categorized mailbox folder or by using the search function and advanced search filters. Using All messages, agents can easily engage with customers, sort messages, and perform other action items to organize messages and resolve awaiting cases.
Lastly, to better manage and organize messages, agents are equipped with action items to perform tasks such as categorizing messages, transferring messages to another agent, and more. We will discuss how to use these features later on.
Now let’s take a look at how it all works and discuss the key elements of the Omni-channel Agent digital platform that deal with how messages come into your contact center.
Channels
Channels are the various digital messaging and social media channels that can be managed within the platform that are associated with an account. You can choose to receive messages from a number of channels, including web chat and chat bots, email, SMS, in-app messaging like WhatsApp, and various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
In addition, the platform also supports email channels. A customer can send an email and the agents can reply back with the name of the company. We even support review platforms, let’s say, a customer leaves a review on your Facebook page, an agent can reply to the customer’s feedback immediately.
Mailbox folders
The mailbox folders in All messages are where incoming messages are stored. A message will be redirected to its assigned folder when a customer sends a message to your contact center.
When you navigate to All messages, you will see the mailbox folders in the left panel and the message thread at far right. Your admin can customize your mailbox folders according to your contact center’s needs, allowing agents to categorize messages easily. For example, your admin can configure your mailbox folder so all new incoming messages get stored under the New messages folder.
Searching for messages
The search function allows agents to search for message threads according to search criteria such as content, categories, or dates. Similar to an email inbox, agents can look up a message using the search function or by looking through the mailbox folders individually. In addition, agents are provided with a search assistant that is capable of performing an advanced search.
The search bar is located at the top of your mailbox folders in the left panel. To look up a message, simply type in a keyword inside the search bar and press enter on your keyboard. The search result that matches the criteria will populate under the search folder.
You can also use the filter option in the search bar, otherwise known as the search assistant, to filter messages from specific agents or customer identities. This feature is useful when you want to identify particular messages when there have been multiple agent responses sent to the same customer.
Search assistant in All messages
To use the search assistant, select the triangular icon to the right of the search bar to open the Search assistant modal window. Here, you can filter the search result of the messages based on conditions that you can enter in the search criteria fields.
You’ll find the following search filters when using the search assistant:
- Text: Search for specific keywords.
- Status in: Search by the status of the message. Options include Agent message, Agent reply, Assigned, Ignored, New, and Replied.
- Channel: Search by the source(s) or digital channel from which the messages came.
- Approval required: Choose whether you want to search for messages that require supervisor approval (Yes) or not (No) before a message is sent.
- Categorized: Search for a message by a specific category. If Yes is selected, you can use the following category search filters:
- Categorized in: Select one or more categories the message belongs to.
- Also categorized in: Select another category the message belongs to.
- Not categorized in: Select one or more categories the message doesn’t belong to.
- Assigned: Choose whether to filter the search by cases (Yes) or not (No). If activated, you can use the following category search filters:
- Assigned to: Select which agent the message is assigned to.
- Assigned to team: Select which team the message is assigned to.
- Status: Select the message workflow status. Options include Open, Active, Deferred, or Closed.
- Last content of the thread after: Displays the threads whose content was first posted after the date specified in the date field.
- Last content of the thread before: Displays the threads whose last post was posted before the date specified in the date field.
- First content of the thread after: Displays the threads whose first content was posted after the date specified in the date field.
- First content of the thread before: Displays the threads whose first content was posted before the date specified in the date field.
- Satisfaction: Choose to filter messages by if the message resulted in customer satisfaction (Yes) or not (No).
Message action items in All messages
Message action items can be used to respond to customer messages, transfer messages, edit replies, and more. It’s important to be familiar with these action items so you can respond to customers and categorize their messages efficiently. The options below may or may not be available for you depending on how your admin configures your access.
To access the action items, simply hover your mouse over the message in the message thread panel at far right and the action items will appear at the bottom of the message. You can hover over the top bar of the right panel under your agent initials to reveal action items for the entire conversation.
The following list includes some of the action items and their definitions that might be available to you:
- Engage: Indicated by a rightward arrow and square icon, this allows you to reply to a message. This action will reopen cases that are already closed or solved.
- Reply: Indicated by a leftward arrow icon, this allows you to reply to an email message. Once clicked, the Reply window for the email will open. Please note that this action item is only applicable to email responses.
- Ignore: Indicated by an archive icon, this ignores all future messages in the same message thread.
- Mute: Indicated by a speaker and x mark icon, this mutes all future messages in the same message thread.
- Approve: Approves a message before sending it to the customer which only applies to messages that require supervisor approval.
- Edit: Allows you to edit sent messages in the message thread window.
- Categorize thread: Indicated by a tag icon, this allows you to categorize the message and move to a different folder. Once clicked, the Categorize window will pop up where you can select a category.
- Cancel case: Cancels cases if no action is required.
- Defer: Indicated by a clock icon, this delays a response to a message for a specified time. You can select a time delay or a specific date from the Defer dropdown menu.
- Assign: Assigns the case to another agent.
- Reassign: Reassigns the case to another agent.
- Transfer: Indicated by a rightward icon, this transfers the case to another team or agent.
- Solve: Indicated by a check mark icon, this marks the case as solved.
- View audit log: Indicated by a notepad icon, this opens the Audit log window, which displays all messages and activity for all cases.
- Lock thread: Indicated by a lock icon, this will close and lock the message thread. Please note that you can’t reply to a locked thread.
- Unlock thread: Indicated by a lock icon, this unlocks the message thread.
- Change language: Allows you to switch to a different language setting. Once clicked, the Message language edition window will open up where you can select your preferred language.
- Extra actions: Indicated by a More menu icon, click this to see other action items you can do for a message. Some of the action items enumerated above can be accessed here, depending on how your admin configures your agent permission.
Additional message action items
Some action items for your messages may be unique to some sources and may not be available on others. For example, you might encounter an action item in Twitter that allows you to republish content, but this action may not be available for email responses.
Below are the list of some additional action items you may encounter when managing customer messages:
- Publish: Publishes content on a digital channel.
- Unpublish: Unpublishes content posted on a digital channel.
- Follow: Follows the customer and see their content feed.
- Unfollow: Unfollows the customer.
- Like: Likes the message.
- Unlike: Unlikes a liked message.
- Retweet: Retweets a customer’s tweet.
- Permalink: Redirects you to view the message on its digital channel.
Engaging with a message
Let’s discuss the steps to respond to a customer’s message. Once a customer sends a message, it is routed into a specified folder in the All messages according to your administrator’s routing rules. Before you can reply to a customer’s message, you need to assign that message to yourself by clicking the Engage rightward arrow and square icon.
Follow these steps to engage with a message:
1. Navigate to All messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Select the preferred mailbox folder from the left panel.
3. Click on a message you want to respond to and the message thread will appear in the far right panel.
4. Hover over the message and click the Engage rightward arrow and square icon.
5. Enter your response in the message window.
6. Click Send.
Each message has a status indicating whether it has been processed or not. Once you click the Engage rightward arrow and square icon, the message status changes from New to Assigned. In this way, it prevents other agents from replying to the same message.
Message options
You’ll find the following options under the reply text box next to the Send button when replying to a message:
- Emoji: Indicated by a smiley face icon, this allows you to add an emoji to your replies by selecting one from the pop-up window.
- Attach file: Indicated by a paperclip icon, this allows you to add an attachment by selecting a file from your computer.
- Request approval: Indicated by a person in a circle icon, this allows you to request approval from a supervisor before sending. The request approval icon will grey out once activated.
Replying to an email
An agent can reply to an email in the same way by using the action items. However, for email replies, a separate window will pop-up for you to type in your response.
Follow these steps to reply to an email:
1. Navigate to All Messages view via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Select the desired mailbox folder.
3. Click on the message to which you’d like to reply.
4. Hover over the message and click the Reply leftward arrow button.
5. Fill out the fields as desired (see below for more info).
6. Enter your response in the message window.
7. Click Send.
When replying to an email message, there are a couple of options available to you in the Reply window. Similar to a regular email, a format menu toolbar, which controls text and formatting properties like bullets and numbering, can be accessed at the top of the text box.
At the bottom left of the Reply window, there are a couple of icons you can use in replying to a message:
- Attach file: Indicated by a paperclip icon, this lets you add an attachment by selecting a file from your computer.
- Formatting: Indicated by a slash inside an open angle bracket icon, click this to turn on/off the text format toolbar.
- Reply assistant: Indicated by a feather pen icon, click this to enable the reply assistant, which will appear to the right of the Reply window. The reply assistant allows an agent to reply quickly to a customer with knowledge base replies and similar question replies.
- Preview: Indicated by an eye icon, this allows you to preview the message before sending.
- Request Approval: Indicated by a person icon, this activates the request approval button to allow messages to be approved by a supervisor before sending. The request approval icon is greyed out once activated.
Reply assistant in All messages
The reply assistant allows an agent to respond using knowledge base replies and similar question replies by typing in a keyword. Using the All messages, an agent may type in a keyword in the reply text box, and the pre-formatted message of the knowledge base or similar question reply will autofill in the text box.
The reply assistant is created and configured by your administrator and can be helpful when answering repeated inquiries from customers requiring the same responses. In addition to using the reply assistant in the Reply window, you can also use it by typing text into the message field at the bottom of the message thread. The reply assistant will populate text options you can select from in a pop-up window above the field.
Reassigning a case
An agent can assign or reassign a case to another agent with a specific skill set if needed. For example, the customer needs to speak to a Spanish speaking agent and the agent currently engaged with the chat only speaks English. You can reassign that case to a Spanish-speaking agent. Please note that a supervisor also has the capability of reassigning cases.
To reassign a case to another agent, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to All messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Selected the desired mailbox folder.
3. Click on the message you’d like to reassign.
4. Hover over the message and click the More icon that appears at far right.
5. Select Reassign to open the Reassign case modal window.
6. Select the agent name from the dropdown menu.
7. Click Save.
Solving a case
Solving a case allows you to mark the case complete. An agent must ensure that all the customer’s inquiries and concerns are addressed before marking the message thread as solved. Depending on how it’s configured by your admin, you might be prompted to enter a post-qualification option to mark the case’s outcome.
To solve a case with post-qualification, take these steps:
1. Navigate to All Messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Selected the desired mailbox folder.
3. Click on the message you’d like to solve.
4. Hover over the message and click the Solve checkmark icon to open the Post qualification modal window.
5. Select a category from the dropdown menu.
6. Enter any notes (optional).
7. Click Save.
If no post-qualification is needed, once you click Solve, the message will be closed and a pop-up message with a prompt ‘case complete’ will appear. Please note that if the message thread contains unread messages and you marked it as Solve, it will automatically ignore the unread messages.
Deferring a case
An agent can delay a response to a message for a specified time. Deferring a case can help you reschedule your response to a customer at a later time.
To defer a case via the All messages, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to All messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Selected the desired mailbox folder.
3. Click on the message thread you’d like to defer.
4. Hover over the message and click the Defer clock icon.
5. Select a time or date from the dropdown menu.
If you need to get back to a deferred case, you will need to navigate to the Deferred folder located in the left panel.
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