Engage Voice | Managing digital interactions
As we discussed in Intro to My messages, the My messages section of the agent interface allows you to check what interactions to prioritize since your messages are grouped together according to their workflow status. Interactions are routed to agents based on how they are configured in the admin interface and according to agent competencies and level of urgency.
When a new interaction is received, it will first route to the folder for a queue, and at that point, the agent will get an alert that there’s a new interaction. When the agent accepts the interaction by clicking on the chat, the message thread will pop up in the middle panel.
Keep in mind that accepting incoming interactions in a timely manner is important. Your administrator may set a time limit for accepting interactions via the admin interface and any missed interaction will affect agent productivity. If set by your administrator, the notification for an awaiting interaction will no longer be visible once an awaiting interaction times out.
If there are inactive messages in the folder for a queue, you will be alerted with a pop-up that the interaction has been inactive. You can declutter the folder by choosing to transfer an interaction to another agent more capable of solving it, or completing the interaction.
You can also use your message action items to perform interactions. It’s important to be familiar with these action items so you can respond to customers and categorize their messages efficiently. Let’s discuss the message action items available for you in My messages.
Message action items
Message action items can be used to respond to customer messages, transfer interactions, edit replies, and more. While some elements of All messages and My messages may differ, some message action items you’ll see in All messages may also be available in My messages.
To access the action items for a message in My messages, simply hover your mouse over the message and the action items will appear to the left of the message.
Let’s review some of the message action items you can access in My messages. The following options may or may not be available to you, depending on how your admin configures your permissions.
- Engage: Indicated by a rightward arrow inside a square icon, this allows you to reply to a message. This will allow you to respond back to cases that are completed and transfers the interaction back to the folder for the queue.
- Recategorize: Indicated by a tag icon, this categorizes messages to a different folder.
- Defer: Indicated by a clock icon, this delays a response to the message for a specified time period.
- Transfer: Indicated by a rightward icon, this transfers the interaction to another team or agent.
- Complete: Indicated by a checkmark icon, this marks the interaction as complete.
- View audit log: Indicated by a notepad icon, this opens the Audit log window, which displays all messages and activity for all cases.
- 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.
- Ignore: Indicated by an archive icon, this ignores all future messages in the same message thread.
- Mute author: Indicated by a speaker and x mark icon, this mutes all future messages in the same message thread.
- Lock thread: Indicated by a lock icon, this will close and lock the message thread. You can’t reply to a locked thread.
- Unlock thread: Indicated by a lock icon, this unlocks the message thread.
- Extra actions: Indicated by a More menu icon, this allows you to see other action items that you can do for a message. Some of the action items discussed above can be accessed here, depending on how it’s configured by your admin.
Accepting a digital interaction
Now let’s discuss how to accept an awaiting interaction in My messages. Before you can reply to a customer message, you need to assign that message to yourself. Once you are alerted about an awaiting interaction in the left pane, you can simply click on the Accept button on the message to accept the interaction.
Alternatively, you can click on the message and it will bring up the New message modal window that details that message’s channel, queue, name of the person who sent the message, date and time, language, as well as skill category. You can either click on Decline to decline the message, or click on Accept to accept the message.
The interaction status will no longer display New Message, and other agents are prevented from working on the same message.
Please note that not accepting a message in a timely manner will cause it to time out. A missed message alert prompt will ask if you’re ready to accept a new message, and the message you missed will either remain in the queue or be routed to another agent. You can access the missed message again by logging in again.
Follow these steps to accept an interaction and respond to a message:
1. Navigate to My messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Under a queue name, click on the pending interaction to display the New message modal window.
3. Click Accept to accept and open the message thread in the right panel.
4. Enter your response in the message window at the bottom.
5. Click Send.
Reply assistant in My messages
The reply assistant allows an agent to reply quickly to a customer with knowledge base replies and similar question replies. Knowledge base replies will contain a list of knowledge base entries configured by your administrator and organized into reply assistant groups. Similar question replies will display a list of previous replies on related subjects.
The reply assistant can be helpful when answering repeated inquiries from customers requiring similar responses. Note that the reply assistant is created and configured by your administrator.
Follow these steps to use the reply assistant in My messages:
1. Navigate to My messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Click on a message to open the message thread in the middle panel.
3. Below the message field at the bottom of the screen, click on the Reply assistant feather pen icon.
4. Insert a keyword in the message field or select a reply from the list.
5. Click Send.
Another way to use the reply assistant is similar to what you can do in All messages. You can simply insert a keyword in the reply text box and the preformatted message autofills for the corresponding reply.
Transferring a digital interaction
An agent can transfer an interaction to another team or agent more capable of solving the interaction. As soon as you accept an awaiting interaction, you have the option to immediately transfer the interaction, so it gets routed to the right agent in a timely manner.
To transfer an interaction, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to My messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Under a queue name, select a message.
3. Hover over the message and click the Transfer rightward arrow icon.
4. Configure the settings as desired (see below for more info).
5. Click Transfer.
The settings you encounter when transferring an interaction is defined below:
- Agents: Transfer directly to another agent.
- Teams: Transfer to another team or the next available agent.
- Categories: Transfer to any agent with the matching categories associated in his or her profile.
- Language: Transfer to any agent with the necessary language in their profile.
- Comment: Leave any agent notes.
- Bypass queue and force assignment to agent: Put an interaction on high priority before transferring to another agent. This is only accessible if you have supervisor access or permission to monitor interactions.
Completing a digital interaction
Completed interactions are cases which have been solved by agents. All completed interactions are nested under the History folder. Please note that if an interaction has unread messages, it will be automatically ignored once you complete the interaction. You must ensure that the interaction is resolved before marking it complete.
To complete a case with post-qualification, take these steps:
1. Navigate to My messages via the left-hand navigation bar.
2. Hover your mouse over a message and click the End message checkmark icon.
3. Enter agent notes in the notes field (optional).
4. In the End message window, select a disposition from the Disposition dropdown field.
5. Click Submit.
If no disposition is needed, once you click Complete, the message will close and a pop-up message with a prompt that says ‘Interaction complete’ will appear.
If in any case you need to get back to a message you already marked complete, you have an option to resume that interaction. To do so, navigate to the History folder, hover your mouse over an interaction, and then click on the Engage rightward arrow inside a square icon.
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