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Chat Routing Between Agents and Bots on the Chat Platform

Inquiries coming into the system can be handled by either agents or bots. The logic of chat distribution between agents is detailed in the article about chat distribution algorithms. Despite the fact that every bot created is always linked to an agent's account, which is recommended to be created separately for each bot (see the article about Adding a bot), there are certain peculiarities affecting the distribution of a chat to either a bot or a "live" agent.

According to the system logic, inquiries are routed only to those bots and agents who are in the required status for this.

A bot's status is changed on the bot editing page by an administrator, while an agent changes their status manually or can be switched to another status automatically under certain circumstances (specifically, from Online to Invisible due to inactivity over a certain period).

For correct routing of inquiries between bots and agents, the following recommendations are advised when creating and setting up bots:

  • A separate agent account should be allocated for the bot when it is created, which live agents will not use.
  • When connecting multiple bots, it's recommended to put them in different departments due to peculiarities in chat routing between multiple bots.
  • To enable a bot to handle inquiries, set its status to Online or Invisible; if you want the bot to stop handling inquiries completely, switch it to Offline status.

Routing of New Inquiries

If there are bots and live agents in the department ready to handle inquiries, a new inquiry is always routed to a bot regardless of its workload. Below is a matrix describing chat distribution under various combinations of agent and bot statuses, without considering their distribution by departments (i.e., with the presence of live agents and bots in one department or without departments).

Statuses Agent Online Agent Invisible and other Agent Offline
Bot Online Chat will be assigned to the bot. Chat will be assigned to the bot. Chat will be assigned to the bot.
Bot Invisible Chat will be assigned to the bot. Chat will be assigned to the bot. Chat will be assigned to the bot.
Bot Offline Chat will be assigned to the agent. Chat won't be distributed (will be considered an offline inquiry. Chat won't be distributed (will be considered an offline inquiry.

If it's necessary for inquiries to only be routed to live agents, the bot should be switched to Offline status.

Chat Routing with Multiple Bots

As evident from the matrix above, if a bot is not in Offline status, it always takes all chats corresponding to its department.

In the case where a chat could potentially be assigned to several bots (for example, when there are multiple bots in the department in Online and/or Invisible statuses), the following factors will influence chat routing between them:

  • The sorting order of the bot, which is set during bot addition/editing: the lower the number specified for the bot, the higher its priority. Consequently, all chats will be routed to the bot with the highest priority.

  • If the bot with the priority sorting order value is unresponsive or generates an error, chats will be routed to the next bot in the sorting order that is in the Online or Invisible status.

If the department selection option is enabled for visitors, and there are multiple Online or Invisible bots, provided they are in different departments, the chat is routed to the bot that is in the department chosen by the visitor.

It's recommended not to add multiple bots to one department so that there is no more than one bot per department.

Re-routing of Inquiries

The aforementioned priority of bots in taking chats applies only to cases when a chat is assigned to a bot for the first time.

If a chat was assigned to a bot and then trasfered and subsequently ended up back in the general queue, the chat will not be reassigned to a bot.

Also, when redirecting a chat to a department, even if there are bots in that department ready to handle inquiries, the chat will be assigned to a live agent, not a bot. A chat can be reassigned to a bot only intentionally (i.e., directly to the agent to whom the bot is attached).

General Scheme of Routing Inquiries Between Departments and Bots

The routing principles described above are illustrated in the diagram.