Chat with customers right from Slack
Here’s a video walkthrough to help you understand Slack escalations. Keep reading for more helpful information!
Your team will receive escalations if a user asks to speak with an agent, or if the bot isn’t confident in its response to a user’s question. Escalations will be assigned to you based on your availability and chat load.
Availability
To ensure that you’re available in Slack, look for a green dot next to your profile picture.
If the dot isn’t green, click on your profile picture and select “Set yourself as active.”
Now you’re ready to start receiving escalations!
Notifications
When a chat is assigned to you, you’ll be notified via your Slackbot. By default, you’ll hear a sound and see a pop-up in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
If you’d like to adjust these settings, click your profile picture and select Preferences.
Accepting an Escalation
When an escalation is assigned to you, you’re given the options to accept or ignore it. You’ll want to accept as soon as possible in order to provide the best customer experience.
Once you accept an escalation, the user is informed that they’re chatting with you (see Slack Agent Profile for a visual) and a Slack room is automatically generated for you to chat with them in.
Click on the link to room, which usually starts with #swivl_user_ to be taken there.
In the room, you’ll see a transcript of all of the user’s past interactions with both the bot and humans.
Replies that you send in Slack will be sent right to the user in the chatbot.
Ignoring an Escalation
If for some reason you need to deny a chat and press ignore, the conversation will be assigned to the next agent. You’ll want to avoid doing this though as it will be reflected as an ignored chat in your agent stats. Also, if you’re the last agent in the chain, the bot will have to inform the customer that no one is available to chat with them at this time. We want to avoid this as best we can during business hours.
Missing an Escalation
If you go so many seconds without accepting or ignoring a chat, it will timeout. This time limit is set by your manager and usually ranges from 30 to 60 seconds. If a chat times out on you, it will be reflected as a missed chat in your agent stats and be assigned to the next agent.
Ending the Conversation
When you’re finished assisting the user, type backslash end-takover, choose that option from the menu, and send the message. The channel will be archived and the bot will takeover with the customer again.
You can also scroll to the top of the channel and click the End Takeover button.