Customers want to contact companies around the clock. They decide what moment suits them best. When 24/7 customer support is not an option, a seamless way to connect after hours will do the job. That’s where asynchronous communication comes in.
Switch your chat widget availability to Always to keep conversations with customers in the Chats section of the LiveChat Agent App. Save the ticketing system for more complex cases to optimize your team’s workflow.
The benefits of enabling asynchronous communication
1. Better user experience
Customers can contact you when there are no agents available. They can type straight in the chat widget, having the same user experience they would have if the chat widget was online.
2. More chances that customers will reach out
Asynchronous communication gives visitors the freedom to choose what information and data they share, and when. This is one of the reasons customers choose chatting over other forms of contact.
With the lack of complicated contact forms, more visitors will feel encouraged to reach out when you’re away. This means you’re not missing out on potential customers, and your existing customers don’t leave your website unsatisfied.
3. The whole conversation in the chat history
When you reply, customers get notified via email. They can reply from their email box or get back to the chat widget, and see whether agents are back online. The whole conversation stays in the chat history, for both you and the customer.
4. Everything in one place in Agent App
All the chats that came when you were away will be waiting in the new Unassigned chats section in Agent App. When you’re back, you can reply in your own time, without going through the process of changing tickets’ statuses and jumping between different sections in LiveChat.
5. Reconnect from Archives
With asynchronous communication, you can reply to chats from Archives. And not only the chats that started when you were offline, but all the chats.
If the internet goes down during a conversation, you can quickly reopen the chat from Archives and carry on. No need to wait for the visitor to get back to you.
You can also reconnect with customers to let them know about products being back in stock, ask post-purchase questions, or offer products similar to the ones they bought before. The possibilities are endless.
Learn more about asynchronous communication here.
How HelpDesk tickets fit in
The HelpDesk ticketing system is a great way to handle more complex cases. However, without asynchronous chat, your Tickets section could fill up with simple questions and queries your customers left when you were offline. Now, you can easily handle these in the Chats section, and make the most of the ticketing system and its strengths.
1. Create tickets for complex queries
In the Agent App, you can still create tickets either straight from a chat conversation or in the Tickets section. It’s worth doing when dealing with complicated queries that require different departments or employees that are not available right away. You don’t need to keep your customers on hold. Create a ticket and get back to them when you have your response.
2. Manage your workflow more easily with ticket statuses
When you handle complex cases, ticket statuses come in handy. Easily keep track of the whole process, seeing which tickets are still waiting for your response and which ones are awaiting a response from customers. Then mark tickets as solved when everything is done. Nothing gets lost when solving a ticket requires some back and forth.
3. Handle support emails in one place in LiveChat
Some customers will still prefer to contact you via email. In that case, you can automatically forward emails from chosen email boxes to HelpDesk, and keep all support communication in one place. Learn how to do it here.
Learn more about HelpDesk tickets here.
The chat widget when you’re away
Now, let’s take a look at how the chat widget works when you’re offline. This depends on your settings, so we’ll look at a few different configurations.
Option 1: the chat widget is always online
When the chat widget availability is set to always, customers can message you in the chat widget, as they would do if your team was online. You can handle all the chats from the Chats section in Agent App, and there’s no need to jump between different tabs.
The appearance of the chat window depends on whether you’re using pre-chat surveys or not.
Pre-chat survey is off
Customers can start writing straight away. They’ll see a bar with a message saying that you will reply when you’re back online. You can set this up in Settings > Chat widget > Language > Offline info. If you don’t have their email address, they will be asked to provide it if they want to get an email notification about your response.
Pre-chat survey is on
If you’re using pre-chat surveys, the visitor will be asked to fill one out before they start a chat. Notifications about your response will go to the provided email address.
Option 2: the chat widget is only available when agents are online
Ticket form is on
If you’re not using asynchronous chat, you can decide to show a ticket form in the chat widget. To do so, go to Settings > Chat surveys & forms > Ticket form. Here you can configure the form by adding and editing the fields you need. All the messages left by customers via a ticket form will be stored in the Tickets section.
Ticket form is off
It’s your choice whether to let customers message you when your team is offline. If you disable ticket forms, the minimized chat widget will not show up at all, unless you enabled customers to see their chat history. In this case, the minimized chat widget will be visible, and the maximized chat widget will show the offline message. You can set this up in Settings > Chat widget > Language > Offline info.
Notifications
Asynchronous chat
To make sure your inbox doesn’t burn, we’ll send only one email notification about the first message that comes when you’re away. This notification will be sent to all agents in the relevant group. Until an agent logs in to LiveChat and responds to all the Unassigned chats, no more notifications will be sent. When the Unassigned chats section is empty again, and no agents are online, the new incoming message will trigger another notification.
Tickets
Agents can set up email notifications about incoming tickets in the Team section in Agent App. To do so, find an agent on the list, click on the Edit button (pencil icon in the top right corner), tick the New Ticket emails option in the Mailing section, and save changes.
Test and optimize
The best way to choose what works best for you is to experiment. See how different options affect your support, sales, and marketing, and choose the most convenient and effective setup for your business.