Chat outside business hours

When nobody can chat, visitors still reach you. The window shows a short form instead of the chat; their message opens a ticket, and your answer goes to them by email. You decide when the chat counts as live on the chat's Preferences tab, under When the chat is live.

When the chat is live#

Business hours and holidays are the helpdesk's own, set in Settings > Business hours and holidays; see Business hours and holidays.

The top of the Preferences tab tells you the state right now: Live now, or Offline now with the reason (Outside business hours, No agent online or Offline messages only), how many agents are online and whether you are inside business hours.

Who counts as online#

An agent is online while all three are true:

• their status is Available, set from the account menu or in Settings > Agent availability;

• their role can reply: lite agent and above. Observers and bots never count;

• they have the helpdesk open in a browser tab that is in view, or were looking at it in the last two and a half minutes.

Any away status keeps an agent out of the count, whether the plain Away or one of your helpdesk's own, such as "Lunch". A status with a duration ends by itself and the agent counts again. See Agent availability and statuses.

What visitors see when you are offline#

The window says "We are away", and under the greeting it shows your Line while offline. The default line tells visitors that nobody can chat at the moment and that the answer will come by email; rewrite it per language on the Languages tab.

The offline form asks for:

After Send message, the window confirms "Message sent. We will reply by email to …" with the address, and offers to start a new conversation. If the chat goes offline while a visitor is typing their first message, the window switches to the offline form and keeps what they wrote.

No confirmation email goes to the visitor; the message in the window is the confirmation.

To hide the button entirely while you are closed, switch off Show outside business hours. Visitors with a conversation going still see it.

Answering offline messages#

An offline message opens a ticket on the Chat channel. The ticket records that it came through the offline form and which page the visitor was on. Rules and views treat it like any other chat ticket.

Your reply goes by email, from the mailbox chosen under Replies by email > Send from, and the visitor's answer to that email comes back to the same ticket. With no mailbox connected, the ticket arrives but cannot be answered by email; connect one in Settings > Email.

When a visitor leaves mid-conversation#

A live conversation does not end when the visitor closes the tab. If they have not had the chat open on any page of your site for about three minutes and gave an email address, your reply goes to their inbox as well, and the chat window marks it "Also sent by email" for when they come back. The reply box on the ticket tells you which will happen before you send: "The visitor is on the site", or that they left and your reply also goes to their address.

What is not available#

Showing visitors an estimated wait time is not built. Use the Line while live text to set expectations instead, for example "We usually answer within a few minutes."