Understanding Chat Agent Statuses

Our live chat service provides various statuses for chat agents to indicate their unavailability or engagement in other tasks.

When an operator selects a status, it is logged and timestamped. For instance, if a chat agent chooses the ‘Generic Suspend’ status from 1pm to 1:15pm, this status transition is recorded. These status updates are valuable data points for future reporting, enabling the monitoring of chat agent activity.

Why do chat agents with a “Suspend” status still see chats in the queue?
When a chat agent selects a status other than “Online”, such as “Generic Suspend”, “Lunch” or “Meeting”, it doesn't prevent them from seeing incoming live chats in the queue or receiving chat notifications. Opting for a status like 'Generic Suspend” only grants them the discretion to choose whether to respond to the chat. Conversely, when a chat agent's status is set as “Online” it signifies their obligation to handle incoming live chats. Even after choosing the 'Generic Suspend' status, agents can still observe incoming chats in the queue because the system queues chats for all logged-in agents, regardless of their status—whether they're suspended or actively available—provided other agents remain logged in and accessible.