Current behavior:
When a conversation is initiated in LiveChat and no agents are available (outside working hours), the chat is automatically closed. Once this happens, the conversation can only be continued via email.
Expected / desired behavior:
We understand this is the expected behavior today, however, we’d like to have more control over how conversations started outside working hours are handled.
Ideally, we would like:
- The ability to keep the LiveChat conversation available even if no agents are online, or
- The ability to reopen closed LiveChat conversations once agents are back online.
Business impact:
Automatically closing chats outside working hours breaks conversation continuity and limits our ability to follow up with customers through LiveChat, which negatively impacts the customer experience and internal workflows as they’re usually expecting a response on the LiveChat, and changing to Email channel is annoying for many of them.
Benefit:
This improvement would allow teams to maintain context, respond through the preferred channel, and provide a more seamless support experience for customers who reach out outside business hours.