HubSpot Ideas

MichelleMcNeill

Automatic switch between live chat and chatbot

We would like to have Live Chat available during work hours and then the Chatbot to automatically kick in outside of work hours but we have been told by Hubspot support that this isn't possible and instead we have to remember each morning and evening to turn one off and switch the other one on.  Being able to program the hours in to each service so they start and finish automatically would be much easier.

11 Replies
ccottam
Participant

I strongly agree. I would really value this feature. Twice a day I have to remember to go switch the buttons. 

jimmyp
Member

I would also love this feature! We have just moved from ZenDesk and this is a big bugbare for us as a team. 

Annemarie_J
Member

It feels like this is the intent in the way Hubspot is designed but it just doesn't quite get there. Definitely keen for this.

There is a workaround using an if/then I think, and just doing it all in one chatflow. From memory, set up a chatbot and then have an if/then to assign the chat to a livechat with someone on the team if they are marked as available. Unfortunately that doesn't work for us with our particular subscription type.

DanielSterley
Member

Totally agree! Just to be able to set a schedule would be enough. Livechat Business Hours and then Chatbot Off-hours. OR Livechat whenever someone is online (even better) and Chatbot when everyone is Off-line.

I dont want to manually change this and it doesnt give the same personal approach to start the conversation with a bot, even if you can create a simple question that leads to an assigned agent after that question.

RaphaelRabe
Member

There definitely needs to be a better way to employ more chatflow setting options to address the following use cases:

 

A) a live chat appears when team members are online / during a specific schedule

B) a chatbot appears up when team members are offline / during a specific schedule

 

This way admins can either schedule the hours they want a live chat vs chatbot to be running, or can run multiple bots at the same time (live and bot) on the same domain and let automation do the work of sorting out which bot to display based on team availability.

 

P.S. team chat availability settings are another item we are looking for an enhancment on from HubSpot. Please upvote that thread here.

jphilbrook
Contributor | Partner

What is odd to me about this is chat HubSpot uses is 1000x better than what we have access to - even in enterprise level. 

YashD7
Participant

Agreed. We need a live chat between 9 to 5 am and a chatbot for non-working hours but there's no way of having the system schedule or switch between chats. 

MKicinova
Member

voting for this idea, as well, we are struggling with this limitation

AHudson13
Member

I vote for this idea as well!

r4star
Member

I know its presented like a feature that doesnt exist, but given the interface - the availability of prioritising chats and setting time of availability for a chat bot.... it seems most like a bug that this feature is not available.

RolandH
Member

We need this feature as well as we are finding that some regions in the world are put off by the Chatbot. We'd like to have a mixed model of live chat when our agents are available and Chatbot when they are not (we offer an element of "self-help" via the bot).