Set users as unavailable for chat

[Hiyakker]

How are we able to set users as unavailable for chat?   It doesn't appear that there is any timeout for users away from their desk so we're showing as available when that is not the case (leading to a poor experience for those users)

I can't see how we can tell who is still showing as available and how to set them as unavailable.  Can someone point me towards this?

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi @Hiyakker

I have to admit that I still find the configuration of the chat settings rather confusing. 

My belief is, though I may be wrong, is that only the individual user can set themselves as away or present. Beyond this, your best bet I think is to get that user to configure their availability calendar to align with their normal hours 

Hope this helps. 

[Hiyakker]

Thanks for the reply @Phil_Vallender .  Our team work flexible hours, so just setting fixed available hours, regardless of whether an agent is available doesn't really work for us.  This might explain why Hubspot are so bad at answering their own livechat though!! 😄  

I can probably reduce the proportion of users that we annoy with hubspot by setting limited hours, but it really seems like a strange ommission of basic functionality for Hubpot to show offline agents as available. Unanswered chats frustrate users and really detract from the idea of a 1:1 human connection, which is supposed to be Hubspot's "thing"

[Jetpiloto]

We are in a similar situation. We're all here during office hours, but not all necessarily at our desks to answer chats that come in.

What I did was list myself as the only person initially assigned to Chats, then create a rule in Outlook to forward the New Chat email to everyone. Whoever is at there desk and available can then take over the Chat. It only results in a brief delay in responding.

It's not a perfect solution, but I haven't found a better one yet.

[zachallen]

We are still struggling with this as well.  We like the idea of the auto-assign of chat sessions, but we have a number of part time employees that definitely struggle with marking their status as Away.  I manage our Support Team and I would like to be able to log a user out if they are out of the office.  Maybe even from the User settings.  Not sure.

[astridel]

I'd like to put in another bid for this feature. It's a really bad experience if a team member forgets to log out and the chat is assigned to them. Also, there's no way to add a message if the team member doesn't respond within 10 minutes or so, which means that the chatbot tells them someone is coming and then ... nothing. 

[JennPape]

The only way around this for now is to actually have the HubSpot admin disable the chat feature for the user who has forgotten to log out.  It's a huge pain and really dumb that there isn't a better option.  

Missing/not responding to an assigned chat after a set period of time (like maybe, 5 min) should automatically mark the user as away.  FIX THIS!

[Hiyakker]

Our work around for this (and the hundred other hubspot issues that irritated us daily) has been to move away from Hubspot to Zoho. Just back to unsubscribe from the thread.  Best of luck to those that stay around.

[Jayme]

It would be great to be able to check to see what your teams status's are. We have a robot that we use overnight when everyone is toggled off. However, there are nights that the BOT doesn't work and it is likely because someone hasn't toggled off. Without knowing who it is you feel like you are beating a dead horse reminding people to toggle off - there is no great way as a manager to follow up and check in on this. 

[zachallen]

Hubspot just released a function in a beta which allows admins to manage user statuses, which is HUGE for our company.  Progress.