Live chat routing
Live chat routing that sends each conversation to the right person
Your AI agent answers first. When a visitor needs a person, assignment rules pick the team, and least busy or round robin picks a teammate who is online, on shift and not at their limit. On Pro and Enterprise.
Unassigned chats wait while everyone assumes someone else has them
When every conversation that needs a person lands in one pile, a billing question waits behind a product question, a German visitor gets whoever happens to look first, and the person who is already juggling eight customers gets a ninth. Assigning by hand works until the team grows or the volume spikes. Routing does that first step for you: it reads what is known about the conversation, sends it to the team that handles that kind of request, and gives it to someone who can actually take it now.
Why route conversations instead of assigning them by hand
Routing only decides who a conversation belongs to. The AI agent and the hand-off work exactly as before.
The right team for each request
Rules look at the agent, the channel, the topic, the country, the visitor’s language, the page, a contact attribute or the priority, and send the conversation to the team that handles it.
Fair distribution within the team
Least busy gives the conversation to the available person with the fewest open conversations. Round robin takes turns. Manual leaves it in a team queue for someone to pick up.
Only people who can take it now
Routing assigns only teammates who are online, on shift and below their Max open. Switch to Away for a break, and new conversations go to someone else.
Shifts that follow your hours
Give each team its own timezone, working hours and holidays. Outside them, conversations wait in the team, and visitors can get an automatic note that the team is away.
Nothing is lost while nobody is free
A conversation nobody can take right now waits in its team. When a teammate comes online, up to 10 waiting conversations are routed again, oldest first.
How a conversation is routed
A visitor needs a person
The AI agent hands the conversation over, for example by email or as a live chat request, and it enters the shared Inbox. That is when routing starts.
The rules pick a team
Rules are checked from top to bottom. The first rule that is on and whose conditions all match sends the conversation to its team. If none matches, it goes to your default team, or stays unassigned if you have none.
Shifts are checked
If the team is outside its shifts, the conversation goes to the team unassigned and waits. With Auto-reply outside hours on, the visitor is told once that the team is outside working hours.
The distribution picks a teammate
The rule's distribution, Least busy, Round robin or Manual (team queue), picks someone who is online, can reply on that agent and is below their Max open.
Waiting conversations are picked up
If nobody is available, the conversation waits in the team. When someone on the team switches to Online, the waiting conversations are routed again with the same rules.
Routing details
Up to 10 conditions per rule
All conditions in a rule must match; values within one condition are alternatives, so Country DE, AT, CH matches any of the three. A rule without conditions is a catch-all for the bottom of the list.
Route by visitor language
Send German or French speakers to the team that answers in that language. The language is known when your site passes it with identity verification or the contact has a language attribute.
Route by topic
Topics come from the nightly topic analysis of your conversations, so a topic rule matches conversations that have already been classified. A topic also matches its subtopics.
Assigned stays assigned
A conversation that already has someone assigned keeps them. Routing never moves it to someone else, and anything assigned by hand meanwhile stops waiting in the team.
Shifts with timezones and holidays
Up to 6 time ranges per day, shifts past midnight and up to 100 holidays per team. The hours follow the team’s timezone, including daylight saving time.
Auto-reply outside hours
Write your own message of up to 1,000 characters, or use the built-in one, which is in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish to match the visitor. It is sent at most once per wait.
Test a rule before it goes live
Test this rule checks a rule against one of your 25 most recently active conversations: which conditions match, which rule wins and who would get it now. It shows no messages and changes nothing.
Roles and audit log
The owner and admins create and change teams and rules; editors can be on teams and get conversations; viewers can only look. Every change to teams and rules is in the audit log.
Frequently asked questions
What is live chat routing?
Live chat routing decides which team and which teammate a chat belongs to once it needs a person. In intoCHAT, assignment rules pick a team from what is known about the conversation, and within that team, least busy or round robin picks someone who is online, on shift and below their limit of open conversations.
Does routing decide who answers in the Live chat inbox?
No. Routing assigns the conversation to a team and a teammate in the shared Inbox. The Live chat inbox still shows every waiting chat to everyone who can reply, and whoever clicks Take over first answers it. Routing also doesn’t decide whether live chat is offered: that depends on someone having the Live chat inbox open.
How does round robin chat assignment work?
Round robin gives the conversation to the next available person after the one the team assigned last, in the order people were added to the team. People who are away or at their Max open are skipped. Least busy instead picks whoever has the fewest open conversations.
What happens outside business hours?
With Only assign during shifts on, a conversation that reaches the team outside its hours goes to the team unassigned. The next teammate who is online during a shift picks it up. Hand-off by email keeps working, and with Auto-reply outside hours on, the visitor is told once that the team is away.
When does someone count as online for routing?
Everyone on a team switches between Online and Away at the top of the sidebar. Online lapses after 30 minutes without the dashboard open in a visible tab, so a forgotten tab doesn’t keep getting conversations. Away stays away until you switch back yourself. This is separate from being online for live chat.
Can I limit how many conversations one person gets?
Yes. Each person on a team can have a Max open from 1 to 999, or no limit. Open conversations are the ones assigned to them that are open or pending, plus snoozed ones whose snooze time has passed, across every agent in the account.
Which plan do I need?
Inbox teams and assignment rules are on Pro, with up to 5 teams and 20 rules, and on Enterprise without limits. On Free and Starter nothing is routed. After a downgrade, your teams and rules are kept and can still be edited, but nothing is routed below Pro.
Does routing change how the AI agent hands off?
No. Hand-off by email and live chat work exactly as before, including the hand-off email when nobody is online. Routing only sets which team and which teammate the conversation belongs to once it is with your team.
Send every chat to the person who should answer it
Create your agent free, then set up your teams, shifts and first assignment rule on Pro, and test it against a real conversation before it goes live.
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