How do you set up live chat on your website?
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Chat is the most accessible channel for customers and the most demanding in terms of staffing. Here is the setup and the decisions that need to be made first.
- 6 steps
- Total time: 1 h 45 min
- Preparation: 1 h
- Result: Operational chat with sustainable staffing
Required tools
- Dynamics 365 Contact Center — With access to channel setup.
- Staffing clarified — Who responds, and during which time periods.
Clarify before you open
1.Set the opening hours and decide what happens outside them
An unanswered chat is worse than no chat at all. Set opening hours that match your staffing levels, and have the widget offer a form outside those hours.
2.Choose which pages the chat should appear on
Put it where people actually have questions—pricing, support, contact. Chat on the homepage generates the most volume and the least relevance.
Set up and test
3.Configure the channel and widget
Set up the chat workflow, customize its appearance, and add a welcome message explaining what the chat can help with.
4.Connect to queue and routing
The chat must be routed to a queue with agents who have capacity. Otherwise, the conversation will go unnoticed, and the customer will only see that no one is responding.
5.Set capacity per agent
Decide how many concurrent chats an agent should handle. Two is a reasonable starting point for most agents.
6.Test the entire journey as a customer
Open the website in a private window and start a conversation. Check the wait time, that it is assigned to the correct agent, and what happens outside opening hours.
Discussion
Ask a question or share what helped you.
