Out-of-Office and Response Times
Last updated: 23rd May, 2022
Topics covered in this article:
Setting and customising your Out of Office feature
Setting your Live Chat response time message
Out of Office
😴 You can’t be on Chat every hour of the day – set up Out-of-Office to handle those times when you and the team are out living life or getting some shut-eye.
With our Out of Office feature, you can:
- Collect leads from new business enquiries
- Avoid frustrating customers who may be expecting an instant response.
- Direct customers to Self-Help documentation
Your office hours can also be used as a rule for when to send Chat Prompts to your visitors (automated messages).
Enabling Out of Office
Office hours are managed on a per project basis. This means if you have GoSquared installed on lots of different sites, you can manage the office hours for each one separately.
You can find the Out-of-Office options in Settings > Current Project > Assistant
To enable the feature, just switch the toggle to ON.
Setting your Schedule
Your office hours are set using the same timezone that the project is set to. You can check the timezone of the project in Settings > Current Project > General.
Out of Office Behaviour
Out-of-Office can behave differently depending on if a new visitor, or an existing user is trying to chat with you.
For new visitors, you might like to collect their email addresses. That way your Sales team can follow-up when your office re-opens.
For existing customers, you might like to manage their expectations for when they are likely to get a response from your Support team.
Out of Office Behaviour - New Visitors
We don't want to stop people getting in touch, however it isn't helpful for anyone if you can't reply to them (it's unlikely they'll still be online by the time you open again).
When a new visitor attempts to send a message, Assistant will offer them a simple email lead form instead of the regular Live Chat. After submitting the form, they'll be able to use chat as normal. Now that you have their email address, you can still reply even if they go offline. Any messages you send via email will still form part of the chat history.
Customising the Out of Office lead capture form
The Out of Office lead capture form looks very similar to the regular Lead Capture form, but you can customise the text and confirmation message to account for your out of office status.
The lead form greeting is the text that is shown at the top of the form. Use this to let a user know that you are currently closed but if they leave their email address you'll follow up when you open.
After a visitor submits the form, Assistant will open up and display their message. You can also customise an automatic confirmation message that will be sent to acknowledge their message.
Out of Office Behaviour - Returning visitors and existing users
GoSquared maintains one continuous chat history with each user. They can always pick up the conversation where they left off last time – including when you're out-of-office.
We won't ask returning visitors or existing users to leave their email address again, so we they won't be shown a lead form. Instead, we recommend you use the Out-of-Office automatic reply to let users know that you're closed and you'll get back as soon as you can.
You could even provide a handy link to your knowledge base.
Response Times
😤 There's nothing more frustrating for a visitor than sending a message and not knowing how long to wait for a response. Being honest with your users and managing their expectations goes a long way to making a good first impression. Our Response time feature helps you do this.
What are Response Times?
When you have this feature turned on, we'll display an expected response time at the top of the Assistant. You can choose a suggested time or set your own custom message.
Note: Response times are only displayed during your open office hours. Use the Out-of-Office feature to manage expectations when you are closed.
Setting Response Times
You won’t win new customers by keeping people waiting. ⏳ Quicker response times will always delight your users — however, getting back to new leads might be more urgent than replying to existing customers (especially when you already have their contact details).
Therefore we allow you to optionally prioritise leads by setting a faster response time for them.
Response times are set on a per project basis.
Head to Settings > Current Project > Assistant to set your 'Response times' for each project.
Choose between one of 4 presets, or set your own:
- Typically replies in a few minutes
- Typically replies within the hour
- Typically replies in a few hours
- Typically within a day
- Custom value – write your own response time indicator