Manage incoming chats according to rules (Chat Rules Engine)

You can use Chat Rules to evaluate incoming chats and route them to departments, move them to a folder, assign them attributes such as category or status, or assign them an urgency to determine which queued chats are assigned first.

A single rule may contain multiple actions, which are applied to every incoming chat before Automatic Distribution could route a chat. When a chat is received, Digital DX runs the rules one by one - in the order that you define - and checks whether the incoming chat matches the criteria defined in the chat rule. If there is a match, the chat is routed according to the actions defined in the rule. Otherwise, Bold360 checks the chat against the next rule that you have defined. When none of the rules match the chat, then Automatic Distribution routes the customer to an agent or department.

Chat routing rules are also applied when the Apply to department transfers (all services) option is enabled on the General Transfer Rules page and chats are routed to a new department.

How does it work?
Important: You must have Account settings > Setup Rules Engines permission to manage your chat rules.
  1. Create or edit a Chat Rule as follows:
    1. In the Web Admin Center, click Channels > Chat > Routing Rules.
    2. On the Routing Rules for Chat page, select an existing rule or click Create New.

    Result: The Edit/New Routing Rule for Chat page is displayed.

  2. Name the rule.

    Rules are displayed in the rules list by Rule Name. Each rule should have a unique name for easy identification.

  3. Set criteria.

    The rules engine compares the properties of incoming chats against the criteria and performs the rule's action when there is a match.

    • Initial Question Contains: Apply the rule to chats with a pre-chat form where the customer input for the Initial Question field contains the defined expressions.
    • Chat Window: Apply the rule to chats originating from the selected custom chat window definition.
    • Website: Apply the rule to chats that originate from a source associated with the selected Website definition.
    • Departments: Apply the rule to chats that originate from a source associated with the selected Department definition.
    • Language: Apply the rule to chats associated with the selected language, as detected from the customer's language settings or as set on the Custom Chat Window (pre-chat form).
    • Mobility. To apply the rule to chats originating from all devices, select both Desktop/Laptop Visitor and Mobile Visitor.
    • Auto Answers: Apply the rule to work items according to the following sub-criteria.
      • First Question Contains: Customer's first question contains the defined expressions
      • Last Question Contains: Customer's last question contains the defined expressions
      • Any Question Contains: Any of the customer's questions contains the defined expressions
      • Shown Canned Message: Message included in the customer's query results
      • Clicked Canned Message: Customer clicked the message
      • Last Clicked Canned Message: Customer clicked the message last
      • Rated Positive Canned Message: Customer rated the message up
      • Rated Negative Canned Message: Customer rated the message down

    Can you select multiple criteria? Yes. Multiple selections within a criterion are evaluated according to OR condition logic, while selections across criteria are evaluated according to AND condition logic. For example, when you select multiple languages, then the routing rule would run on matching any of those languages (OR condition logic). However, when you define a website, a chat window, and a language, then the routing rule would only run on matching all of those criteria (AND condition logic).

  4. To route a chat when criteria are met, choose the following actions:
    • Folder: Send a chat to a specific chat folder.
    • Department: Make the chat available to members of a specific department.
    • Urgency: Route queued chats according to urgency:
      Note:
      • Incoming items with a higher urgency setting will be distributed before those with a lower setting.
      • When urgency is the same for multiple items in the queue, agents will receive the next item from the department for which they have the highest priority.
      • By default, department-level urgency prevails over chat rule urgency
      • No Change indicates the rule will not change the urgency of the item.
    • Difficulty: Affects the concurrent chat limit.
      Note:
      • Chats are assigned the default difficulty factor of 1 when difficulty-based routing is not set.
      • Department-level difficulty prevails over chat rule difficulty.
  5. To assign attributes to a chat when additional criteria are met, choose the following actions:
    • Category
    • Status
    • Custom Field 1 or 2

    Result: These attributes are shown to agents as values in columns on the chat panel. Agents can use the information to make decisions about how to handle or organize chats.

  6. Save the rule.
  7. Continue to create rules.
  8. Drag and drop rules to arrange them in the order they should be evaluated.
    Important: Rules are evaluated in the order they appear in the rules list.
Chat Rules are applied to your entire Digital DX account.

What are best practices for routing rules?

Routing rules are very flexible and are often under-utilized; however, our best practice recommendation is to enable both folders and routing rules. Customers should have a folder for each department and use routing rules to route chats, emails, and messages accordingly.

Workflows with email management rules can be set to auto-respond with canned messages and close the email thread out with the same rule to help provide a faster response to the customer and keeping the queues cleared out for more accurate SLA reporting.

Routing rules help automate actions based on certain conditions. While this is commonly used to assign a work item to a specific department, this can also help set for example category and status labels automatically, which can help reduce the agent's wrap-up handle time.