What is a Queue?
A Queue is simply a shared inbox where new incoming messages (text messages and live chats) route. You can have multiple channels routing to a single queue. When a new message routes to the queue, it is unassigned until one of your designated operators (operator definition below) takes it from the queue. When a user takes a message from a queue, that user becomes the owner of the conversation. Navigate to the queues section by first heading to the gear icon in the bottom left hand side of the screen and then selecting the queues tile.
This view allows you to see all of your queues. Scroll up and down or use the search bar to find the queue you are looking for.
You’ll notice that under each queue title, it shows how many conversations are currently waiting in the queue. Underneath, you will notice how many operators are watching for incoming messages. As you can see, if you have less than 2 operators assigned to a queue, you will see the yellow caution message.
Additionally, you will see what channels route to the queue.
Queue Status, Hours and Auto-Replies
Hit “view details” to adjust the queue status, queue hours and auto-replies.
The default status of your queue defaults “Auto”. This means that the queue is open during the specified hours of operation. Incoming messages that come in after those hours will receive the auto-reply.
For the auto status to work properly, be sure to add the hours you will have operators available and ready to take inbound messages in the queue. Toggling the status to “Open” will mean that the queue is open 24/7 and that operators will be available to answer any inbound messages in a timely manner. Toggling the status to “closed” means that every inbound message will receive the auto-reply. Closing your queue is helpful for holidays where the entire office will be closed and no one will be responding to incoming messages from clients. If you close the queue, make sure that your auto-reply reflects an appropriate message to your customers on when your team will be available to respond. You can also add an open-auto reply by hitting the edit button. An open auto-reply sends a message every time an inbound message comes into the queue. For example, “Thanks for reaching out to Dunder Mifflin. A sales representative will be with you shortly”. Finally, when a message is queued, it comes into your conversation inbox in a green bar. It will then turn yellow and then red as the message sits longer in the queue. The default is 10 minutes for yellow and 60 minutes for red, but you can adjust these to whatever time frame you’d like. To learn more about taking a message from the queue. Scroll to the bottom of this page.Queue Operators
Operators of a queue are assigned by the administrator and can be viewed under the Operators tab of the Queue. Operators are the users responsible for handling incoming messages. An administrator can give preview access to operators of the queue which will allow that user to view the incoming message before taking ownership of it. To remove a user as an operator of the queue, just hit the trash icon. Doing this does not delete the user, just removes them as an operator of the queue. To add additional users as operators, hit the “Add Another Operator” button.
Taking Conversations from the Queue
If you are an operator for to your company’s queue, you have the ability to grab unassigned incoming text messages from the queue. Not seeing new incoming messages? You may not be set up as a queue operator. You can get in touch with your internal Admin or chat with Captivated Support to confirm. When a new incoming text message or live chat is queued, it will show up in a green panel above the conversation list. Click the hand icon in the panel to take the message. You can also view and take a message in the dashboard. Once you’ve grabbed the message from the queue, you can either respond to it yourself or transfer it to the appropriate team member or department using the transfer button in the upper right-hand corner of the conversation window.
Queue Sharing
The sharing tab allows you to specify the teams and individual users who can transfer to this queue. This is helpful for organizations that have multiple departments such as Sales, Service, etc. If a messages comes into the main queue but pertains to a specific department, the user could transfer the message from the main queue to the sales queue so that the operators of that queue can handle the message.