Open Channels in Bitrix24 collect enquires from different sources in real time and distribute chat sessions among agents in the queue.
How to create an Open Channel
You can create a new open channel in CRM > Add-ons > Contact center. Select any social network/messenger > click Create Open Channel in the Open Channel preferences section.
An employee needs to have access permissions to configure Open Channels. By default, only the administrator can create and configure Open Channels.
The number of Open Channels which you can create depends on your Bitrix24 plan.
Each type of communication channel can be connected to only one Open Channel. For example, if you have two Telegram channels, you need to have a separate Open Channel for each of these Telegram channels.
All the Open Channels you create are linked to the domain name of your Bitrix24 account. Thus, you need to configure Open Channels again if you change the domain name of your Bitrix24 account.
Then click the Configure button.
Here's a list of available Open Channel settings.
Queue
Agent queue
Here you can select employees that will process messages. You can choose either specific employees or entire departments of the company.
Distribute submissions among employees
Here you can select an enquiry distribution mode:
Evenly - current order of employees involved (added to the queue) is of no sequence; enquiries will be distributed so that all the agents get a similar workload.
Read more about features of the Evenly type of distribution in the article - Open channels: how does the queue work.Exactly as enqueued implies that a current order of employees takes precedence; a new enquiry will be sent to the first available person, and then to the next one in the queue if no response follows.
To everybody - requests will be submitted to all employees in the queue.
Check if this tool is available on your plan. You can find all the information about Bitrix24 plans on the pricing page.
Idle time before forwarding to next agent in queue - specify the time interval from 1 minute to 12 hours.
Check that an agent is online when routing enquiries - if this option is enabled, the system will check if the agent
- is not dismissed,
- is not on leave,
- is online or has clocked in.
Limit simultaneous enquiries submitted to an agent - activate this option to limit conversations per agent. You can also specify which chats should be excluded:
Replied to - excludes enquiries to which an agent replied at least once, closed and pending rating chats.
Waiting for user reaction - excludes enquiries to which an agent replied and is now waiting for reaction. Closed and pending rating chats are also excluded.
Closed - excludes closed and pending rating chats.
Agent information
Specify which information about agent will be displayed:
Use employee user profile - show agents using current information (name and user image) as specified in the user profile.
Use Open Channel entries - shows information provided in the Open Channel settings.
Hide agent information - no user info will be shown.
Verify client in CRM database
Enable chat tracker - Bitrix24 can automatically recognize a customer in the Open channel, unite all dialogs with the client into one profile, and save them to a CRM card.
If client was not found in CRM database, new lead can be created automatically or manually. There is a link in a chat window to create a new lead manually. In this case, a client's full name and message log are added to a new lead.
But if you get a message sent from a Live Chat and the sender hasn't left any contact information and left your website, you cannot contact this client back, hence a new lead is not created.
New lead source - if the Open Channel source is selected, the new lead will specify the source of communication used: Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, etc.
Transfer enquiry to responsible person if client ID is recognized - activate this option and if this client is found in your CRM, the conversation is transferred to an employee that is responsible for this client (even if the employee is not added to the queue).
Auto change lead's responsible person when routing enquiry to another agent manually - activate this option and if you transfer chat to another agent during the conversation, this employee will become a responsible person for this client. If not activated, when the chat is transferred, the one who first accepted the chat will still remain responsible for the client.
Worktime
Here you can customize Open Channel working time: select time zone, business hours, weekends and holidays.
If you get a message from a client, and the system identified that all the users are offline, you can specify the auto reply text.
You can use this option regardless of the usage of the Working Time management tool.
Cookie consent
Activate Send warning about collecting personal data and select a consent form that will be shown to clients or create a new one.
Auto Actions
Activate Send greetings and specify Auto reply text.
You can use CRM form to ask for contact information in the live chat.
Specify the time interval to Mark enquiry as unanswered in, and if no agent could respond to an enquiry, you can reply with the automated text reply or perform no action.
If enquiry is processed and completed - here you can specify the message that will be sent to your clients after the enquiry has been closed.
Also, you can specify Delay until enquiry is completely closed (after it was marked as closed by agent).
When auto-closing an enquiry using Conversation timeout, you can send a message to a client or do nothing.
The dialog can be automatically closed if the client has not responded to the operator's message within the specified time. In this case, you can select the option to send some text to the client or to close the dialog without any action.
Canned response list
In this block, you can select the list of canned responses that will be used in this open channel, as well as create a new list.
Live Typing
Improve your agents' response time and make your customers happy by your immediate response. The agent can see the text a customer is typing which considerably reduces time required to come up with a reply.
Quality Assessment
Close session when client rating is received option allows closing session as soon as a client rates agent performance.
Chat Bots
Activate Assign chat bot when a client enquiry is received option, and all enquires will be assigned to the chat bot first. Then they will be distributed as usual.
You can download chat bots from Bitrix24 Market.
Response time KPI
KPI helps you evaluate the efficiency of a specific employee.
KPI includes:
- Initial response time - specify the time interval between the initial client's message and the agent's response that shouldn't be exceeded.
- Subsequent response time - specify the time interval between the subsequent client's messages and the agent's response that shouldn't be exceeded.
For both of these parameters, you can enable the Send notification if chat messages are overdue option.
Select an employee that will get a notification if chat messages are overdue in this open channel in the Send to field.
You can edit the Notification message. Available macros:
#OPERATOR# - agent name;#DIALOG# - conversation ID with a link.
You can view the agent's KPI in the Conversations section. Just click the cogwheel button and add the following columns:
- Initial response time
- Total response time
- Average response time
- Maximum response time
Other
The Open Channel name is generated automatically, but you can change it. Remember that your clients will see this name in the chat window header.
When connecting the Live Chat, you can specify the Chat title. If the chat title is specified, it will be displayed instead of the open channel name.
Channel is active
This option enables/disables the Open Channel.
Save message log
The message log is saved automatically and can be found in the chat or the corresponding CRM entity form. It's also can be found in Conversations section and is available to the account administrator.
Language preferences
Here you can select the language used in the email messages sent to a client when he/she requests a message log or gets a notification.
Delete this Open Channel
Click Delete to delete this open channel.