It is quite common for an agent to start replying to a ticket without knowing that one of them is already working on it. This eventually ends up with customers receiving more than one response to their support ticket. The melee is not just about the responses but also for other related actions like saving a draft, updating a field, leaving a comment and the likes. So it is very important to know how each agent is interacting with the ticket, to stop duplication of effort and to increase agent productivity.
Here comes the agent collision detection system in Zoho Desk, that not only notifies user presence but also lets you know the most recent activities performed on a ticket from the time you started viewing it. The collision alert will display a notification bubble with the number of active agents, when you and someone else are simultaneously viewing a ticket. The notification bubble will glow in red when the system recognizes the presence of another agent on a ticket. Once you click to view the notification, it will turn blue. Typically, collision alerts are of three different kinds namely: user presence monitor, activity tracker and floating alerts.
User Presence Monitor
The user presence monitor will display the pictures of the agents who are active and inactive on a ticket. The active agents are those who are viewing or replying to the ticket while the inactive are those who viewed the ticket, but have navigated away from it. You can hover over the pictures with your mouse to know their user name and the status.
Besides the notification, certain visual cues will tell you how each of the agent is interacting on a ticket. For example, agents outlined in blue are viewing the ticket while those with faded pictures have recently viewed the ticket, but navigated away from it. For the latter, the time at which the agent left the ticket will also be displayed.
Activity Tracker
While you can know the presence of other agents viewing the same ticket as you are, it is difficult to comprehend their actions on it. This lack of information about how the agents are interacting with the ticket will result in duplication of effort or simply no work at all by assuming the other agent will be working on the ticket.
With the activity tracker you can view a live feed of the actions that are performed by the agents who are interacting with the same ticket as you are. When the system detects a collision in a ticket, you will start receiving alerts for anything that got changed in it, until you navigate away from it. You must click the agent collision flag to view the recent activities on a ticket. The unread activities will appear highlighted on a faint blue background, while the read activities will be displayed on a white background.
Floating Alerts
There are certain actions which needs the immediate attention of the agents, when they bump into their peers over a ticket. Such actions are conveyed through the floating alerts. These are small, floating messages that pops-up over the left panel within the ticket detail view. They allow you to easily see and act upon all of the latest information that comes your way. Well, most of the time, that is. By the way, these alerts will disappear after a brief moment of time. These alerts are displayed when an agent:
- looks at the ticket
- leaves the ticket
- drafts a reply
- replied to the ticket
There are a couple of other collision alerts that will appear in the form of prompt-box. For example, you may proceed to reply to a ticket by ignoring an agent who is already drafting a reply for it. So when you click Reply, the system will prompt you that the an agent is already drafting a response and if you would like to reply too. Simultaneously, the other agent will also be prompted that you'd just started to reply to the ticket and if they would like to continue with their draft. Besides these scenarios the prompt-box will be displayed when an agent:
- has deleted the ticket and if you like to restore and stay on the ticket
- has moved the ticket to a different department and if you would like to access it in the new department
In summary, the real-time updates will help you stay on top of the latest state of the tickets and never miss a beat. All this, without losing the changes you've made or the need to refresh a page.
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