A chat reaches a person in one of two ways. Someone assigns it by hand, or the bot hands it over and it waits in a queue. A team’s queue can share chats out automatically, or leave them for agents to take with Take next.
Why it exists
Section titled “Why it exists”When several people answer one WhatsApp number, two things often go wrong: a customer gets two answers, or none. Assignment makes one person responsible for each chat. Queues and teams make sure the chat reaches someone who can help, such as your Wholesale team for a bulk order.
How it works in Soosh
Section titled “How it works in Soosh”Assigning by hand. An owner, admin or manager can give a chat to one person with Assign to agent. It shows in that person’s Mine tab and stays theirs until someone changes it. That person has taken the chat over: the bot and the AI stay quiet in it, and it shows With agents, until someone unassigns it, closes or reopens it, or clicks Resume bot. A chat your own system assigns with an API key is taken over the same way. A chat that only keeps its agent because of Assign to same agent isn’t: once its handover ends, the bot answers again.
Handing over. A chat goes to the queue when a keyword reply, a bot flow or the AI hands it to people, or when a member clicks Transfer to agent. If the bot is off, every new chat goes to the queue. The bot stays quiet in a handed-over chat, which shows With agents, until someone clicks Resume bot. Outside your business hours, the bot, flows and AI don’t queue the chat; the customer gets your out of hours message instead.
Queues. A keyword reply and Transfer to agent use the general queue. A bot flow and the AI use the team you chose, or the general queue. In the general queue, chats always wait for someone to take them.
How a team shares chats. Each team has an Assignment strategy:
- Round robin: the chat goes to the agent who got one longest ago.
- Load balanced: the chat goes to the agent with the fewest handed-over chats still open.
- Manual queue: nobody gets it automatically. It waits in the team’s queue.
Only people added to a team as Agent get chats automatically, not its managers. Soosh skips anyone whose status is Away, but it doesn’t check whether they’re signed in. If no agent is available, the chat waits in the team’s queue.
Taking the next chat. Take next in Inbox > Chats (opens Soosh in a new tab) gives you the chat that has waited longest, from the queues you can see. Two people can never take the same chat.
Going away. When an agent sets their status to Away, their handed-over chats go back to the queue, and they get no new ones until they’re Available again.
The same agent again. With Assign to same agent on (it is unless you change it), a customer who already has an assigned agent goes straight back to them, if they’re available. This applies to keyword replies and Transfer to agent.
Who sees what
Section titled “Who sees what”- In the inbox, the built-in roles (owner, admin, manager and agent) see every chat. A custom role that can’t view contacts sees only chats assigned or handed to that person.
- On the Queue page, owners, admins and managers see every queue. They hold the queue Manage permission. They can take a chat from any queue, whatever the pickup setting, and move a waiting chat to someone else.
- Agents see the chats handed to them, their teams’ queues and the general queue. They can only take a chat for themselves, and only when Allow agents to pick from queue is on. You find it under Human agents in Settings > Bot settings (opens Soosh in a new tab).
- A custom role works like an agent, unless it has the queue Manage permission. Taking chats also needs the queue Take from the queue permission.
See Roles and permissions for how roles work.
Choosing a strategy
Section titled “Choosing a strategy”Round robin is fair and fast: everyone gets the same share. But it ignores how busy someone is, and can give a chat to someone who left their status on Available and went home.
Load balanced evens out the work in hand. It counts a chat as open until someone clicks Resume bot, so it works best when agents do that as they finish.
Manual queue lets agents take a chat when they’re ready, so nobody gets one they can’t handle right now. The risk is that chats wait if nobody looks. Response time rules under Response times in Settings > Bot settings (opens Soosh in a new tab) mark waiting chats At risk or SLA breached in the queue.
No teams at all is the simplest start for 2 or 3 people. Everything goes to the general queue and agents take turns with Take next.