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With one person on support, routing is easy: every conversation is yours. With three, things get messy fast. Two people answer the same visitor. A conversation waits because everyone assumed someone else had it. One person ends the day with twenty chats, another with four.
A few simple rules fix almost all of it.
- Automatic assignment
- A maximum per person
- Status means something
- No stranded chats
- Transfer with a note
- A visible waiting queue
Rule 1: Turn on automatic assignment
Manual picking from a shared queue works until the first busy hour. Automatic assignment sends every new conversation to an online agent straight away. Two common strategies:
- Least load — the agent with the fewest open conversations (relative to their maximum) gets the next one. Good when conversations vary in length.
- Round robin — agents take turns. Simple and predictable.
For most small teams, least load is the better default.
Rule 2: Set a maximum per person
Nobody does their best work juggling eight conversations. Set a maximum number of concurrent chats per agent — five is a sensible start. When everyone is full, new conversations wait in a shared queue until someone frees up, instead of piling onto whoever is online.
Rule 3: Status means something
Only agents marked online should receive new conversations. Make it a team habit: set yourself to away for lunch or a meeting, offline at the end of the day. Routing is only as good as everyone’s status.
Rule 4: Don’t let conversations get stranded
What if someone goes offline with a conversation still open? Use a reclaim rule: if the owner has been offline for, say, ten minutes and the visitor has unread messages, the conversation goes back to the queue for someone else.
Rule 5: Transfer with a note
When a conversation needs someone else — a specialist, a manager, a colleague who speaks the language — transfer it with a private note:
Wants 40 shirts for an event, asked about bulk discount. Quote sent, waiting on sizes.
The visitor sees only that a colleague joined. The next person starts with context instead of “How can I help?”
Rule 6: Make the waiting queue impossible to miss
A conversation that’s been waiting two minutes should look urgent. Agree that whoever sees a red waiting conversation takes it, regardless of whose turn it is.
A simple weekly check
| Question | Look at |
|---|---|
| Is work shared fairly? | Conversations per agent |
| Are we fast enough? | First response time, median |
| Where do hand-offs happen? | Transfers in and out per agent |
| When are we short-handed? | Busy-hours heatmap vs who was online |
The takeaway
Small-team routing isn’t about complex rules. It’s three switches — automatic assignment, a per-person maximum, a reclaim rule — plus the habit of keeping your status honest and leaving a note when you pass something on.
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