This article refers to functionality available to clients using release 26.x
As an Admin, you can define categories that agents can attach to conversations. These categories can be used to define the types of issues the team is dealing with on a day to day basis.
Optionally, you can make category use mandatory. This setting is determined at the queue level (see below).
Outcomes and categories
Outcomes and categories both allow you to agents to apply labels to a conversation, but they do so with different purposes:
- A conversation can only have one outcome, recorded at the end.
- The outcome determines the result of that conversation for reporting purposes, and can affect what happens to the contact. You might use an outcome to send a webchat customer back to a chatbot, for example.
- An agent can apply multiple categories to different messages in the conversation. They can be applied and updated at any point of the conversation.
- Categories help summarise the story of the conversation when an agent reviews it in the contact's history.
In your Admin account:
- Go to the Settings page,
- Go to the Categories subpage.
Creating categories
- To add a new category, click the Add category link at the bottom of the page.
- Type a Display name. This will be seen by the agent, so choose something that explains the purpose of the category.
- The Internal name will automatically be completed. This identifier is used by the database and is not shown to agents. It must be unique.
- Optionally, you can associate a category with an Office. If you wish to do so, click the drop-down list and select the appropriate option. This category will only be visible to users who can access this office, this means that Team Leaders with access restricted to certain offices would not see this category.
Adding tags
For each category, you can define a number of tags that the agent can select to refine the category choice. For example you may define a category to be "Hardware problem" and allow agents to choose tags for "Battery", "Screen" or "Keypad" to further refine the type of Hardware problem.
- If you want agents to be able to select more than one tag for this category, click to tick the Allow multiselect checkbox.
- To add a tag to a category, click the Add tag link at the end of that category's details.
- Type the Tag's display name. This is what the agent will see, so choose a name which explains the purpose of the tag.
- The Tag's internal name will automatically be completed. This will not be shown to agents, only used by the database. The tag's internal name must be unique.
- Optionally, you can associate a note template type with this tag. Click the Message template drop-down list and select the relevant message template. This will only show templates of the Note type.
Save changes
- Once you have finished creating categories and tags, remember to click the Save button in the top right to save your changes.
Editing Internal names
The Internal name for both categories and tags must be unique. They are automatically generated to maintain that uniqueness, but the fields are editable. This means you can add your own text, though be sure to keep the tags unique.
Because you choose categories to use per queue, you might have:
- Hardware category with a Battery tag that you use for calls.
- Hardware category with a Battery tag that you use for messages.
In reports, both would have the same name, “Battery”, but if you want to see which is which, you could add the channel to the Tag’s internal name. “Calls_93f8c663-8431-4e32” will be easier to identify as having been selected during a call, than the default string.
Remember, the tag must still be unique!
Deleting tags and categories
To delete a tag that you have created:
- Click the
icon to the right of the tag.
To delete a category you have created:
- Click the
icon to the right of the category's heading. Note that deleting a category also deletes all tags under that category.
Remember to click the Save button in the top right to save your changes.
Making categories mandatory
Optionally, you can make categorisation mandatory. Doing so will mean that agents need to apply a category for every message in a conversation. This is especially useful for highly process-driven interactions, making sure that a customer passes through each necessary part of the process before the conversation ends.
Before making categories mandatory, make sure that you have created categories which cover all possible scenarios, so agents will always know which category to select.
To make categorisation mandatory for a particular queue, in your Admin account:
- Go to the Inbound page.
- Go to the Queues subpage.
- If necessary, search for the queue to update.
- Click the Edit button
.
- Go to the Categories section.
- Click to tick the checkbox Require agents to tag/categorize all messages before closing a case.
- Make any other changes you need to the queue setting, if any.
- Click the Save button.