Service Channels are where your technical team(s) receive and work the chats that come in from your client channels. This article explains what a service channel is, why you might run more than one, and how to set one up in Microsoft Teams or Slack.
- What a Service Channel Is
- Why You Might Want More Than One
- Where Setup Happens
- Configuring a Service Channel
- What Chat Starter Can and Cannot Do
What a Service Channel Is
A service channel is where your support team picks up and works the live chats that arrive through your client channels.
If a client channel is how a conversation comes in, the service channel is where your techs receive it, get notified, and respond. Service channels are delivered through Microsoft Teams or Slack, so your team handles conversations in the tools they already use. You manage them from the Channels tab, in the Service Channels section.
Why You Might Want More Than One
The Free Chat Starter includes one service channel, ChatAI Professional includes two, and ChatAI Enterprise includes five.
The reason to run more than one, even within the same platform, is dedicated routing. The more service channels you have, the more structured you can make your service experience.
For example, you might point a VIP client's chats at a dedicated priority team and channel so they are handled by the right people right away, while a separate, general catch-all channel takes everyone else. Each service channel can route to its own team, channel, or thread, which lets you shape exactly where different conversations land.
Configuring a Service Channel
Setting up a service channel is similar to a client channel. You can customize:
- Tech anonymity — for example, hiding operator last names so only first names show in live chat.
- Branding — a channel image and primary color, and the option to use the channel image as the operator avatar instead of individual profile photos.
- Name and description — an internal description that is not visible to end users.
- Routing — which team and channel (and thread, in Slack) the chats are delivered to.
Note: This step requires an administrator to set up properly. There are nudges built into the product to help facilitate the setup as you go if you are setting it up and are not an administrator in your Slack/Teams environment.
Where Setup Happens
Service channel setup is handled during the onboarding wizard, as part of standing up your first channel.
You can skip it there if you want. Without a service channel, your techs will not be able to pick up live chats or receive notifications, but your clients can still use their client channels to log tickets via chat to your connected PSA/ticketing system.
In other words, the service channel is what makes it possible for your techs to work live chats; without it, chat still captures tickets, it just cannot be worked live.
Setting Up Teams
When you choose Microsoft Teams, you select your Microsoft Tenant, the Team, and the Channel where chats should land. Granting Teams permissions must be done by a user with Global Administrator permissions to your Microsoft tenant.
Selecting Grant Teams Permission will open a dialog to accept permissions from CloudRadial Chat.
To finish, use Download Teams App to get your manifest, upload it to your Teams Admin Center, and verify the app's availability there. You can then use Sync Operators and Test Connection to confirm everything is working.
Note: The tenant cannot be changed while multiple service channels exist. To update the tenant, you would need to delete all but one service channel first.
What if you lack sufficient permissions to approve CloudRadial Chat?
If you do not have Global Admin rights yourself, expand "Don't have Global Admin rights to your Teams tenant?" and enter a Teams admin email to send the admin consent link and manifest to a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator.
Setting Up Slack
When you choose Slack, adding the bot must be done by a user with workspace admin permissions to your Slack workspace. Only channels the bot has already been added to will appear in the list; for a private channel, a workspace member has to invite the bot before it shows up.
Clicking the Add to Slack option will add the service channel to your Slack workspace.
What if you lack sufficient permissions to approve CloudRadial Chat?
If you do not have workspace admin access, expand "Don't have Slack workspace admin access?" and enter a workspace administrator email to send them an approval link (save the channel first). Then use Add to Slack to complete the connection.
What Chat Starter Can and Cannot Do
Chat Starter includes a single service channel to either Slack or Teams. The core routing works the same, but the operator identity options (hiding operator last names and using the channel image as the operator avatar) are Pro+ features.
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