Join as Supervisor: Step Into a Chat Another Agent Is Handling
3 min read
Join as supervisor lets an administrator or manager step into a live chat that another agent is already handling, without taking the chat away from that agent. The visitor sees you join, you can type to the visitor, and the agent who owns the chat keeps it.
It is a different button from Join Chat:
| Button | What it does | When you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Join Chat | Makes you the agent handling the chat. | The chat is active and no agent has joined it. |
| Join as supervisor | Adds you to the chat next to the owning agent. The owner keeps the chat. | An agent has already joined and the chat is active. |
Join as supervisor exists because two agents answering one visitor as equals leaves nobody sure who owns the conversation. Supervisors join in a clearly separate role, so the owner and the visitor always know who is responsible.
Who can join as a supervisor
These roles can use Join as supervisor:
- Administrators
- Site managers
- The manager of the group the chat belongs to
Managers of other groups, and agents without one of these roles, do not see the button.
How to join as a supervisor
- Open the chat and shadow it. You must be shadowing before the option is available.
- Click Join as supervisor next to Join Chat, Exit Chat and Force End Chat.
If nobody has joined the chat yet, the button is not shown. Use Join Chat instead.
What happens to ownership
- The owning agent stays in the chat and keeps ownership. Nothing about their session changes.
- The visitor sees that you joined the chat.
- Joining as a supervisor does not give you routing credit for the chat or count as your most recent chat.
- If you leave, the owning agent is not affected.
- If the owning agent leaves and you are still in the chat, the chat stays open and you become the agent handling it.
- A chat with an owner and a supervisor is not automatically re-routed to someone else while both are in it.
How chats and capacity are counted
- A supervisor is not counted as one of the agents handling the chat. The owner stays the handling agent.
- A supervisor's join does not use up one of your concurrent chat slots.
- When the chat is archived and a transcript is emailed, the handling agent is listed first and appears as the sender; the supervisor is listed after.
- The join is recorded in the chat's event history as a supervisor join, separate from an agent join.
Alerts
Joining as a supervisor does not change alert behavior. The new chat alert still goes to the agent the chat was routed to, and joining as a supervisor does not change who owns the chat.
If the button is not available
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Only administrators, site managers, and managers of this chat's group can join as supervisor. | Ask an administrator or the group's manager to join. |
| Shadow this chat first, then join as supervisor. | Shadow the chat, then click Join as supervisor. |
| You can't join this chat as supervisor right now. | The chat has no agent who has joined, or it is no longer active. Use Join Chat if no agent has joined. |
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