I currently use both live agents and the Apollo system. The live agents are employed for 40 hours per week. However, I’m facing a scheduling challenge with Apollo, as it can only be set for a single continuous time period, and I’m unable to match it exactly with the gaps in live agent coverage, which occur twice daily.
When live agents are working, I’ve set Apollo to respond after a 2-minute delay, giving agents the priority to reply first. The issue arises when the agents are off duty; customers become restless and are unwilling to wait 2 minutes for Apollo’s response.
My ideal solution would be to deactivate Apollo while live agents are available and reactivate it only during their off hours. At the same time, I’d remove the 2-minute response delay when Apollo is the sole support option.
Discuss the potential risks or drawbacks of implementing more granular control over Apollo scheduling and response, and propose strategies to mitigate these risks.
Thank you for sharing your current setup and the challenges you’re facing with scheduling Apollo alongside live agents. It sounds like you’ve implemented a thoughtful strategy to prioritize live agent responses during their working hours and utilize Apollo during off hours.
Unfortunately, Apollo doesn’t currently support the functionality to deactivate and reactivate based on live agent availability automatically. However, you can manually adjust Apollo’s availability based on your live agent schedule. During live agent hours, you can enable Apollo’s response delay, and during off hours, you can disable it.
While this solution requires manual adjustment, it can help provide a smoother experience for both customers and agents.
If you have any further questions or need assistance with implementing these changes, please feel free to reach out. We’re here to help!
Yes, I am aware of the limitations of Apollo scheduling, that’s why I made this Feature Request thread. I am aware of how to make this work with the current tawk.to system, but the reason I use these services is to automate my business as much as possible. I think logging in each day to turn switch Apollo on and off is not really a long-term viable solution.
Please forward this request to Apollo development team, this feature should not be difficult to implement.
