Agent Replies

Create and manage pre-written responses that agents can quickly insert into conversations, improving response time and ensuring message consistency.

Agent Replies (also known as Quick Replies or Canned Responses) are pre-defined message templates that agents can use when chatting with customers. Instead of typing common responses repeatedly, agents can select from a library of approved replies, saving time and ensuring consistent, accurate messaging across your team.

Understanding Agent Replies

Learn how Agent Replies work and when to use them effectively.

Why Use Agent Replies?

Agent Replies provide several benefits for your organization:

• Faster response times - Agents can respond to common questions instantly instead of typing lengthy responses
• Consistent messaging - All agents use the same approved wording, ensuring brand voice consistency
• Reduced errors - Pre-written responses eliminate typos and incorrect information
• Easier training - New agents can provide quality responses immediately using the reply library
• Multilingual support - Create replies in different languages to serve international customers

Compliance and Legal Requirements

For many organizations, Agent Replies are essential for regulatory compliance and legal protection. Industries such as financial services, healthcare, insurance, and legal services often require agents to include specific disclaimers, disclosures, or legally-mandated language in their communications.

By creating standardized replies containing approved legal text, organizations can ensure that:

• Required disclaimers are included exactly as approved by legal counsel
• Regulatory disclosure requirements are consistently met
• Agents cannot accidentally omit mandatory compliance language
• Audit trails show that approved messaging was used
• Updates to legal language can be deployed instantly across all agents

Examples include financial product disclaimers, privacy notices, terms and conditions references, and health information disclosures.

Dynamic Placeholders

Agent Replies support dynamic placeholders that are automatically replaced with actual values when the reply is sent. This allows you to create personalized templates:

For example, a reply template of "Hello $firstname, thank you for contacting us!" would become "Hello John, thank you for contacting us!" when sent to a user named John.

Using Hashtags

Hashtags provide a quick way for agents to find and insert replies during a conversation. By assigning a memorable hashtag to a reply, agents can type the hashtag to quickly locate the response they need.

Best practices for hashtags:

• Keep hashtags short and memorable (e.g., #greeting, #hours, #refund)
• Use consistent naming conventions across your reply library
• Group related replies with similar hashtag prefixes (e.g., #faq-shipping, #faq-returns)

Managing Agent Replies

Create, edit, and delete Agent Replies to build your organization's response library.

Create a New Reply

Add a new pre-written response to your Agent Reply library.

Steps:

1. Navigate to Administration > Agent Replies.
2. Click the New Reply button.
3. Enter the response text in the Reply Text field. Use placeholders like $firstname for personalization.
4. Enter a Hashtag for quick lookup (optional but recommended).
5. Set the Delay in seconds (the pause before the message appears to simulate typing).
6. Select the Language of Reply from the dropdown.
7. Click Update Reply to confirm the reply details.
8. Click Save All Changes to save the reply to the system.

Result: The new reply is added to the library and becomes available for all agents to use.

Edit an Existing Reply

Modify the text, hashtag, delay, or language of an existing reply.

Steps:

1. Navigate to Administration > Agent Replies.
2. Click on the reply you want to edit in the table.
3. Modify the Reply Text, Hashtag, Delay, or Language as needed.
4. Click Update Reply to confirm your changes.
5. Click Save All Changes to save all modifications.

Result: The reply is updated and the changes are immediately available to all agents.

Delete a Reply

Remove a reply from the library.

Steps:

1. Navigate to Administration > Agent Replies.
2. Click on the reply you want to delete in the table.
3. Click the Delete Reply button.
4. Click Save All Changes to confirm the deletion.

Result: The reply is permanently removed from the library and will no longer be available to agents.

Reply Configuration

Understand the configuration options available for each reply.

Reply Fields

Best Practices

Guidelines for creating an effective Agent Reply library.

Building Your Reply Library

• Start with common scenarios - Create replies for your most frequent customer questions first
• Organize by category - Use hashtag prefixes to group related replies (e.g., #order-, #account-, #technical-)
• Keep replies current - Regularly review and update replies to reflect current policies and offerings
• Balance personalization with efficiency - Use placeholders to personalize, but don't over-complicate templates
• Train your team - Ensure agents know how to find and use replies effectively
• Gather feedback - Ask agents which additional replies would help them serve customers better

Related Topics

• Admin Guide
• Agent Management
• Agent Chat