Why are chats not being routed to other available agents?

Question

Why are chats not being routed to other available agents when the maximum wait time limit is reached?

Answer

When skill-based routing is enabled and the maximum wait time in seconds expires, the chat gets re-assigned to any available agent within the department or account. The agent's department takes precedence over their skills.

The account takes precedence when a ticket doesn’t have department information. Once a ticket has a department, the routing will be met.

For more information, see the article: Chat skills-based routing FAQ.

Note: If you are interested in omnichannel routing instead, the feature supports accounts that are using live chat and messaging channels. When activated, omnichannel routing will assign chat and messaging tickets to agents. For the best experience, Zendesk recommends waiting to turn on omnichannel routing until the majority of your conversational support tickets are received from messaging channels. For more information, see the article: Using omnichannel routing while migrating from chat to messaging.