Scheduling Special Events and Holiday Hours for WebChat in 8x8 Contact Center

Updated: 08/21/2024

Objective

Set up a schedule for special events or holidays for WebChat.

Applies To

  • 8x8 Contact Center
  • Configuration Manager for Contact Center
  • Schedules
  • Holidays
  • IVR
  • Auto Attendant

Procedure

There will likely be many planned, and unplanned, cultural holidays or events that you will need to adjust your WebChat. You can easily set up a rule for a specific day, to open or close your Webchat between certain hours. If there are consecutive days you won't be around to chat, you will need to add each individual day. We need to set the exceptions for the holidays under Special Events and Holidays.
  1. Log in to Configuration Manager for Contact Center.
  2. From the Home page, select the Schedules tab.
  3. Create a schedule by selecting + Schedule or amend a current schedule by double-clicking on the schedule name or alternatively clicking the Pencil icon.
  4. Within the setup for the Schedule, set your normal working hours under Weekly Schedule. Under Special Events and Holidays you can add your exceptions for the year, month, day, etc.

  5. Depending on what you require for a special event or holiday, you can set your schedule so that the business closes early on a holiday in comparison to the business hours set under your Weekly Schedule.
    • Alternatively, you can have the business closed on the day by setting it to Closed via the dropdown. The Choice # options will allow you to implement this into your Contact Center Script under the Schedule object to play a message to the customer and allow them to leave a voicemail, route to an external number, etc. 
  6. Once you have set your working hours and exceptions and given the schedule a name, click Save to exit the page.

Additional Information

You can set a personalised message on WebChat for your customers.
  1. Go to Chat design and select the Form tab.
  2. Go to Offline form and select edit.

    Webchat.png
  3. Select Next.

    clipboard_e747f0e02daee64888d31fa85986b846d.png
  4. Enter your personalised message in the Introduction Text field. This is what your customers will see when your chat is offline.
  5. Select Save.

    clipboard_eeca8bf8efaef0cf7283040d8f8118020.png
  6. You do not need to make any changes in your WebChat script as you do in your phone script for callers to forward to another queue or give them an option to leave a voicemail, unless until you have created new scheduling, which you will need to link to your WebChat script.