Differences between the solutions

The product experience is somewhat different from the previous package, as the core functioning and feature set slightly differ. These onboarding core differences, onboarding and feature gaps have been highlighted in the image below.



Onboarding

As the agent inbox product is not yet fully integrated into the CM.com platform, the onboarding process is not automated (based on orders) as it was with the Customer Conctact product. The onboarding of the MSC basic suite will be as follows. When a basic order is created, an e-mail is sent to support to create the environment. When the environment is created, the basic feature set can be enabled using the "subscription plan" section within command centre. Here, you can now select between Basic or Adv/Pro. As the page notes: Activate a plan to unlock all eligible features for a subscription. When activated, a plan enables core features for a subscription and makes optional features available within the subscription features section.

Feature management

in order to correctly onboard a basic client and enable the right optional features (that are available within their tier), tags have been added to subscription features to ease the management of features per client. See example below:

Core differences in the product

The core of the agent inbox application is different from that of customer contact. These core changes will have to be communicated to customers as it may change their way of working. The most important differences are highlighted in the subsections below.

New interface and layout

The Agent inbox has user interface that is different from Customer contact. Where customer contact had a single view that hosted the inbox as well as conversations, The agent inbox has one view for the inbox (dashboard) and one for conversations. This new interface allows agents to focus on a conversation, have profile information in the sidepanel and have the opportunity to collaborate with internal or external stakeholders.

Dashboard view:

Conversation view:

Direction conversation ownership

The agent inbox does not work with a shared inbox that functions as a queue. The agent inbox routes conversations directly to agents, resulting in ownership of conversations from the moment a conversation is received. This mitigates cherrypicking of conversations by agents.

Personal and team inboxes

Once a conversation is received within the agent inbox, and allocated to an agent, it is displayed in their personal inbox. As agents work in a team, their combined workload is displayed in the team inbox. Using the team inbox, agents can work together to most effectively solve all incoming enquiries.

Internal and external collaboration

The agent inbox allows agents to internally and external (via e-mail) collaborate. This allows agents to effectively solve cases that require collaboration. This functionality is core to the application, and was not available within the customer contact solution.

Customer profiles (with conversation history)

Whenever a conversation is initiated or received within the agent inbox, the profile of the customer (existing or new) is displayed in the sidepanel of the conversation. This profile provides the agent context to the conversation, showing their name, phone number or e-mail address, as well as historical conversations if present.

Integration capabilities

The agent inbox provides integration capabilities with CM.com products. The agent inbox may be integrated with the CDP/MMC suite to enhance the customer panel with profile information. This was not possible within customer contact

Feature gaps

As the Agent inbox and customer contact applications are slightly different in their core, there are some functionalities that are available trough a work-around, where others are no longer available for customers. The most prominent feature gaps are highlighted in the subsections below.

No out-of-office messages

The agent inbox does not allow customers to set out-of-office messages out of the box. However, in order to accommodate customers that use this feature within customer contact, the feature "First Response Message Messaging" combined with enabling a channel to be "treated as instant" can be used to send customers a different auto message for within and outside of office hours. As instant channels are treated as non-instant channels outside of office hours, a different auto message is triggered to the customer.

No more (free) viewer users

The Agent inbox does not have the ability to create viewer users (which are unpaid) within the basic suite. Within the basic suite, there is no available alternative (as collaboration users are not available in this tier).

No in app conversation exports

Customer contact allowed customers to export concretions with customer from within the application. This functionality is not available within the agent inbox basic suite. Advanced and pro customers can use API's to fetch conversation details to do so.

No bot conversation takeover

Customer contact allowed customers to take over bot conversations in the middle of a botflow. As within the Agent inbox bot conversations are only received after a handover is initiated, takeovers during the conversations cannot be executed.

No more hiding customer details

Within the customer contact application, clients could choose to hide personal details of their customers (phone number or channel id) from their agents. This functionality is not available out of the box for the agent inbox. In order to hide these identifiers, botflows have to be created.