How agents handle inbound website chats in VICIdial

From the agent's chair, a VICIdial website chat behaves almost exactly like an inbound call. The chat arrives, VICIdial pulls up the matching customer record, locks the agent so nothing else interrupts, the agent works the conversation, and then they disposition the lead and become available again. If your agents already take inbound calls, they already know this loop. This post walks the chat version of it step by step.

The chat pulls the lead

When an inbound chat reaches an available agent, VICIdial automatically pulls up the customer's Lead information on the agent's screen. The agent does not search for the record or copy a name across; the same record-pop you get on an inbound call happens for a chat. If the customer is not already in the system, VICIdial places them into the group's Default List ID so there is always a record to work against.

The screen locks

At the same moment the lead pops, the agent's screen locks. While locked, the Agent will not receive any further calls or chats. This is the key thing to understand about chat: it is not a side panel the agent glances at between calls. It takes them out of the rotation for the length of the session, just like a live call does, so they can give the conversation full attention.

The agent replies, then dispositions

With the lead open and the screen locked, the agent types replies to the customer until the conversation is done. When the session ends, they pick a Disposition for the lead, the same outcome codes they would set on a call. The disposition is what releases them: the moment it is set, the lock clears and they are immediately available for more calls or chats.

Two optional URLs can fire around this. A Start Chat URL is sent when the chat is first received, and a Dispo Chat URL is sent when the agent statuses the lead. Neither is ever shown to the agent; they are silent hooks you can point at your own systems. The Dispo Chat URL can carry the chosen disposition and the talk time in seconds, which is handy for logging chat handle time the same way you track it for calls.

The full agent loop

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> Available
  Available --> ChatPopped: Inbound chat routed
  ChatPopped --> Locked: Lead pulled and screen locked
  Locked --> Replying: Agent works the chat
  Replying --> Disposition: Session ends
  Disposition --> Available: Lock clears
  Available --> [*]

That loop, pull then lock then reply then disposition then available, is the whole job from the agent's side. It is intentionally identical to the call flow so agents do not have to learn a second mental model. For where the chats come from on the website side, read how to put the chat widget on your website, and for the bigger picture see the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. If you want chat working without provisioning the modules yourself, our managed VICIdial plans include it out of the box.