Conversational Support & Help Desk Glossary

Business Hours

Business hours are the configured windows of days and times during which a support team is staffed and expected to answer live conversations. They let a chat tool switch between a live, real-time experience and an after-hours fallback so customers always know whether someone is available.

Canned Response

A canned response is a pre-written, reusable reply that a support agent selects and sends to answer a common customer question quickly and consistently [3]. Different vendors call the same idea a saved reply, a macro, or a template, and some versions also trigger actions like tagging or closing a conversation [1][4].

Chat Routing

Chat routing is the logic a live-chat or support platform uses to direct each incoming conversation to the right operator, team, or queue. It applies rules based on agent availability, capacity, skills, and customer attributes so that visitors reach a qualified responder quickly.

Conversation Assignment

Conversation assignment is the act of attaching an incoming chat to the specific operator who is responsible for answering it. In Eloqra, assignment is implicit "first responder": the first operator who replies to a conversation is recorded as its assigned agent.

Conversation Tag

A conversation tag is a short label attached to a support conversation (or an individual message within it) that classifies its topic, intent, or status so the team can search, filter, route, and report on it later.

Conversational Support

Conversational support is a customer-service model where help happens as an ongoing, natural-language dialogue between a customer and a business rather than a series of disconnected, ticket-style exchanges. The conversation and its context persist across channels and over time, so each reply builds on what came before.

Customer Service

Customer service is the assistance and advice a company provides to people who buy or use its products throughout the entire purchasing process, from pre-sale questions to ongoing help. It is the broad umbrella term covering every interaction that improves the customer experience and relationship.

Customer Support

Customer support is the set of services and people that help customers use a product effectively and resolve the specific problems they run into, covering everything from installation and troubleshooting to maintenance and upgrades. It is the reactive, product-focused subset of the broader discipline of [[customer-service]].

Escalation

Escalation is the process of moving a customer issue from a first-line agent to someone with more seniority, authority, or specialized expertise when it cannot be resolved at the current level. It routes the conversation to the person best equipped to solve it, rather than leaving it stuck.

First Contact Resolution (FCR)

First Contact Resolution (FCR) is the percentage of customer issues fully resolved in a single interaction, with no transfer, callback, or follow-up needed. It measures how often a support team solves a problem the first time the customer reaches out.

Help Desk

A help desk is a centralized system and team that receives, organizes, and resolves customer or employee support requests, typically using ticketing, automation, and self-service tools to track each issue from first contact to resolution.

Omnichannel Support

Omnichannel support is a customer service strategy that connects every channel a customer might use - live chat, email, phone, SMS, social, and messaging - into one continuous, context-aware experience. Unlike multichannel support, where each channel runs in its own silo, omnichannel keeps conversation history and customer context flowing across channels so people never have to repeat themselves.

Service-Level Agreement (SLA)

A service-level agreement (SLA) is a documented commitment between a service provider and its customers that defines the standard of support to be delivered, such as how fast inquiries are acknowledged and resolved, and how that performance is measured. [1]

Shared Inbox

A shared inbox is a single collaborative workspace where multiple support team members can view, claim, and reply to incoming customer messages from one address or channel, while each person signs in with their own account. It replaces a password-shared mailbox so a whole team can answer customers without stepping on each other.

Support Ticket

A support ticket is a tracked record of a single customer request, capturing the customer's message, their contact details, and internal metadata so a support team can route, prioritize, and resolve the issue. [1] Each ticket carries a unique identifier and a status that reflects where it sits in its lifecycle. [3]

Ticketing System

A ticketing system is software that turns customer requests into trackable tickets, then helps a support team categorize, prioritize, assign, and resolve them through a defined lifecycle. It centralizes inquiries from many channels into one queue with status, ownership, and reporting.