Chat Modes: Real-Time Chat vs. Classic Chat

Re:amaze offers two chat modes for communicating with customers on your website: Real-Time Chat and Classic Chat. For details on chat settings, see the Chat Settings article.

Real-Time Chat is best suited for teams that handle customer inquiries asynchronously or through mobile apps. Classic Chat is designed for teams that maintain a dedicated live presence and need features like availability hours. Classic Chat is only available on the Plus plan and is enabled for all staff members.

Real-Time Chat

Real-Time Chat provides a modern messaging experience similar to iMessage, SMS, or Facebook Messenger. It allows you to engage customers in real time while also supporting asynchronous communication. There is no expectation that both parties need to be online at the same time.

• Re:amaze will prompt the customer with an expected response time based on your team's historical availability.
• When a customer sends a message, your team receives notifications via the Re:amaze dashboard, email, and the Re:amaze mobile app.
• When both you and the customer are online simultaneously, the conversation can happen fluidly in real time. If either party needs to step away, the conversation continues via push notifications with no defined end point.
• Re:amaze indicates to customers which messages have been sent and which have been viewed, giving them insight into your availability.
• Each reply is also sent as an email to the customer if they do not view it through chat immediately, allowing the conversation to continue over email.

Classic Chat

Classic Chat is the more traditional "live agent" experience. This mode allows you to engage customers in real time but in a completely synchronized way. This means the agent and the customer must both be online at the same time in order to chat. There is a clear beginning and end to any given conversation. A conversation that has ended cannot be re-opened or revived by a new reply. There is also a set expectation that a staff agent will serve the live chat within a reasonable amount of time (usually 20 seconds to 1 minute).

NOTE: Classic Chat is only available when members of your team are logged into Re:amaze via a desktop browser.

• This method of engagement is perfect when you want to set the expectation with the customer that there is an agent guaranteed to serve the conversation immediately.
• Re:amaze provides each staff agent with the ability to set Availability Hours. Classic Chat is enabled when any of your staff agents are Online via Re:amaze and has status set to "Available for Live Chat".
• There is a constant "live" and "real time" connection between the staff agent and the customer. If either the customer goes offline or idles for too long, the live chat is ended and there can be no further messages posted to that live chat session.
• Classic Chats can be Ended by either side when the conversation should be finished.
• You have the option of converting the Live Chat session into a normal conversation, to continue as Real Time Chat or Email.

Classic Chat hours

Re:amaze Classic Chat supports personal office hours, allowing each agent to set their own availability independently.

Once chat hours are configured, Re:amaze will automatically manage your live chat availability based on your schedule. Your availability status is indicated by the following icons:

• Green icon: You are toggled on and within your available hours.
• Yellow icon: You are toggled on but outside of your available hours.
• White icon: You are toggled off.