Best practices for live chat

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Set up for success

Enable notifications. The first time you visit the agent dashboard, you are prompted to enable browser notifications. Do so! This way you are alerted when new conversations or messages come in even when the dashboard is in a background tab.
Set up your profile. Adding a photo and a display name to your agent profile will give a more human and personal impression to the users you support.
Invite users with conversation links. If you're helping users outside of the dashboard and moving to live chat would help, you can share conversation links to invite users. You can assign the links to yourself, too, so the conversations will be labeled "Assigned to you" in the queue.

Take the oldest conversation. When starting a new chat, it's generally best to help the user who's been waiting the longest.
Take conversations assigned to you. If a queued conversation is shown with the label "Assigned to you," it's meant for you and you should take it. If it's shown as assigned to a different agent, you should usually leave it for them.
Know your group filters. If your organization is using agent groups, the conversation queue will be split into multiple different group filters. Know which groups you are a member of and which filters you should be focusing on.
Know what to look for. You have access to a lot of information about a user and their request - the transcript of their conversation so far and the details pane which includes user information if they're logged in, any notes added by agents, any form data, and any previous tickets from this user if you have a help desk integration. Your organization may have specific flags to look out for in these areas such as cues that indicate health and safety issues. If so, keep an eye out for them.
Keep an eye on active conversations. If you are juggling multiple conversations, keep an eye on your list of active ones for badges indicating unread messages. Keep the list clean by ending chats when they're finished - the user won't move forward in the product assistant until you do!

Greet the user. When starting a chat, use a saved reply to tell the user you're going to take a moment to check their information and see how best to help them.
Tell the user when transferring a chat. If you need to transfer a chat to another agent, use a saved reply to tell the user you're doing so and that the new agent will get the full transcript so they won't need to repeat anything.

Confirm the chat is ready to wrap up. Before ending a chat, use a saved reply to ask the user to confirm that they are is ready for the chat to end.
Use conversation links to resume chats. If you need to end a conversation but want to be able to resume it later, such as if the user needs to check something and get back to you, you can create a conversation link assigned to yourself. Send it to the user via SMS or email - if you just share it in chat, they may lose access to it. This will require asking for their phone number or email address if you don't have it; use a saved reply for this.
Add any essential notes before ending the chat. To ensure that notes are properly recorded in any emailed transcripts or external tickets, add them before ending the chat.
Ensure proper follow-up. If you aren't able to resolve the user's issue during a chat, make sure any required steps for following up are taken so that the user still feels supported. Depending on your organization, this might mean gathering the user's contact information and filing a ticket in your CRM or it might mean advising the user that after the chat ends the assistant will prompt them for it so they should stick around and answer those prompts.
Say goodbye. When ending a chat, use a saved reply to say goodbye to the user and inform them they'll be returned to the normal product assistant. If there are additional prompts the user should answer afterward, make sure to mention them.