Use customer and case context
Customer and case context helps you understand why a customer contacted support before you ask for information they already provided. For example, a customer might start a chat after reviewing an existing case and searching self-service content. In this unit, you use the Active Conversation page to review available context, identify the customer, and link the conversation to the right case.
| Context area | How it supports your conversation |
|---|---|
| Customer | Identifies the contact or account and provides relevant customer details. |
| Conversation | Shows how the interaction reached you and what happened before assignment. |
| Case | Connects the current conversation to an existing or new support issue. |
| History | Provides recent cases and activities for linked customer and case records. |
| Outcome | Records disposition codes when your organization enables them. |
Understand the available conversation context
Active Conversation is the current name for the former Customer Summary form. It appears when you accept an incoming conversation and brings customer, conversation, and case information into one page. This combined view helps you verify context before deciding what to ask or which record to update.
The Customer section represents either a contact or an account. A contact record describes an individual and can include details such as location and email address. An account record describes an organization and can include its location, telephone number, and primary contact. When the customer isn't identified automatically, you search for an existing contact or account and link it to the conversation. If no matching record exists, you add the appropriate record, search for it, and then link it.
The Conversation summary explains how the current interaction reached you. Its Conversation details area includes the engagement channel, customer wait time, routing skills, source queue, and conversation start time. Together, these values help you understand the route and timing of the work item without leaving the conversation.
Additional tabs provide context collected before the representative joins. Their presence depends on the channel and your organization's configuration.
| Conditional tab | Context you review |
|---|---|
| Pre-chat survey | Answers the customer submitted before starting the conversation. |
| Self service | Pages visited, phrases searched, knowledge articles viewed, and tracked custom actions. |
| Visitor details | Authentication status, browser, operating system, location, and interaction language. |
| Additional details | Other configured context variables supplied for the conversation. |
Depending on configuration, Active Conversation uses an enhanced or default layout. The enhanced layout can present customer, case, and recent-case information in cards, while the default layout presents the standard sections. Treat these layouts as variations of the same representative task: review the context that appears and work with the available records.
Link the customer and the right case
Customer identification gives meaning to the case history. A conversation doesn't always open with a linked case because the customer might ask about an existing issue or report a new one. Review the available context before choosing which case belongs to the interaction.
Use this representative workflow to connect the records:
- Review the customer details and confirm that the linked contact or account matches the person or organization in the conversation.
- Review the engagement channel, wait time, skills, queue, start time, and any conditional conversation tabs.
- Examine Recent cases for a subject, status, or recent activity that matches the customer's request.
- Search for and link the matching case when the conversation concerns an existing issue.
- Select Add Case when the request represents a new issue, and then link the new case to the conversation.
Consider a customer who starts a chat and says, "I'm checking whether the replacement was approved." The pre-chat response includes an order number, and self-service activity shows that the customer viewed a returns article. Recent cases contains one open replacement case and one closed billing case. Instead of asking the customer to repeat the order number and entire issue, you confirm the available details, open the replacement case, review its status, and link it to the conversation. The context both prevents repeated questions and supports selecting the correct case.
When several records look similar, use more than the case title to decide. Compare the customer, case status, recent activities, and details already supplied in the conversation. This check reduces the risk of adding notes or updates to the wrong case.
Review history and record the outcome
Linked records provide the history behind the current request. The Recent cases section surfaces cases associated with the customer, which helps you locate related or recurring issues. The information shown varies with the configured layout, so focus on the available identifiers, subjects, statuses, priorities, and other case details.
The Timeline shows activities related to the linked customer and case records. Use Linked records to switch the timeline among the linked case, contact, or account. For example, the case timeline might contain issue-specific notes, while the contact or account timeline provides broader relationship history. You can also add a quick note that captures important information from the current discussion.
If your organization enables disposition codes, the Disposition Code section records the conversation outcome. Select a category to filter the available codes, and then select the code or codes that best describe the result. The available codes and selection limit depend on configuration. When a disposition code is required, the primary representative must select one before ending the conversation.
| Review point | Question to answer |
|---|---|
| Recent cases | Does an existing case match the customer's current request? |
| Case timeline | What actions already address this specific issue? |
| Contact or account timeline | What broader customer history affects the response? |
| Disposition code | Which enabled code accurately describes the conversation outcome? |
Using this context throughout the interaction keeps the customer, conversation, case, and outcome connected. With the correct records linked and reviewed, you can continue the representative workflow without asking the customer to reconstruct information that is already available.