Assigning a conversation to someone else

Every conversation has at most one assignee, shown in the box at the top of the thread. One owner rather than several is deliberate: a chat that belongs to everybody belongs to nobody.

Handing it over

Open the conversation and pick a colleague from the assignee box. They are told about it, and it moves into their Mine filter.

Before you hand something over, write an internal note saying why. The person receiving it can read the whole thread, but they cannot read what you worked out and did not type. “Has already tried clearing the cache, order number is in message three” saves the customer repeating themselves, which is the thing they will actually remember about the experience.

Taking one on

Assign it to yourself from the same box, or just reply: replying to an unassigned conversation assigns it to you.

Taking one that somebody else already owns is allowed and sometimes correct, for example when they have gone home. It is worth a note saying so, for the same reason.

Leaving one

Leave removes you as the assignee and puts the conversation back to unassigned. Use it when you have picked up something you cannot finish, rather than assigning it to a specific colleague who may also be busy. An unassigned chat is visible to everyone; one assigned to a person who is not there is invisible to everyone else.

Departments

If you have departments set up, a visitor can choose one before they start, and the chat arrives tagged with it. That is routing by subject rather than by person, and it is the better tool when the question is “who should answer this” rather than “who is free”.

Departments are on the Starter plan and up.

What assignment does not do

It does not stop anyone else reading or replying. There are no locks. If two people answer at once you will both see it happen immediately, which in practice is enough to stop it twice.

Last updated 1 October 2026.