Internal Chat

Exchange typed messages instantly with colleagues, right from chat panels within iCarol.

Connect with colleagues in multiple locations – different offices, home, or however remote

• Suppose you have more than one office, and colleagues need to help each other edit or find resources. The phone’s too disruptive – you don’t want people nearby disturbed by your conversations. Plus you’re already on the phone enough. Internal chat lets you converse wordlessly.
• As a supervisor, you need to know if your at-home counselor is ready for her overnight messaging shift. It’s near midnight, and you’re home yourself after a long and productive day. You prefer not to call, as your family is often asked to be patient as they over hear your “work” conversations. Take a quick moment to silently check your contacts panel to see instantly that she’s logged into iCarol. Type her a brief friendly message encouraging her to have a good shift.
• An unexpected storm has snarled traffic, delaying a few of your staffers scheduled for a shift starting soon. It’s your rare day off and you’re at home. Start a group chat in iCarol with folks already logged in – you can instantly identify who’s logged in — and ask if they can stay a bit longer until the next shift arrives. Internal chat lets you handle this in moments, avoiding multiple phone calls or waiting on email replies.

Provide or ask for non-verbal assistance

• Your counselors sometimes need to confer with each other when a caller has an acute, challenging issue. But this is exactly the kind of caller you do not want to put on hold while you discuss next steps with your colleague. Forget the hand gestures or notes on paper. Converse wordlessly with Internal Chat (and perhaps a “quiet keyboard” or temporary mute button on your phone, to hide keystroke sounds).
• You’ve recently hired a new staffer and he’s still getting comfortable handling calls. Reassure him that you and your clinical director are just a click away on Internal Chat, ready to advise him. As an added bonus, you discover with this method of communication he’s empowered to type questions to you that he may not want his new colleagues to overhear him asking, which might, to him, reflect how new he is to the position in their eyes.

Exchange sensitive information with colleagues in a secure environment

• Callers or messaging visitors come to you with very sensitive issues. You confer with a colleague via Internal Chat and are grateful for the “clear” feature, which removes the transcript of your sensitive internal conversation immediately.
• One of the reasons you subscribe to iCarol is your absolute need that you enter the data in a secure environment. That security extends to Internal Chat.

Disaster Preparedness Planning

• As part of your disaster preparedness plan, count on using Internal Chat. Hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, mudslides, terror attacks – these kinds of events can generate phone traffic that can cripple phone communication. As long as you can get an internet connection, you can communicate with logged-in colleagues via iCarol Internal Chat . Consider, as well, adding text and instant messaging to offer visitors and alternate channel of communication.

Foster a sense of community among your staff and volunteers

• Internal Chat is such a quick, easy method of communication, it can help colleagues more readily reach out to each other. This could be in the form of asking for assistance, or simply as a way to brighten a day. A quick message to a colleague when you see she’s just finished a challenging interaction can provide a needed boost.

Disseminate information to multiple people simultaneously

• Want to let your call takers know there’s a water main break downtown, so expect calls about that? Maybe power’s gone out on the east end of town, affecting services there? Or perhaps there’s pizza in the break room? Start a group chat with all online colleagues.

These capabilities are included with Internal Chat:

• See instantly which colleagues are signed onto iCarol.
• Conduct an Internal Chat with any online colleague.
• Conduct multiple Internal Chats concurrently.
• Start a group chat to confer with multiple colleagues at once.
• “Mute” your Internal Chat activity for times when you prefer to be unavailable – Muting a chat means new messages won’t cause the chat window to pop up, but a small indicator will let you know a message is waiting for you.
• See instantly if others have muted your Internal Chats.
• Messages disappear on logoff or earlier, when you clear them.
• In your chat contact list, create your own groups and favorites. Everyone’s list is unique.
• Admins control who has access to this feature, on an individual and organization-wide basis.

Want to know more about this or any other iCarol feature? Feel free to connect with us by emailing: info@iCarol.com

“You need to know that I sing the praises of iCarol to all who will listen – it has reduced my workload exponentially and increased efficiencies for the volunteers as well. I am absolutely over the moon about the internal chat option and expect that we will use it on a regular basis.”, Donna Martin, Program Coordinator, The Family Counseling Center of Sarnia,Sarnia, ON

“iCarol’s Internal Chat is a valuable tool that has allowed us to connect with staff at other sites with ease! The simplicity of this Chat platform has decreased barriers to communication that our staff experience while working in different offices.”, Maureen Elworthy, NEED2, Vancouver,BC,Canada

“iCarol’s Internal Chat is definitely a much needed feature, as volunteers/staff in many agencies cannot communicate out loud during calls or chats, or are located far from each other, or even in different buildings/location. So it is a secure internal communication network.”​, Elena Butler, Kristin Brooks Hope Center, Washington,DC,USA

“The Internal Chat feature allows our Specialists to reach out to a supervisor or the resource staff for assistance without having to put a caller, who is in crisis, on hold. This is definitely a useful tool for those of us who are not all seated in the contact center. Thank you iCarol for always introducing new features to help with call handling, as well as reporting.”, Cheryl Donish, Crisis Center of Tampa Bay,Tampa Bay,FL,USA

If you’d like to learn more, please watch our webinar recording about Internal Chat.