Persistent chat room for customer service

[Joe Bohelski]

A few years ago I remember looking into the possibility of either using a generic Jabber account or persistent chat room to provide customer service.  Unfortunately, I don't remember anything I may have previously learned so am having to start over and any help, guidance, advice is appreciated!

Here's what we're being asked if it's possible to be done: 

"I am wanting to create a Jabber contact called “Benefits” that an employee can message with questions about anything benefit related. There are 3 people that I would like to receive/respond to the incoming messages. Is something like this possible? There is an existing Outlook account: benefits@xxx.org.  The goal is to create a way for people to ask quick questions, especially during annual enrollment."

Thanks in advance

[Jaime Valencia]

A persistent chat is a room that is always on, and people have to join or be added, and then can review old messages from anyone and anything that was discussed in the room.

It seems that what you're actually asking is to build a bot for that purpose.

[Joe Bohelski]

Ah good idea!  I'll look into that.

[Adam Pawlowski]

You could just create this as a user account, and have the three persons sign into it at the same time if you are running MDM, if the caveats with active clients and MDM meet your needs. File/image transfers are not going to work out there, and each of the three users will see the ongoing conversations so there will not be great privacy. I think that would work since you can get up to 10 streams going with MDM.