Customer Service & Sales ✦ Dedicated & full-time

Chat
Manager

Live-chat coverage and inbox response across your channels, when your customers are online — from $14/hr + GST.

Book my 30-minute call →or run the numbers for your role →
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$14/hrFrom, + GST · full-time
70%Average saving vs a local hire
14 daysBrief → first day
Fully managedWe hire, you lead

What a Chat Manager does

Speed wins chat. A chat manager keeps your live-chat and social inboxes covered and fast, converting questions into sales and issues into loyalty.

Every StaffingSolutions.io chat manager is recruited, hired and managed by us — reference-checked for your tools, working your business hours, and backed by our zero-risk promise: no placement fee, money-back first week, and a free replacement if the fit isn't right.

What they handle

  • Live-chat coverage — during your hours.
  • Social & DM response — on-brand.
  • Inbox management — nothing missed.
  • Macros & FAQs — kept sharp.
  • Escalation routing — to the right place.
  • Chat reporting — volumes and CSAT.
The actual work

A week in the role

A chat manager owns the conversations happening right now — the website widget, Instagram and Facebook DMs, WhatsApp Business, and the handoffs the bot could not finish. It is a real-time role: several threads open at once, replying fast enough to hold the sale, and knowing when a chat should become a ticket.

The taskWhat that actually involves
Hold the live chat queue

Covers the website widget across the client's trading hours in Gorgias, Intercom or Tidio, runs several concurrent conversations without leaving anyone waiting, and picks up every handoff where the AI agent hit its limit.

Tune proactive chat triggers

Sets and adjusts the rules that open a chat on the pricing page, in the cart or after a dwell threshold, then rewrites the opening line and timing based on which invitations actually get a reply.

Close sales inside the chat

Answers sizing, compatibility, stock and delivery-time questions in-thread, builds the cart for the customer, applies an approved discount code, and sends a checkout link before the person clicks away to compare.

Work the social inboxes

Runs Instagram and Facebook Messenger through Meta Business Suite plus TikTok and WhatsApp Business, keeps the tone consistent across all of them, and answers story replies and post comments in the same pass.

Maintain saved replies

Keeps quick replies current for the top recurring questions and rewrites any that start attracting "that didn't answer my question", pulling the wording from the answers that actually ended the conversation.

Fix the bot flows

Reviews transcripts where the chatbot dropped the conversation or looped, adds the missing intents and keyword triggers, and reworks the greeting and menu options so fewer people have to type "agent".

Convert chats into tickets

Anything needing an order change, refund, investigation or supplier contact gets raised as a Gorgias or Zendesk ticket with the full transcript attached, rather than being half-solved in a chat that then closes.

Recover abandoned carts in-thread

Picks up replies to Klaviyo abandoned cart emails and SMS, answers the actual objection — sizing, shipping cost, delivery timing — and finishes the order while the person is still engaged.

Moderate paid post comments

Hides scam and spam comments under boosted posts, answers product and price questions publicly where a good answer helps other buyers, and moves complaints into DM before they run in the comment thread.

Set up offline coverage

Writes the away message, captures email address and enquiry detail through the offline form, routes it into the shared inbox, and clears that overnight queue at the start of the next shift.

Book straight from chat

Qualifies quote and consultation requests in the conversation and drops the person into the client's Calendly or booking system while they're still typing, rather than promising someone will call.

Tag and report on chats

Applies a reason and outcome tag to every conversation, then reports weekly on where chats stall, which pages generate the most questions, and which saved replies precede a drop-off.

Related roles

More Customer Service & Sales roles

All Customer Service roles →

Customer Service Representative

Email, chat and phone support that keeps customers happy.

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Inbound Sales Support

Qualifying inbound leads and booking your closers.

Explore →

Outbound Sales Support

Prospecting, follow-up and pipeline hygiene.

Explore →
Questions

Frequently asked

How much does a chat manager cost?
From $14/hr + GST for a full-time, dedicated team member — roughly $29K a year against $95K–$115K all-in for the local equivalent once you add super, leave, payroll tax, software and a desk. No placement fee, no setup fee, no recruitment retainer: you pay from the day they start, for hours worked, and interviewing candidates costs nothing. Specialist roles sit a little higher. Run your numbers →
How fast can they start?
Typically 14 days from your discovery call to day one. In the first week we source and screen against your brief; you get three matched profiles and interview whoever you like. Once you choose, we handle the offer, the contract, equipment and connectivity checks, and induct them on our side before they reach you. Specialist roles — developers, NDIS claims, anything needing niche software — can take a week longer, because we won't pad a shortlist just to hit a date.
What if the fit isn't right?
You're covered twice over. If it's clearly wrong by day five, your first week is refunded in full. After that, a free replacement any time — new shortlist, new interviews, no second fee, because there was never a first one. Before it gets that far, talk to us: our HR manager will work through it with you and the team member, since most problems turn out to be an unclear process rather than the wrong person, and a fortnight of coaching usually fixes it. Replacing someone is the last resort, not the first move.
Is there a minimum term?
Three months, then month to month. It's the same runway you'd give a new local hire to learn your systems, your clients and your standards — and the team members who get a fair run are the ones who stay for years. There are no exit penalties at any point, and if the issue is the person rather than the role, the first-week refund and free replacement cover that separately.
How do you handle confidentiality?
The same way you'd treat any remote team member. Every placement signs an NDA and a confidentiality clause before day one, and they work inside your systems — your email, your CRM, your file storage — so you control what they can see and can revoke access instantly. No client data is stored on our side.
What stays with you, and what goes to them?
They take the recurring, process-driven part of the chat Manager role — the work that happens the same way every week and eats your day. Judgement calls, client relationships, anything requiring your licence, sign-off or authority stay with you. The clients who get the most out of a chat Manager hand over a defined process and keep the decisions, rather than handing over the whole function and hoping. On the discovery call we'll map which tasks fall on which side of that line before you commit to anything.
How do I hand the work over without losing weeks to training?
Record yourself doing the task once and talk through it as you go — a fifteen-minute screen recording beats a written manual every time, and your chat Manager will turn it into a documented process you both work from. Expect the first fortnight to be shadowing and checking, then steadily less. If you have nothing documented, that's normal and it's not a blocker: we'll help you decide what to record first, and your account manager checks in through the whole ramp-up.