What is "usage" on my invoice?

What is usage?

Usage is a metric used to invoice conversations. A value of 1 equals a single conversation that is resolved without becoming inactive. If you take a look at your monthly invoice, you'll also see the usage specified.

However, a conversation can become inactive and become active again later. Depending on the inactivity period, this can lead this specific conversation to have a higher usage.

We'll explain more about this next.

How usage is calculated

The moment a conversation is resolved, the usage will be calculated. Sometimes a single conversation will have a usage count higher than 1. This happens in the situation where a conversation was started by a customer, but the customer became inactive for a while, which leads to a "soft" close of the conversation. From the customer's user interface the chat will remain open and active.

If the customer becomes active again, the conversation will be marked as a new conversation from a billing point of view if a certain minimum amount has elapsed.

The reason for this is that agents in our team move to new customer conversations and a previously inactive conversation has to be picked up by a new agent by the time it becomes active again. The new agent needs to reread the conversation and possible notes which takes up additional time. However, by far most conversations are started and finished in one go and don't become inactive.

These timers are used to "soft" close an inactive conversation:

• Chat channels: 15 minutes
• Email channels: 48 hours.

Naturally, customers can always continue the conversation at any moment they like and our team will be available to assist them.

Usage reporting delays

Based upon the monthly usage, invoices will be generated at the end of each billing cycle (generally the first of a new calendar month). Usage is reported daily to our invoicing system, but have an invoicing delay of 24 hours. This means that conversations resolved on the last day of the month will be reported on the first day of a new month and therefore invoiced in the new month.

You can view your current usage in your customer portal under billing or you can view the usage per conversation in the conversation overview.