Only TG session offloading vs TG-Staff: In-depth comparison of online priority and turn-based allocation strategies

When your Telegram Bot receives dozens or even hundreds of user inquiries every day, without a conversation diversion mechanism, the customer service team will quickly fall into chaos - some agents are too busy, others are idle, and users wait longer and longer, and eventually they are lost. Session Dispatch is the core capability to solve this problem: it determines which agent a new session should be assigned to, as well as the order and priority of assignment.

Currently, the main tools on the market that support Telegram Bot customer service session offloading are Only TG (onlytg) and TG-Staff. Both provide two basic rules: rotation allocation and online priority, but there are significant differences in configuration flexibility and extended functions (such as traffic attribution and agent collaboration). This article will help you determine which solution is more suitable for your team from three dimensions: rule mechanism, configuration method, and applicable scenarios.

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Why does Telegram customer service need session offloading?

Let’s look at a typical scenario first: Your cross-border customer service team has 5 agents and handles inquiries from users in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States every day. If there are no diversion rules:

• New conversations will randomly appear on the interface of all agents, which may cause multiple people to reply to the same user at the same time, or all agents think that others will handle it, resulting in no one replying.
• It cannot be automatically allocated based on the agent’s online status or load condition. Busy agents are under greater pressure, but idle agents cannot take the initiative.
• For users attracted by paid ads, it is impossible to track the source of the session and it is difficult to evaluate the channel ROI.

Session offloading automatically assigns new sessions to the most suitable agent through preset rules (turns, online priority, by skills, etc.) to ensure that each user can receive a response within a reasonable time. It is the infrastructure for large-scale customer service operations and the key to improving user satisfaction and conversion rates.

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Detailed explanation of session diversion rules of Only TG

Only TG (referred to as onlytg) is an early entry into the field of Telegram Bot customer service. Its session offloading function supports two main rules: turn-based distribution and online priority.

Allocation mechanism in turns

Round-robin allocation means that the system allocates new sessions to agents in a fixed order. For example, agents A, B, and C are polled in sequence. The first session is given to A, the second session is given to B, the third session is given to C, and the fourth session is returned to A.

Applicable scenarios:

• The number of agents is small (2-3 people), and each agent has a similar skill level.
• The team hopes to balance the load of all agents and does not want a certain agent to be idle for a long time.
• The online time of agents is relatively uniform, and there is no need to make dynamic adjustments based on real-time status.

Limitations:

• If agent A is handling a complex session, but a new session is still assigned to him when it is his turn, this may cause a delay in response.
• There is no way to set up different agent scopes for different projects or product lines, all sessions are assigned in global order.

Online priority mechanism

Online priority rules check the real-time online status of agents and prioritize new sessions to agents who are currently online and idle. All online agents are usually assigned in a round robin or randomly.

Applicable scenarios:

• The online time of team agents is not uniform (such as cross-time zone teams, part-time customer service).
• Scenarios that require quick response (such as pre-sales consultation, emergency after-sales).
• The number of agents is medium (3-10) and we hope to maximize the use of online human resources.

Limitations:

• How to deal with Only TG’s online priority rule if all agents are offline? Some versions may directly reject the session or enter the queue, causing users to wait for a long time.
• The configuration entrance is usually hidden in the project settings, which is not intuitive enough for novices.

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Comparison of session diversion rules of TG-Staff

TG-Staff also provides two rules: rotation allocation and online priority, but they differ in implementation details and flexibility.

Allocation in turns: polling authorized agents in order

TG-Staff’s rotation allocation polls all authorized agents in a fixed order by default. The key differences are:

• Supports configuration of project customer service scope: You can set “all customer service” or “specified customer service” for each project. For example, project A is only assigned to agents 1, 2, and 3, and project B is only assigned to agents 4 and 5. This isolation-by-project allocation method is more suitable for teams with multiple business lines and multiple Bots.
• Fallback mechanism: If an agent is offline when being called multiple times in a row, the system will automatically skip it and continue polling the next agent to avoid session backlog.

Configuration steps:

1. Log in to the TG-Staff console → enter project settings → session offloading.
2. Select the “Allocation by turns” rule.
3. Select “All Customer Service” or check “Specified Customer Service” in “Customer Service Scope”.
4. Save to take effect.

Online priority: Prioritize allocation to online agents

TG-Staff’s online priority rules automatically recognize the online status of agents (based on the login status of the web console) and assign new sessions to currently online agents. If multiple agents are online at the same time, the system uses polling to allocate them.

Key Features:

• Full offline fallback: When all agents are offline, the system will automatically fall back to the rotation allocation rule and assign new sessions to authorized agents (regardless of online status). This means there will be no unanswered sessions, and users will at least receive an automatic reply or wait prompt when the agent is offline.
• Suitable for cross-time zone teams: For example, if your team is distributed in Asia, Europe and America, the online priority rule can ensure that the online agents in each period can handle the session in time, rather than letting users wait until the next working period.

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Key difference 1: Distribution rule configuration and flexibility

The following table uses a table to compare the core differences in diversion rules between the two tools:

Comparative Dimensions	Only TG	TG-Staff
Rule Type	Rotating Allocation, Online Priority	Rotating Allocation, Online Priority
Configuration method	Configuration in project settings, deep entrance	Intuitive configuration in the console “Project Settings → Session Diversion”
Customer service scope selection	Generally valid globally and cannot be isolated by project	Supports “all customer service” or “specified customer service” and can be finely allocated by project
Fallback mechanism	Unclear processing method when fully offline	Automatic fallback of rotation allocation when fully offline to avoid unattended sessions
Configuration changes take effect	Usually need to be refreshed after saving	Take effect immediately after saving, no need to refresh

Summary: If your team only has 1-2 Bots and a few agents, a simple configuration of Only TG may work. But if you manage multiple projects and need to isolate agents by business lines, TG-Staff is significantly more flexible.

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Key difference 2: Attribution ability combined with diversion links

For teams that rely on paid advertising or social media to drive traffic to Telegram Bot, conversation diversion is only the foundation, and attribution is the key to improving ROI.

• Only TG: Supports basic session offloading, but lacks the ability to track visitor sources. You can’t know which advertising channel or landing page a session comes from, and naturally you can’t evaluate the advertising effect.
• TG-Staff: Provides diversion link (also called magic link), which is an official domain name short link (such as https://app.tg-staff.com/{code}). When a user jumps to your bot through this link, the system automatically captures the following information:
  • Visitor IP address
  • Browser information (User-Agent)
  • URL parameters (such as utm_source, utm_medium, campaign_id, etc.)

These data will be associated with the user’s session records to form a complete conversion link of advertising traffic → diversion link → Bot automatic reply → manual agent acceptance. You can check the number of sessions and conversions brought by each channel directly in the TG-Staff console.

Applicable scenarios: cross-border e-commerce advertising, Web3 project community drainage, SaaS product trial guidance.

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Key difference three: agent management and collaboration functions

In addition to diversion rules, agent management capabilities directly affect team collaboration efficiency.

Comparative Dimensions	Only TG	TG-Staff
Maximum number of seats	Depends on package, usually less	3 for Standard Edition, 20 for Professional Edition
Session transfer	Supported	Supported and assigned records
Private notes	Not supported	Supported by the professional version, internal notes can be left between seats
Permission control	Basic permissions	Configure operation scope by project (such as read-only, reply-only, etc.)
Content risk control	Not supported	The professional version supports risk word detection and wallet address monitoring
Automatic translation	Third-party integration may be required	The standard version includes AI translation, and the professional version supports Google/DeepL professional translation

For teams of more than 3 people, TG-Staff has more obvious advantages in agent collaboration (session transfer, private notes) and permission management. Especially for Web3 and financial teams that require compliance and internal control, TG-Staff’s content risk control functions (such as monitoring wallet addresses sent by agents) are not available in Only TG.

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How to choose a diversion plan based on team size?

There is no absolute best tool, only the most suitable configuration. The following selection suggestions are for reference:

Small team (1-3 agents)

• Recommendation: Only TG (if the budget is limited and only basic diversion is needed)
• Reason: There are few seats, and a simple configuration of rotating allocation or online priority can meet the needs. If you do not need advanced functions such as traffic attribution and content risk control, Only TG may be used.
• Note: Confirm whether the seat limit of Only TG meets your needs.

Medium team (3-10 agents)

• Recommended: TG-Staff Standard or Professional Edition
• Reason: Collaboration functions such as agent isolation, session transfer, and private notes need to be isolated by project. If you use paid advertising to drive traffic, TG-Staff’s diversion links can help you track ROI.
• Scenario: Cross-border customer service team, multi-bot operation team.

Large teams (10-20 agents)

• Recommended: TG-Staff Professional Edition
• Reason: 20 seat quotas, content risk control (risk word detection + wallet address monitoring), unlimited translation/bulk sending, user portraits and other functions can meet complex business needs.
• Note: Please see the official website package page for professional version prices. Annual payment usually has discounts.

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FAQ

**Q: Can the session diversion rules of Only TG and TG-Staff be used at the same time? **

Answer: No. They are two independent Telegram Bot customer service management platforms. You need to choose one as the main management tool and cannot run two sets of diversion rules at the same time. It is recommended to choose one based on your team size and functional requirements.

**Q: Under TG-Staff’s online priority rule, what will happen if all agents are offline? **

Answer: The system will automatically fall back to the rotational allocation rule and allocate new sessions to authorized agents (regardless of online status) to ensure that no session will be left unattended. Users will receive automatic replies or wait prompts when the agent is offline, but the session will not be lost.

**Q: Does Only TG support assigning sessions by customer service skills or projects? **

Answer: Only TG supports basic rotation and online priority assignment, but when it comes to assignment by project or customer service skills, its flexibility is usually not as good as TG-Staff. TG-Staff allows you to configure different customer service scopes (all customer service or designated customer service) for different projects to achieve more refined triage, such as assigning technical consultation to the technical agent group and pre-sales consultation to the sales agent group.

**Q: Can TG-Staff’s diversion links be used for advertising attribution? **

Answer: Yes. TG-Staff’s diversion link is an official domain name short link, which captures the visitor’s IP, browser information and URL parameters before redirecting, and supports advertising attribution and multi-channel tracking. This is a capability that Only TG does not have, and is especially suitable for teams that rely on paid advertising or social media traffic.

**Q: I need more than 5 seats, is Only TG enough? **

Answer: The seat limit of Only TG depends on its package. Please check its official website for details. TG-Staff Professional Edition supports 20 agents and provides advanced collaboration functions such as session transfer, private notes, and content risk control, making it more suitable for medium and large teams. It is recommended to try TG-Staff for free for 3 days to experience the agent management and offloading functions.

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Next step

If you are looking for a more flexible conversation offloading solution for the Telegram Bot customer service team, you can:

1. Free trial of TG-Staff: Register to enjoy a 3-day trial and experience functions such as rotation allocation, online priority, and split links → https://app.tg-staff.com/
2. Check the official documentation: Understand the complete configuration steps and best practices → https://docs.tg-staff.com/
3. Contact Customer Service: Have configuration problems or need personalized advice? Contact @tgstaff_robot online customer service directly.