In regular customer support products, every message from a certain channel will be handled separately.
There is no direct link between the chat session and email about the same subject.

In the foreseeable future these channels will blend into one unified way of communicated called
messaging.

But for now emailing customer support desks is still popular and therefore support for this technique
cannot be dropped.

To offer the advantages of messaging with the restrictions of email, we use a technique called hybrid
messaging.

An advantage is that from one interface customers sends an offline message or, if an agent is online, will
transform into a chat session and the other way around.