Most im clients have two user list display modes: all or only active. Basically, I use the second mode, like most, because it is impossible to constantly rotate the list of hundreds of other contacts. And here there is one nuance - there are people who constantly sit in the invise and, accordingly, are displayed as inactive. If you need to communicate with them regularly (for work, for example), you have to turn on the full list view mode and dig into finding the right contact. Or constantly keep an open window with messages - but this is not convenient for everyone, for example, I always close all windows that are not needed at the moment.
The idea is to add one menu item to the im-client - “attach”, after which the contact will always hang in the online list, regardless of its state.