Live chat & handoff
The AI answers first. When a visitor asks for a person, or the assistant can't help, they reach you live in the Inbox, or leave a message when you're away. Works without an AI provider.
How handoff works
If you're offline, the visitor sees "Our team isn't online right now. Leave a message…" and, with the contact form on, the form opens. Their message is kept in the conversation and emailed to you. The assistant stays silent while a person handles a chat.
Live chat settings
Team & Handoff → Live Chat:
Moves the conversation to your Inbox when a visitor asks for a person (or chooses to when the assistant can't help). Works without an AI provider, while Enable Support Chat is on.
Any user who can manage the store (or the site, without WooCommerce). One person answers live chats in the Free plugin. With Pro, a whole team can answer at once. The default is the user with the site administration email, or else the first store manager.
"[Your Site] A visitor asked to talk to a person", with the last message and a link to the conversation, sent to the Send Requests To address. When nobody is online and the contact form is on, the form's own email is sent instead. At most 30 per hour.
What the visitor sees while waiting, and when you're away.
The Inbox
- Summary cards (Waiting, In progress, With assistant, Resolved)
- Conversation list with the Available switch
- An open conversation with the reply box and Customer panel
- Go available
Keep the Inbox tab open and switch Available on. You count as online while the switch is on and the Inbox was open in the last 90 seconds (it checks in every few seconds).
- Pick a conversation
Filter by Open, Waiting, In progress, Mine, With assistant, Resolved or All, or search by name, email or message.
- Reply
Type and press Send (Ctrl + Enter). Replying takes the conversation; the assistant stops until you hand it back.
- Finish
Resolve ends it ("This conversation was marked as resolved."), Hand back to assistant lets the AI continue, and Reopen brings a resolved chat back.
Accept takes a waiting conversation without replying yet. The Customer panel shows the visitor's name, email, account (or "Guest (not signed in)"), start time, message count, whether the assistant used AI or basic answers and, on shops, a signed-in customer's last 3 orders. Every conversation, AI-only ones too, can be read here.
Anyone else who opens the Inbox tab sees "Live chats are answered by …" instead. With live chat off, the Inbox still lists every conversation.
Alerts
While live chat is on and you're the person who answers, any wp-admin page alerts you to a new waiting visitor with a chime and a notice ("A visitor wants to talk to a person" with Open conversation). The menu and the Inbox tab also show the number waiting, and the page title "(1)". Turn on desktop alerts for background tabs. Toggle the sound with Sound on/off. Browsers allow sound only after you've clicked the page once.
Contact form
The contact form is offered as a card in the conversation when the assistant can't help, or the visitor asks for a person while you're away.
Blank uses the site administration email.
Limits spam. The whole site also accepts at most 50 per hour.
"Contact our team", "Leave your details and our team will get back to you by email.", "Thanks! Your message has been sent…"
The form asks for Name, Email and How can we help?, with a checkbox "Include this chat so the team has the context" (ticked by default). The email arrives as "[Your Site] Support request from Sarah", with Reply-To set to the visitor and the chat (contact details and card numbers removed) when they agreed. With live chat on, the request is also kept in the conversation in your Inbox.
- "Need a hand from our team?" card, then the open form