Live Chat

Let visitors talk to a real person when the AI isn't enough. Live chat connects your chatbot to your team so conversations can be handed off smoothly.

How to get there: Go to Setup → Chatbot in the top menu → click your chatbot → Behavior → Live Chat in the sidebar.

Enabling Live Chat

  1. Go to Behavior → Live Chat in the chatbot sidebar
  2. Toggle Enable Live Chat on
  3. Configure your business hours and agent routing

Once enabled, visitors can request a human agent during conversations. The AI can also escalate automatically when it detects it can't help.

Chat Modes

Your chatbot can work in different modes depending on how you want to balance AI and human support:

AI + Live Chat (Default)

The AI handles conversations first. When a visitor asks for a human (or the AI detects it can't help), the conversation is handed off to a live agent.

Best for: Most businesses. The AI handles common questions, humans handle complex ones.

Live Chat Only

Visitors go straight to your team without any AI interaction. See Skip AI Routing for when this makes sense and how to set it up.

Best for: Sales teams that want immediate human contact, or businesses still training their AI.

Business Hours

Set the hours when live chat agents are available. Outside business hours, the AI handles conversations on its own (or shows an offline message if set to Live Chat Only).

What Happens During a Handoff

  1. The visitor asks for a human (or the AI decides to escalate)
  2. If lead collection is configured, the visitor is asked for contact details
  3. The conversation appears in the Inbox for your agents
  4. An available agent picks up the chat
  5. If the AI Summary feature is on your plan, agents see a short summary of the conversation so far

Agent Routing

Control which team members receive chats and how they're assigned. See Agent Assignment for the full setup: agent pools, assignment modes, and selection strategies.

Managing Live Chats in the Inbox

Once a conversation is handed off, your agents handle it in the Inbox. See the Inbox live chat guide for:

  • Going online/offline
  • Claiming and replying to chats
  • Visitor presence indicators
  • What happens when a visitor leaves mid-chat