Chats section is where the communication between agents and customers happens. Here you can provide round the clock support and boost sales by converting people who are casually browsing your website into customers.

LiveChat provides quite a few tools that help with handling chats effectively. Below, you can find a rundown of the most important features and options available in the Chats section.

Chat list

The chat list is divided into three sections: my chats (all of your ongoing conversations), queued chats (customers who are waiting to start a chat) and supervised chats (conversations you are currently supervising).

My chats

A list of your ongoing chats. You can switch between them by clicking on the names of customers. We will let you know that you received a new message through in-browser notifications.

There are two types of chat statuses:

active - either you or the customer has written something recently, these chats stay at the top of your list as they require your attention the most. If you don’t respond in 40 seconds a red rim will appear around the circle to remind you that you should respond immediately

inactive - the customer hasn’t responded for a certain time (you can set the time after a chat turns inactive in Settings); it doesn’t necessarily mean that a customer has left, they might just need more time to respond; all inactive chats are greyed out and are placed at the bottom of the list

Note that inactive chats don’t count into the concurrent chats limit; so if a chat becomes active again you might end up with more chats than your set limit. Note that inactive chats don’t count into the concurrent chats limit; so if a chat becomes active again you might end up with more chats than your set limit.

Queued chats

Visitors who are waiting for an available agent. If you have some free time on your hands just pick a customer from the list to start a conversation.

Supervised chats

Chats that are currently handled by other agents in your account, you can pick which chats you want to supervise in the Customer section. To help your teammates without going over to their desk, you can send them a message in chat that is invisible to the customer.

To handle several chats at the same time efficiently, you need to keep switching between them. Your visitors don’t know that you are chatting with more than one person and could get impatient if you don’t respond for a long time. You can also switch between chats using keyboard shortcuts To handle several chats at the same time efficiently, you need to keep switching between them. Your visitors don’t know that you are chatting with more than one person and could get impatient if you don’t respond for a long time. You can also switch between chats using keyboard shortcuts

Chat feed

This is where the actual conversation takes place, aka the heart and soul of our app.

Chat history

In the history of your chat, you can see both the messages that were sent during the current conversation and messages that were sent before (providing the person you are talking to hasn’t cleared cookies since your last conversation).

Text area

To send a message, just type in your answer and press enter. We give your visitors a heads up that you are typing something so they know they need to wait for your reply. Once you press enter, your message will be sent to the visitor. And you will see it in the chat history.

Tip: Make sure you keep your messages short and informative and give your customers some time to read your message before sending the next one. Tip: Make sure you keep your messages short and informative and give your customers some time to read your message before sending the next one.

Message sneak-peek

Message sneak-peek, lets you see what the visitor is typing before they send it over. This allows you to start thinking of the answer faster, making your responses quicker.

Canned responses

Canned responses are predefined messages that can store a large portion of text to be later recalled with shortcuts. To use canned responses in chats or tickets, simply type in # followed by the shortcut for the response you wish to use.

Learn how to create canned responses and more about their benefits in the canned responses tutorial.

Use tags to categorize chats and easily find all conversations that deal with the same issue later on. Tags can be added and edited in Settings.

Share files

You can send and receive files over chats using the file sharing option. Use it to pass all kinds of documents, for example, marketing materials, product catalogs, and guides.

How to send a file

Click on the paperclip icon in the bottom left corner.

Choose a file you want to send and click on Open.

You can also drag and drop files into the chat. Click and hold the selected file and drag it over the chat area. You can also drag and drop files into the chat. Click and hold the selected file and drag it over the chat area.

To finalize click on Send.

Transfer

Chat transfers allow you to transfer a chat to another agent or a group. Whenever you are making a chat transfer, let the customer and the other agent know what you are planning to do (and why). If you are on the receiving end of a chat transfer, let the customer know that he or she doesn’t need to explain the situation again (as you can see the chat history).

How to transfer a chat

Click on the three dots icon “…” in the top right corner.

Click on Transfer to….

Choose either an agent or a group (you need to switch to Group tab to choose a group). To finalize click on Choose.

That’s it. The chat will be transferred immediately and you can focus on helping other customers.

Tickets

Sometimes one conversation isn’t enough to solve a customer’s problem. This is where tickets come in handy. You can create them right from a chat - that way the transcript from the conversation will be included.

How to create a ticket from a chat

Click on the three dots “…” icon in the top right corner.

Click on Create ticket…

Provide the e-mail address of your customer, and a title of the ticket

Click on Create ticket.

That’s it! You can head to the Tickets section to assign a person responsible, add new information, edit it’s status etc.

Ban visitors

Unfortunately, sometimes you need to ban a visitor that e.g. sends spam or uses abusive language. We are big fans of conflict resolution but sometimes you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

How to ban a visitor

Click on the three dots icon “…” in the top right corner.

Click on Ban this visitor.

Provide the number of days the visitor should be banned for.

To finalize, click on Ban visitor.

That’s it. You can see the list of all the banned visitors in Settings. If you made a mistake, you can always unban visitors.

End chat

Once you respond to all the questions or solve all your visitor’s problems, you can close the chat. There are actually two ways to close a chat: from the chat list and from the chat feed.

How to end a chat (chat list)

Hover over the name of the customer in the chat list. An x should appear in the top right corner

Click on the x.

To finalize, click on Close and archive.

How to end a chat (chat feed)

Click on the three dots icon “…” in the top right corner.

Choose Stop this chat.

Confirm, by clicking on Stop chat.

Customer details

Here you can find a lot of useful information about the customer you are talking to. Use it to provide more personalized support.

What you can find in Customer details:

Contact info - name, e-mail address, time zone, location;

- name, e-mail address, time zone, location; Pre-chat survey - information provided in the pre-chat survey;

- information provided in the pre-chat survey; Visited pages - number of visited pages and time spent on all pages together;

- number of visited pages and time spent on all pages together; Additional info - number of previous visits and chats;

- number of previous visits and chats; Technology - user’s device information.

Integrations

LiveChat can be integrated with a number of helpful third-party apps. They range from CMS platforms to desktop sharing apps. You can find and install them in Marketplace. Integrations can be used right in the Chats section - once installed, you will find them at the top of the Customer details tab.