Working the chat inbox — claim, reply, hand off

Incoming conversations from your site's chat widget land in your org's chat inbox at /chats in real time. Here's how your team handles them.

Claim a conversation:
• A new chat appears in the inbox the moment a visitor sends their first message. Any team member can claim it to take ownership, so two people don't reply over each other.

Reply:
• Open the conversation and type your reply — the visitor sees it live in the widget on your site. The full back-and-forth stays threaded in the conversation.

Hand off:
• Need someone else to take it? Hand the conversation off to another team member without losing any history — the new owner picks up the full thread.

Online vs. offline:
• Your org's online/offline state controls what visitors see. During business hours (or when you manually force online) the widget invites a live chat. Outside hours, or when you're offline, visitors get your away message and can leave their email so you can follow up. Configure hours, the manual override, the offline message, and the max wait before a chat auto-routes to email under Settings → Live Chat.