How do I enable or disable live chat or messaging?

Question

How do I turn live chat or messaging on or off? How do I revert to the previous version of live chat and turn off messaging? Can I deactivate messaging? Can I create multiple Web Widgets?

Answer

Info: After messaging is turned off in your account, you will lose access to some features, such as related Explore datasets (Flow Builder)

Understand the experience

Do you use live chat or messaging?

Live chat (Web Widget (Classic)) and messaging (Web Widget) are different widgets and their settings exist in different locations.

Live chat is a legacy feature for chat and help center integration

Messaging includes more features, such as social messaging, help center suggestions, bots, and artificial intelligence (AI)

Understand which product you use.

With multiple widgets

Create multiple widgets at once

To use more than one type of widget:

Use the multibrand feature to create multiple brands

If you don’t see the option to create a brand, verify that your plan allows multiple brands

If you create multiple brands, you can create multiple widgets. In Admin Center, go to Channels > Classic > Web Widget

From that page, verify that you don’t already have a widget for each brand before you attempt to create a new widget

If you don’t have a Web Widget for your brand, click Add channel and follow the instructions on the page

With live chat

Turn off live chat on older accounts

To remove live chat:

Remove the widget script from the source code of your website

If you have a help center, turn off the Help Center setting that adds the Web Widget (Classic) to your help center

Live chat cannot be turned off from a setting.

Turn off live chat and move to messaging

To use messaging instead of live chat:

Verify that your account meets the requirements to use messaging

Create at least one agent to use Chat under their role permissions

Verify that the Agent Workspace is on

If you don’t use the Agent Workspace, migrate first

In Admin Center, go to Channels > Messaging and social > Messaging

If your plan doesn’t meet the plan requirements to use messaging, the option for Messaging doesn’t appear

In the widget list, click the name of your existing Web Widget (Classic)

If you see Web Widget instead of Web Widget (Classic) in the list, you already use messaging

At the top, select Turn on messaging

When a new page loads, configure the Web Widget appearance

Customize your default messaging behavior

If you used Chat triggers in the Chat dashboard, you can now create messaging triggers in Admin Center instead

If you want to add an AI agent to your messaging channel, in the Responses tab, click Add an AI agent

You use an AI agent to build your conversation flow

The messaging response deactivates and the standard responses for the AI agent replace it

Install the Web Widget on your website or help center

New conversations create Support tickets, which appear in your ticket views and you can search for them in Support

Route your tickets to different teams and agents of your choice

Note: Messaging provides a unique experience compared to live chat, with certain limitations.

With messaging

Turn on messaging for the first time

If you never used live chat, messaging exists by default in your account. To configure it:

In Admin Center, go to Workspaces > Agent Workspace. Ensure that Turn on agent workspace is ticked. This is a new user experience

If you don’t use the Agent Workspace, migrate first

In the side panel, go to Channels > Messaging and social > Messaging

Click Manage settings. If the option isn't on, tick Turn on messaging for your account and click Save settings

Go back to Channels > Messaging and social > Messaging > Add channel > Web Widget

If you don’t see the option, verify that a widget isn't on the list below. You may already use a Web Widget

Add a Channel name

Add a privacy notice and click Next

Email the code for the Web Widget to your developer team so they can add it to the source code of your website when you’re ready and click Next

Choose a color, title, and logo and click Next

When a new page loads, configure the Web Widget appearance

Customize your default messaging behavior

If you used Chat triggers in the Chat dashboard, you can now create messaging triggers in Admin Center instead

If you want to add an AI agent to your messaging channel, in the Responses tab, click Add an AI agent

You use an AI agent to build your conversation flow

The messaging response deactivates and the standard responses for the AI agent replace it

Install the Web Widget on your website or help center

New conversations create Support tickets, which appear in your ticket views and you can search for them in Support

Route your tickets to different teams and agents of your choice

When you’re ready to offer messaging, add the Web Widget to your help center or add the Web Widget to the source code of your website

Watch the video below to learn how to turn on messaging in your account.

Turn off messaging completely

To remove messaging:

Remove the widget script from the source code of your website

If you have a help center, turn off the setting that adds the Web Widget to your help center

Conversations on your website cannot be turned off from a setting.

Turn off messaging and revert to live chat on older accounts

Note: If you aren’t able to follow the steps below, you have a newer account with messaging by default and aren’t able to revert to live chat.

To remove messaging and return to live chat:

In Admin Center, go to Channels > Messaging and social > Messaging

In the widget list, click the name of your existing Web Widget

In the list, if you see Web Widget (Classic) instead of Web Widget, you already use live chat

Scroll down, click Installation, and open that tab

Click the Switch to Web Widget (Classic) red button

When a pop-up appears, click the Switch to Web Widget (Classic) red button

If you created messaging triggers, configure Chat triggers instead

You use the Agent Workspace experience, which means that new conversations create Support tickets, which appear in your ticket views and you can search for them in Support

Route your tickets to different teams and agents of your choice