Getting started with messaging for your website, help center, and mobile apps

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">This article helps you quickly set upmessagingin the Web Widget for your website or help center or in your iOS and Android mobile apps. If you want to set up social messaging integrations, seeGetting started with social messaging.</p>
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<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">Set up messaging on your website, help center, or mobile apps to enhance customer interactions. Enable a messaging channel, configure it for web or mobile, and consider adding an AI agent for automated support. Use ticket triggers or omnichannel routing to manage conversations. Ensure agents have access and training in the Agent Workspace. Explore further customization options to optimize your messaging experience.</p>
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<p class="p">This article helps you quickly set up <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846454682" target="_blank">messaging</a> in the Web Widget for your website or help center
or in your iOS and Android mobile apps. If you want to set up social messaging
integrations, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408831648794" target="_blank">Getting started with social messaging</a>.</p>
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If you are currently using live chat functionality through Zendesk Chat, you’ll need
to migrate your account from live chat to messaging. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821531162" target="_blank">Migrating from live chat to messaging</a>. </div>
<p class="p">This
article includes the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_nf3_4xr_zqb__ul_d21_yzr_zqb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_i3s_3yr_zqb">Enabling and
configuring a messaging channel</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_kyv_3yr_zqb">Automate your messaging channel with an AI
agent</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_wpf_31c_ccc">Routing messaging tickets and
notifying agents</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_pmg_jyr_zqb">Giving agents access to messaging and training
them</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_j2d_sfy_krb">Next steps</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_i3s_3yr_zqb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Enabling and configuring a messaging channel</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Messaging is automatically on in your account and ready to use whenever you're ready.
You don't need to turn on messaging. To start using messaging, you need to create a
messaging channel to offer messaging to your customers. You can offer messaging
through a Web Widget that you embed in your website or help center or through mobile
SDK for your Android or iOS app.</p>
<p class="p">When you're ready to start using messaging, you can configure your messaging channel
for your website and help center or mobile app.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested2" id="topic_mm5_2kv_bcc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title3">Configuring messaging for your website or help center</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Your account comes with a default Web Widget, named Zendesk, already created for
you. You can use the wizard to configure your basic widget information, install
the widget on your website or help center (if you’re ready), and make some basic
customizations.</p>
<p class="p">Follow these steps:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409103246874" target="_blank">Set up a Web Widget for messaging</a>. Create an
embeddable UI with a ready-to-use default messaging experience.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4500747797914" target="_blank">Configure your basic Web Widget appearance</a>.
Design the appearance of the app your customers will be interacting
with. Choose window and text colors, logos, and more.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10412442245914" target="_blank">Customize the welcome message</a>. Craft the
language used to greet your customers. You can also create separate
experiences based on your business hours, if you've set up a schedule. </li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4500748175258" target="_blank">Install the Web Widget on you website or help
center</a>. Add the widget to your website or help center.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="topic_w5s_fkv_bcc">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">Configuring messaging for your mobile apps</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can set up a mobile SDK channel to offer messaging in your Android or iOS
apps.</p>
<p class="p">Follow these steps:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834810394#topic_cbc_x1t_xnb" target="_blank">Activate messaging on your app</a>.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834810394#topic_kzg_ync_gnb" target="_blank">Customize the components</a>. Design the
appearance of the app your customers will be interacting with. Choose
window and text colors, logos, and more.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408834810394#topic_ig1_2sq_gnb" target="_blank">Install messaging on your mobile app</a>. You’ll
need to get a channel key to share with your
developers.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_kyv_3yr_zqb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Consider automating your messaging channel with an AI agent</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">After you configure your messaging channel, you can use it as-is, without any further
configuration. </p>
<p class="p">However, if you want to create a more automated customer experience, you can take
messaging to the next level by adding an AI agent to your messaging channel. This
gives you an opportunity to customize the interaction between the AI agent
and customer, before handing them off to a live agent. You can configure the AI
agent to greet customers, offer them self-service support options, hand them to a
live agent, and more.</p>
<p class="p">When you add an AI agent to messaging, you can define your AI agent's behavior using
the standard AI agent responses. Depending on your time and needs, you can decide
what you do now and what you do later after the messaging channel has been up and
running for some time.</p>
<p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824263578" target="_blank">Creating an AI agent to automatically resolve customer issues</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="topic_wpf_31c_ccc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Routing messaging tickets and notifying agents</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">When a customer requests assistance from a live agent during a
conversation, a ticket is created, and agents are notified that a request has been
received.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">You can use tickets triggers to route the associated ticket to specific
agents or groups, then use the chat routing rules to determine which of those agents
or groups are notified that a new conversation is waiting in the queue. You can
create views to organize tickets submitted through a messaging channel.</p>
<p class="p">Alternatively, you can route messaging tickets using omnichannel routing, instead of
using ticket triggers and chat routing rules. </p>
<p class="p">See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829019162" target="_blank">Routing messaging tickets and
conversations</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested1" id="topic_pmg_jyr_zqb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title7">Giving agents access to messaging and training them</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">All agent-side messaging activity happens in the Agent Workspace. You need to give agents access
to messaging before they can start working on messaging conversations. You'll want
to give agents some training so that they understand how to accept and work on
messaging conversations. </p>
<p class="p">To give agents access to messaging, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6073485578010" target="_blank">Giving agents access to messaging</a>.</p>
<p class="p">To train agents, use the following resources:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_pmg_jyr_zqb__ul_ffd_rss_zqb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821905434" target="_blank">Understand how messaging works in Agent Workspace</a>.
Get an overview of the agent experience for messaging.</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843683226" target="_blank">Work with messages</a>. See how you
respond to messages, reassign tickets, and create new messages.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested1" id="topic_j2d_sfy_krb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title8">Next steps</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">The tasks described in this article are intended to just get you started with messaging. There’s
a lot more you can do to customize the entire messaging experience, for your
customers and your agents. See our complete list of <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/4405298882330" target="_blank">documentation resources for messaging</a>.</p>
</div>
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