Live chat on your website

Put the chat box on your site

Copy the code from the screen, paste it into your pages, and it works. The screen has step-by-step notes for the usual ways of running a website.

• Paste-in codeWith instructions for WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, Google Tag Manager, React and plain HTML
• More than one chat boxEach has its own key and its own list of websites it is allowed to run on
• Change it as a draftPublish when you are happy, and go back to an earlier published version if you need to
• Inside your own phone appKeys for in-app chat, which you can change at any time
• The security line your site needsThe install screen prints the Content-Security-Policy text to add
• Drive it from your own pageOpen it, close it, tell it who the visitor is, add a note and listen for events from your own code
• Show it only where you wantHide it on pages whose address matches a pattern, including checkout pages
• Know a signed-in visitorSign a token on your own server so the person is recognised. The signing key can be changed whenever you like

Your name on it, not ours

The chat box is the part of MerlinDesk you can put your own name on today. A visitor on your client's website need never see ours.

• Take our name offThe "powered by" line can be switched off for your account. The box asks our server for its settings, so the name is simply not sent — it is not hidden by a style someone could undo
• Your logoUpload it and it sits in the chat box
• Your colour and your cornerLeft or right, a round bubble or a bar along the edge
• Your wordsTitle, sub-title, team name, greeting and away message are all yours to write
• A picture and a soundShow the person answering, and choose whether a new message makes a noise
• More than one languageRun it in English or Hindi, and edit every word for each language
• A privacy lineShow a cookie and privacy notice with a link to your own policy
• Ask for details firstA short form before the chat: name, email, phone and topic, with your own consent wording

A chat goes to whoever is free

Set the rule once. Nobody has to watch the queue and shout.

• Three ways to hand out chatsTo whoever is least busy, round the team in turn, or people take them from the queue themselves
• A limit per personHow many chats one person holds at once, and how much a chat counts against their ticket load
• Queue rulesLongest wait, what to do when the queue is too long, a warning when a visitor goes quiet, and ending a chat that has gone cold
• By topicA topic picked on the pre-chat form sends the chat to people with that skill
• Pass it onHand a chat to a colleague or a team with a note. A supervisor can move a chat off someone, and it is written down
• Three listsYours, the queue, and everything — updating as it happens
• Block a nuisanceOne visitor, or by IP address, country or email address ending, with a preview of who would be stopped
• Each person's own settingsSounds, desktop alerts, their own chat limit and a shortcut key

While the visitor is waiting

• Saved repliesType a short code and the whole answer appears
• They can see you typingAnd you can see them. Read marks show when a message has been seen
• Who you are talking toName, email, where they are, the page they are on, their browser, the pages they looked at and their earlier chats
• Notes only your team can seeWritten inside the chat, out of the visitor's view
• Visitors on your site nowA live list. You can send one of them an invitation to chat
• Start the chat yourselfA message can appear after a set number of seconds, on pages you choose
• Files and picturesVisitors can send them, up to a size you set
• Answer before a person is freeA chat flow asks questions, branches on the answer, tags the chat and hands over to a person
• Try the flow before it goes liveTest it with a pretend page and country, publish it, keep the old versions, and see how visitors moved through it
• Work chats on your phoneList, read, reply, take a chat, end it and make a ticket

Help articles, and the hours you are closed

Not every question needs a person. And when the office is shut, the box should still take the message.

• Your help articles inside the boxA search tab, so the customer can find the answer without waiting
• Open on chat, search or a formYou choose which of the three the box opens on
• A form when nobody is thereOutside your working hours the box takes a message and makes a ticket
• An away messageSay when you are back, and show a phone number to ring
• Only offer chat when someone is freeSo nobody starts a chat that cannot be answered
• The chat becomes a ticketEvery word of it is the first message on the ticket
• A copy of the chatEmailed to the visitor on request, or when the chat ends. Needs your own mail sending set up
• Download your chatsExport the chats for any date range as a CSV file
• Ask how it wentThe visitor rates the chat at the end, and the rating shows on the finished chat
• Carry on laterA returning visitor brings their earlier chats with them, and your team can continue by email after they have gone