Live Chat is the little chat button in the bottom corner of a website. A customer clicks it, types, and the conversation lands in your inbox while they are still on the page.
What Live Chat is
Technically it is a small piece of code you add to your website, which draws a chat window for your visitors. Practically it is the difference between a visitor with a question leaving, and a visitor with a question asking it.
You can have more than one. A separate chat box for your main site and your help pages lets you greet each audience differently, and tell the conversations apart when they arrive.
Before you start
- Somewhere to put the code. You need to be able to edit your website's HTML, or use a platform like WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Squarespace, Wix, Framer or Google Tag Manager. We have step-by-step install guides for all of those.
- Someone who can do it, if that is not you. There is a Send to developer button that mails the snippet on.
- A decision about who answers. Live chat sets an expectation of speed. Either somebody watches it during your working hours, or you let Chloe pick it up.
How to set it up
- 1Go to Settings, then Channels, then Live Chat.
- 2Click Add live chat box. The setup wizard walks you through it.
- 3Set the style and greeting: your brand colour, the name customers see, and the first message they get.
- 4Open the Install tab and copy the embed snippet.
- 5Paste it into your site's HTML immediately before the closing body tag, on every page where the chat should appear.
- 6Open your site and look for the launcher in the corner.
- 7Send yourself a message and check it arrives in your inbox.
The direct link, if you have no website
Every live chat box also has a direct link. This is a chat page we host for you, at an address like chat.gruvi.ai/c/your-code.
Nothing needs installing. Put it behind a button, in an email signature, on a QR code on a receipt, or in a social media profile. Customers who open it get the same chat, and the conversations arrive in the same inbox.
You will find it under Install, in the Direct link section, with its own on-off switch.
Settings worth knowing
Each live chat box has its own settings, arranged in tabs. You do not need to touch most of them, but five are worth a look.
- Look & feel
- Your display name and avatar, brand colour, which launcher icon to show, and which corner it sits in.
- Pre-chat
- A short form shown before the conversation starts. Its real job is capturing an email address, so you can still reach the customer if they close the tab mid-conversation.
- Messaging
- The greeting, the reply-time estimate shown in the widget header, and switches for attachments, emoji, voice messages and dictation. This is also where Chloe replies here lives, so live chat can be answered by AI while other channels are not.
- Rules
- Office hours, an offline form for when nobody is available, and which domains the widget is allowed to load on.
- Post-chat
- A survey shown when the conversation is resolved. Those ratings feed your CSAT figures and the empathy engine.
Limitations and things to watch
- Set your allowed domains. Leave the list empty and the widget will load anywhere it is embedded, including on somebody else's site. Under Rules, list only your own domains.
- A paused box shows nothing. If the widget has vanished, check whether the chat box is paused before assuming the code is wrong.
- Ad blockers and privacy extensions can hide the widget. If a colleague cannot see it, try a different browser before changing anything.
- A strict Content Security Policy will block the script. If your site has one, it needs to allow the Gruvi domain.
- Give it a minute. A freshly installed widget can take a moment to appear. Refresh before worrying.
- Live chat raises expectations. A chat window that nobody answers is worse than no chat window. Use office hours and the offline form so customers are told the truth.