Customize the widget

Everything visitors see in the widget, apart from the launcher button itself, is set under Widget Customization. The live preview on the right updates as you type and switches between the Home Screen and Chat views; nothing is saved until you click Save Settings. The Test the agent button in the page header opens your real widget in a drawer so you can try the result without spending AI replies.

Appearance and home screen

General chat settings

Write the greeting as the agent: "Hi! I can check orders, explain our plans and book a call. What can I help with?" Suggestions work best as questions your content answers well.

Agent instructions

Two optional text fields shape the agent's voice and its hard rules: How to sound and behave (persona, tone, wording and the topics to focus on, up to 4,000 characters) and Never do this (things it must decline, up to 2,000). Three example lines under the fields can be added with a click. The agent still searches your knowledge base first and never invents answers, whatever you write here. Agent instructions and guardrails has examples and the details of what they can and cannot change.

Allowed domains

One domain per line. Subdomains are included automatically, and leaving the box empty allows every site. See Allowed domains for the matching rules.

Team availability

The Team availability card says who picks up when the agent hands a conversation over. The agent keeps replying around the clock whichever option you choose; the setting changes what it promises, what the widget shows and whether it collects an email address first. See Human handoff for the full flow.

With during business hours selected:

The Away message (up to 300 characters) appears for the last two options. It is what the agent tells visitors who ask for a person while nobody can reply. Leave it empty for an automatic line: "Our team is offline right now and will be back Monday at 9:00 AM (Europe/Berlin)." with your real day, time and zone during business hours, or "No one is on live chat right now, but our team follows up by email." when no one answers live chat.

With business hours on:

• The chat-first home screen's status line reads "AI assistant · team online" inside your hours and, outside them, "AI assistant · team offline, back Mon 9:00 AM", with the reopening time shown in the visitor's timezone. It refreshes about once a minute while the widget is open, so it flips at the boundary without a reload.
• The Contact screen replaces "Available 24/7" with your schedule, for example "Mon-Fri 9:00-17:00 (Europe/Berlin)", in your team's zone.

Whenever nobody can reply in the chat, outside your hours or always with the last option:

• The agent asks once for the visitor's email address before it escalates (plus the fields you ticked under Lead capture, when that is on), and escalates whether or not they answer. It skips the question when the session already has an address.
• An escalated conversation shows a Get a reply by email card in the widget until the visitor leaves an address, so the hand-overs the agent never narrates (the Free plan's reply cap, a failed reply) still end with a way to reach them.
• The "A visitor needs a person" email carries the address with a Reply by email button, and a second email, "A visitor left their email address", follows if the address arrives through the card after the hand-over.

Switching back to My team answers in the chat restores "AI assistant · online" and "Available 24/7" and drops the away message from the agent's replies.

Blocked countries

Enter two-letter ISO country codes separated by commas, for example DE, US. Each recognised code becomes a chip with the country's name and an × to remove it; an unknown code shows "Unknown country code: xx" and blocks saving. Visitors from a blocked country see "Chat is not available in your region." with a Try again button, and no session or conversation is created for them.

• The country comes from the visitor's IP address, as reported by the widget's hosting platform. When it cannot be determined the check is skipped and the chat loads, so the list can never lock out visitors by mistake.
• It is a nuisance filter, not a security boundary: a VPN gets around it.
• A returning visitor whose stored country is now on the list is checked again when the widget loads and sees the same message.

Lead capture

Switch on Collect contact details to ask visitors for their email, and optionally their name, phone and company, either through a small form before the first message, when the agent needs a follow-up, or right before a handoff. An optional consent text (up to 300 characters) appears under the form. Everyone who shares an email lands on the Contacts page. See Lead capture and Contacts for the options and what the visitor sees. The When a new lead arrives card underneath emails the team, posts to Slack or calls a webhook the first time a contact is captured; see New lead notifications.

Voice & phone

Voice calls in the widget, the phone number shown on the widget home and inbound phone calls are set on the separate Voice & phone page, on the paid plans; this card links to it. See Voice and phone calls.

Test the agent

Test the agent in the page header (and on the Knowledge Base page) opens a drawer with your live widget, exactly as visitors see it, under a banner reading "Test mode - replies are free and hidden from analytics".

• Test chats do not count toward your monthly AI replies, and they keep working on a Free workspace that has used up its allowance.
• They are hidden from Analytics and from the inbox until you switch on Include test chats in the inbox header.
• Contact details typed into a test chat are not saved to Contacts.
• Bookings, integration actions and emails still run for real. Do not book a meeting or file a ticket in a test chat unless you mean to.
• Each time you open the drawer a fresh test session starts, so the Messages tab is empty. The widget's × closes the drawer. A drawer left open for more than a day shows "This test session has expired. Close the drawer and open it again."

Saved settings reach the open drawer without reopening it, apart from the greeting, which applies to the next conversation.

Save and verify

Click Save Settings. A toast confirms "Widget settings saved"; if a field is invalid the save is blocked and a toast names the first problem. Open your site: settings reach a widget that is already open without a reload, apart from the greeting, which applies to the next conversation.