# Live Chat

> Put a branded chat widget on any website and answer it from the same inbox as SMS and email.

Live chat is a widget you embed on a website. A visitor taps the bubble, types, and the conversation lands in Conversations next to that contact's SMS, email and social messages. Each sub-account has its own widget with its own branding, so every client's chat looks like their business rather than yours.

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## Overview

The widget belongs to a sub-account. You configure it once, embed it on that client's website, and answer the chats from the inbox your team already works in. There is no separate chat console to keep an eye on, which is the most common reason website chats go unanswered.

Because the widget is designed to be embedded across origins, it runs on a site you do not host and did not build. A client's WordPress, Squarespace or custom site all work the same way.

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## Setting Up the Widget

1. Go to **Automation → Live Chat** in the sub-account you are setting up.
2. Set the greeting the visitor sees when the bubble opens.
3. Upload an avatar. This is the face on the widget, so use the client's logo or a photo of whoever answers.
4. Save.

The widget renders as a bubble in the corner by default and opens when a visitor taps it, rather than covering the page on arrival.

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## Embedding It on a Website

Copy the embed from the Live Chat settings page and paste it into the client's site before the closing `</body>` tag. Most site builders have a place for this:

- **WordPress** — a header/footer scripts plugin, or the theme's custom code area
- **Squarespace** — Settings → Advanced → Code Injection → Footer
- **Wix** — Settings → Custom Code
- **A custom site** — anywhere in the page template

The widget loads on its own after that. Nothing needs to be installed on the site beyond the embed.

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## Answering Chats

Chats arrive in **Conversations** with the rest of that contact's history. Everything you already use applies to them:

- Assign a chat to a team member
- Track it against your SLA response targets
- Use snippets to answer common questions quickly
- Let your existing notification rules reach whoever is on duty

A chat is a channel like any other, so workflows can trigger on it and your assignment rules apply without separate setup.

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## Turning a Visitor Into a Contact

Chat supports identifying the visitor, which turns an anonymous person on a web page into a contact record with the conversation already attached. Once they are a contact, everything else in the CRM applies: segments, workflows, campaigns and reporting.

This is the difference between chat inside a CRM and a standalone chat tool. A standalone tool leaves you with a transcript in another product that somebody has to copy the useful parts out of.

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## Answering Automatically

If you have connected an AI bot platform, it can answer live chat along with SMS, email, Gmail, Messenger and Instagram. The credential is set per sub-account, so different clients can run different bots.

The handover matters more than the answering. **The moment anyone on your team replies to a conversation, the bot stops replying to that conversation permanently.** A customer is never left with a person and a bot answering them at the same time.

Set this up under **Automation → Live Chat**, in the AI auto-reply section.

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## Common Questions

**Does each client need their own widget?**
Each sub-account has its own, with its own greeting and avatar. That is what makes it a white-label feature rather than a shared one.

**Can I put it on a site I do not control?**
You need someone who can paste the embed into the site. After that, no further access is required.

**Does it cost anything per conversation?**
No. There is no per-conversation, per-seat or per-website charge anywhere in the product.

**Why is a chat not appearing in Conversations?**
Check that the embed is actually on the page (view source and search for it), and that you are looking at the right sub-account. A widget belongs to one sub-account and its chats only appear there.

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Source: https://seedlycrm.com/docs/help/live-chat
