Two connected surfaces under Operations, Setup: Web Chat configures the widget itself, and Chat Intents teaches it what visitors mean. Both need the website capability. The operator inbox, where conversations are answered, lives in Web.
Web Chat
Configure the widget: which sites it appears on, its appearance, and how the AI assistant behaves.
The allowlist matters. A widget that accepts traffic from anywhere is a widget anyone can embed, and you will be answering conversations from sites you do not own.
Chat Intents
An intent is a thing a visitor might want. Your workspace is seeded with sensible defaults, and you edit them to model your actual business - a clinic needs "book appointment", a broker needs "list property".
Each intent carries a key, a label, a description, example phrasings, matching patterns, a priority and an active switch.
Examples do the heavy lifting. Write how people actually type, not how you would write it. Real visitors type "how much", not "please provide pricing information". Five real examples beat twenty polished ones.
The Five Response Strategies
What happens when an intent matches. This is the core decision for each one.
| Strategy | What it does | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| Canned reply | Sends a fixed text response. No AI involved. | The answer never changes |
| KB-grounded | Searches your knowledge base, optionally filtered, then summarises | The answer is documented and may evolve |
| Tool card | Renders a structured card, such as a booking link | The visitor needs to do something, not read something |
| Escalate | Marks the thread for a human and sends a handoff message | It needs a person |
| Clarify | Falls through to AI with a clarifying prompt | You cannot tell yet what they want |
Canned reply is right for opening hours and similar fixed facts. It is instant, costs nothing, and cannot drift.
KB-grounded is right for most real questions. It answers from your knowledge base, so updating the article updates the answer - no chat configuration to maintain. You can filter which parts of the knowledge base an intent draws from, which keeps a pricing question from being answered out of a troubleshooting guide.
Tool card beats text whenever there is an action. "Here is a link to book" as a card converts better than a sentence containing a URL.
Escalate should be used more than instinct suggests. A visitor who wants a person and is given three more AI replies leaves. Escalate anything about an existing order, a complaint, or anything urgent.
Clarify is the honest fallback. Better one clarifying question than a confident wrong answer.
Caution
Do not route everything to KB-grounded because it feels the most capable. It is only as good as the knowledge base behind it. If the article does not exist, the answer will be vague, and vague answers on a pricing question lose the visitor.
Priority
Intents are matched by priority, so overlapping intents resolve predictably. Put the specific above the general - "book appointment" should outrank "general enquiry", or every booking request gets a generic answer.
Setting Up: The Order
- Read your existing chat logs, or your inbox, and write down the ten things people actually ask.
- Map each to a strategy. Fixed facts to canned, documented answers to KB-grounded, actions to tool cards, anything human to escalate.
- Write real examples for each, in your visitors' words.
- Set priority so specific beats general.
- Check the knowledge base covers everything you routed to KB-grounded. Write what is missing first.
- Enable a few, watch real conversations, then expand.
Common Questions
The assistant answers the wrong thing. Two usual causes: priority puts a general intent above a specific one, or the examples do not resemble how people actually type.
Can I switch the AI off entirely? Route everything to canned replies and escalate. You then have a routing widget rather than an assistant, which is a legitimate choice.
Where do I answer conversations? In Web. This surface configures; that one operates.
How do I know it is working? Read the conversations. There is no substitute, especially in the first weeks.
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