Service

Live Chat

Live Chat adds a real-time chat widget to your customer portal and any website. An AI assistant handles conversations automatically, and your team can take over at any time. Available on every plan.

ℹ️ The chat widget is configured under Chat > Settings in the app sidebar.

How it works

A visitor opens the chat widget on your portal or website
They enter their name and email, then start chatting
The AI assistant replies automatically using your knowledge base and persona settings
If the visitor asks for a person, or if the AI cannot resolve the issue, a live agent request is triggered
Your team is notified immediately with a sound alert and in-app toast
An operator opens Chat in the app and replies in real time
When the conversation ends, the visitor receives a transcript by email and a support ticket is automatically created

The widget is automatically active on your customer portal. To embed it on your own website, add this snippet before the closing </body> tag:

<script src="https://serveloapp.com/widget.js" data-org="your-org-slug"></script>

Find this snippet pre-filled with your org slug under Chat > Settings.

Chat sources (multiple contexts)

Every account has a built-in Customer Portal source that powers chat on your Servelo portal. You can add up to two more sources (for a total of three) to embed the same widget on external sites such as your marketing site or a product-specific site, each with its own identity, greeting, AI persona, and knowledge base.

Under Chat > Settings, each source has a slug. To point a widget at a specific source, add data-source="<slug>" to the embed script:

<script src="https://serveloapp.com/widget.js" data-org="your-org-slug" data-source="marketing-site"></script>

If data-source is omitted (or the slug doesn't match), the widget falls back to the Customer Portal source. Conversations in the Chat inbox show a badge for external sources, so your team knows which context each message belongs to.

ℹ️ All sources share the same staff, notification recipients, and business-hours config, they only differ in what the visitor sees and how the AI responds.

AI assistant

The AI replies automatically to incoming messages. You can customize it under Chat > Settings:

Widget name: the name shown in the chat header and as the sender on bot messages
AI persona: a description of how the AI should behave and what tone to use
Knowledge base: free-text notes pasted directly (FAQs, pricing, policies)
Source URLs: web pages the AI fetches and uses as reference. Servelo also checks each origin's sitemap.xml and crawls a handful of additional same-site pages per seed URL, so a single URL can pull in the whole site's content (refreshed hourly)
Quick reply chips: up to 5 short phrases shown as tappable buttons on the widget's pre-chat screen. Use them for common questions like "Get a quote" or "Check my ticket status" to help visitors start conversations faster

The AI is automatically suppressed once a live operator joins the conversation. It also auto-escalates when it detects it cannot resolve the issue, sending a live agent request on the visitor's behalf.

Requesting a live agent

Visitors can click the Talk to a person button in the widget, or the AI will escalate automatically when needed. When a live agent is requested:

Your team hears a sound alert and sees an in-app toast notification, regardless of which page they are on
A push notification is sent if the browser has granted notification permission
The conversation appears in the Chat inbox and is auto-selected
A support ticket is automatically created and linked to the conversation
The visitor receives a confirmation email
Staff members receive an email with the conversation transcript and a link to open the chat

Responding to chats

Open Chat in the app sidebar. The left panel lists all open and recent conversations grouped by status. Click a conversation to open it in the message view. Type your reply and press Enter to send. Click the 😊 button next to the input to insert an emoji at the cursor.

Each conversation row shows which source it came from (your customer portal or a specific external site), and a needs agent flag is cleared automatically once you send your first reply.

When you send the first message in a conversation, a notice appears in the widget telling the visitor that a team member has joined.

To end a conversation, click Close. The visitor sees a closed notice and can start a new chat. A transcript is emailed to the visitor.

Business hours

Under Chat > Settings > Live Agent Requests, you can restrict when the live agent request button is shown to visitors. Outside those hours, visitors see the configured fallback message instead.

Automatic ticket creation

A support ticket is automatically created when a live agent is requested (or when a conversation is abandoned after 5 minutes of inactivity). The ticket includes the full chat transcript as an internal note, and the visitor is linked as a client (created if they don't exist yet).

Chat settings reference

Setting	What it does
Widget name	Name shown in widget header and on bot messages
Widget color	Accent color for the bubble and header
Greeting message	First message visitors see when they open the widget
Quick reply chips	Up to 5 tappable shortcut phrases shown on the pre-chat screen to help visitors start common conversations
AI enabled	Toggle AI auto-replies on or off
AI persona	Instructions for the AI's tone and behavior
Knowledge base	Text the AI uses to answer questions
Source URLs	Web pages fetched and referenced by the AI
Agent request enabled	Shows/hides the "Talk to a person" button
Fallback message	Message shown when live agent is unavailable
Agent hours	Days and times when live agents are available
Auto-create ticket	Whether to auto-create a ticket on new conversations