Web chat conversations

When a visitor opens the chat widget on your site and types a message, that conversation lands in your Inbox the same way SMS and voice calls do. Same AI, same dashboard, same patterns.

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How it differs from SMS

The mechanics are the same — AI replies, you can take over, conversations close — but a few specifics:

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Anonymous-by-default

Web visitors don’t have a phone number until they share one. The widget tracks them by a localStorage token so a returning visitor sees the same thread; in your inbox they appear as visitor:abcd1234… until they share enough info to identify them as a real contact.

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Page context

The AI sees the URL of the page the visitor is chatting from. So a visitor chatting from your /services/kitchen-remodel page gets answers framed around kitchen remodels; a visitor on /contact gets a more generic intake. Useful for site visitors who land on specific service pages.

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Faster, more interactive

Web chat happens in real-time — visitors are watching the screen. The AI’s typing-indicator shows while it’s drafting, replies appear within 1–2 seconds. SMS feels asynchronous; web chat feels live.

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Web call upgrade

If the visitor wants a real conversation, they can tap the phone icon in the widget to start a browser-based voice call. The conversation continues in voice from there.

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What the AI asks, and in what order

The AI works out what the visitor needs before it asks anything about the visitor. Questions about the job feel like help; questions about the person feel like a form, and a visitor who gets four personal questions before any answer usually leaves. So a typical chat runs:

1. The job — what they need, plus one scoping question that fits your trade (how many rooms, the make and model, how long it’s been happening).
2. Their name.
3. A phone number.
4. Times — the AI offers two or three openings.
5. Everything else — email (“where should I send the confirmation?”) and, for on-site work, the service address. These come after the visitor has picked a time, when the reason for asking is obvious.

Nothing is dropped: the AI still has an email and a full service address before it books anything. It just doesn’t ask for them up front. If the visitor opens by saying what they need — most do — the AI won’t ask again. It picks up from there.

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Promoting an anonymous visitor to a contact

Two ways:

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Manually

Open the conversation in the inbox. Click Add to contacts at the top. Fill in whatever info you’ve gathered from the chat (name, phone, email).

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Automatically

As soon as the visitor has shared a name plus a phone number or email, the contact is created — you don’t have to wait for the chat to finish, and the visitor record promotes from visitor:abcd1234… to their name. You get a New lead notification at the same moment. This is deliberately early. A visitor who answers three questions and then closes the tab is still a lead you can call back, so the contact is saved partway through rather than at the end. Anything they share later — email, service address, business name — is added to the same contact.

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Reading the page URL

In the conversation view, the page URL shows up at the top: “Started from /services/kitchen-remodel”. Useful for understanding what the visitor was looking at when they reached out.

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Closing a conversation

A widget conversation that’s gone quiet for >24h is automatically marked closed. The visitor can re-open by sending another message; we just don’t keep it as “active” in your inbox forever.

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Inbox cleanup

If you have a lot of cold widget chats (people who said “hi” then never replied), the Cleanup button on the inbox archives stale chat sessions. Doesn’t delete them — they’re still searchable by Contact — just removes them from the active inbox view.

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Privacy

The widget doesn’t track visitors across pages or set marketing cookies. It uses one anonymous localStorage token per visitor, scoped to your widget’s domain. Visitors can clear it at any time by clearing their browser storage.

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