How to Use Live Chat in Sparkforge Conversations

Live Chat in Sparkforge Conversations lets you talk to website visitors in real time from the same inbox you use for SMS, email, and other channels.

What Live Chat does

Visitors send messages through a chat widget on your site. Messages land in the Conversations section in real time. You can assign chats to team members, automate routing, and set fallback messages for off-hours so leads don't disappear.

Why it helps

• Instant replies — answer visitors before they bounce.
• One inbox — chat sits next to SMS and email instead of a separate tool.
• Faster response times — no app-switching between tools.

Prerequisites

Before chats route to Conversations, install and configure the Chat Widget.

Create the widget

1. Go to Sites → Chat Widget and click + New.
2. Set Chat Type to Live Chat (this is required — SMS/Email Chat won't route to Conversations).

Configure appearance and fallback

• Intro message — short greeting that appears before the chat starts.
• Agent avatar and branding — match the chat window to your brand.
• Inactivity fallback message — auto-collects the visitor's contact details if no agent responds in time.
• Chat timeout message — closes the chat and notifies the visitor if they stop responding.

Install the widget

Copy the install code and paste it into your website's footer or body. On WordPress, use the Sparkforge plugin to enable the widget without editing code.

Handling Live Chat in Conversations

View and reply

Open Conversations. Live Chat messages appear in real time and are marked with the chat icon. Click a chat to view and reply instantly.

Filter to chat only

Use the filter to show Live Chat messages only — useful when you're triaging real-time inquiries separately from SMS and email.

Assign chats automatically

1. Go to Automations → Workflows and click + New Workflow.
2. Add trigger Customer Replied or New Chat Message.
3. Set filters: Channel = Live Chat, then Chat Widget is [your widget].
4. Add action Assign to User and pick the team member.
5. Save and toggle from Draft to Publish.

End or close a chat

Click End Chat when the conversation is done. You can also set an auto-close inactive timer in the widget config so abandoned chats close on their own.