General FAQs

With Freshchat you get an asynchronous messaging experience, which is the preferred style of engagement among people and businesses today. It allows customers and businesses to communicate at their convenience. Asynchronous messaging offers a continuous thread of conversation similar to iMessage or Facebook Messenger. 

If a customer misses your chat message because they are away, Freshchat will deliver your message over email (even if it is a day later, to someone who has reached out to you outside your business hours). The customer can then directly reply back to the email, in which case the reply will be created as a ticket in your Freshdesk account or they can come back to the message thread and send a reply.

This makes the workflow simpler for both your team and your customers. If a customer chooses to engage with you over chat, they can do so, without getting instantly pushed to different medium of communication such as email (which is the case if the chat gets immediately converted to a ticket), unless they prefer it.

Many of our customers who moved from live chat to Freshchat appreciate this workflow once they start adapting to this process.

Pro-tip: If you want a separate workflow for your non-business hour chats, you can use Assignment Rules to map all incoming conversations outside your working hours to a different group, and handle it as a separate process, so your real-time engagement can start without the backlog of conversations from the previous day.

Note: You can bulk resolve chats, that came in during your offline hours, into tickets and engage back from Freshdesk. We recommend this if you want to move the conversations to a team that needs more time to resolve them.

Freshchat Agent Portal :

Here is the list of domains you have to allow at your end to start using Freshchat :

Integrations:

Whitelist appropriate Product and customer-specific domains for the below integrations:

• Facebook Messenger
• Shopify - Chat
• Google Calendar
• Whatsapp
• Apple Business Chat
• Line Messenger
• Slack
• Clearbit
• WordPress

Freshchat Visitor Widget :

Allow the below list of domains from your end to start using the Freshchat widget

The picture resolution for profile picture is 512px x 512px. If the image you upload is of a different size, then the image will be adjusted to fit the size.

You could make use of agent: {hideName: false} as part of the config to hide both the Agent and Bot Name. 

You can set it to true to hide the agent's name. This would be replaced by the App Name you had configured under Admin > Account Settings >App Name.

For widget customisations check our developers portal here: https://developers.freshchat.com/#customisation-wgt

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. 

With Freshchat , you can let your customers know your availability by setting up Business Hours. You can configure an Away message which will be auto-replied to your users if they initiate a chat during your offline hours. The Away message can be customized. For example, it can say “We are currently offline, please drop a line and we’ll get back to you once we are back.” or “We are available from 9AM to 6PM PST, leave a message and we’ll get back to you asap.” This will help set the right response expectations with your customers.

Chat messages accumulated over your non-business hours will be available in the New view in the Team Inbox. Agents can pick up and start responding to messages from here the next day. Or you can set up Assignment Rules to route these conversations to a custom view/group/agent. 

You can also enable email notifications for your customers which will notify them when you reply to their message, by sending them a link to the conversation as an email. You can also enable email notifications without configuring business hours.

To hide the web messenger during your offline (non-business) hours, you can use the below code snippet:

<script src="https://snippets.freshchat.com/js/freshchat-business-hours.js"></script>
<!-- All the below time stamps are in GMT. This is done in order to have the script work across all regions -->
<script>
  var business_hours_config = {
    "Sunday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Monday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Tuesday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Wednesday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Thursday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Friday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    },
    "Saturday": {
      from: '03:30 AM',
      to: '11:30 AM'
    }
  };
</script>
<script>
  window.fcSettings = {
    token: "WEB_CHAT_TOKEN",
    host: "https://wchat.freshchat.com",
    config: {
      cssNames: {
        //The below element is mandatory. Please do not modify this.
        widget: 'custom_fc_frame',
        //The below element is mandatory. Please do not modify this
        expanded: 'custom_fc_expanded'
      }
    },
    onInit: function() {
      fcBusinessHours.initBusinessHours(business_hours_config);
    }
  };
</script>
<script src="https://wchat.freshchat.com/js/widget.js" async></script>

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. You can hide the widget on certain pages by using the below code under the <BODY> tag.

<script>
window.fcWidget.init({
"config": {
"headerProperty": {
"hideChatButton": true
}
},
"host": "https://wchat.freshchat.com",
"token": "ENTER YOUR TOKEN HERE"
});
</script>

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. You can customize the widget to match your brand.

For example, you can change the widget color from Admin > Web Messenger > Appearance. You could also use the below code snippet:

headerProperty: {

backgroundColor: '#FFFF00',

foregroundColor: '#333333',

backgroundImage: 'https://wchat.freshchat.com/assets/images/texture_background_1-bdc7191884a15871ed640bcb0635e7e7.png'

}

Learn more about customizing your widgets here.

To change your password,

1. Go to Admin.
2. Click Profile Settings.

3. Click Change Password.

4. Click Freshworks Account Settings. You will be redirected to the Freshworks account settings page.

3. Select the Password tab.

4. Enter your current password and new password.

5. Click Change Password.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers.

If you want the widget to load async you will need to use the modified code below.

<script>
function initFreshChat() {
    window.fcWidget.init({
      token: "WEB_CHAT_TOKEN",
      host: "WEB_CHAT_HOST"
    });
}

(function(d, id) {
    var fcJS;
    if (d.getElementById(id)) {
        initFreshChat();
        return;
    }
    fcJS = d.createElement('script');
    fcJS.id = id;
    fcJS.async = true;
    fcJS.src = 'https://wchat.freshchat.com/js/widget.js';
    fcJS.onload = initFreshChat;
    d.head.appendChild(fcJS);
}(document, 'freshchat-js-sdk'));
</script>

The above code should be added before the </body> tag of your website's HTML.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. You can use the same Freshchat account across multiple websites. 

• Declare a unique siteID for each of these website and add the web messenger widget code to the websites. When a customer or a site visitor pings you from these websites, each conversation/user from the different websites will be treated as a different user/conversation. Whereas, pages/sites with the same siteID will have common users/conversations. 

For more information on how to declare siteID, visit the Freshchat developer’s portal.

If you've integrated Freshdesk Support Desk and Freshchat but you're facing issues where the screen is always loading or blanking out, please try out the following:

1. Check if you have added the right API keys to complete the integration.
2. Refer to these solution articles to make sure the integration works both ways:
   1. Freshchat — Freshdesk Support Desk integration.
   2. Freshdesk Support Desk — Freshchat integration.
3. Try clearing your cache on your browser and refresh the page. 

Your issue should be resolved. If it's not yet resolved, please reach out to support@freshchat.com.

You can integrate your Freshchat with Freshdesk Support Desk account. Please check whether the Freshdesk account is integrated correctly. Try to Sync Fields from Freshdesk again in case you made any changes to the Freshdesk labels or fields. 

Send an official request to support@freshchat.com requesting for account Admin change. We'll change it for you from our end.

Google project should be imported into Firebase. You can use the new firebase server key and still retain you old server / client implementations

This is because Freshchat hasn’t been enabled for your Freshdesk Support Desk instance as a support channel.

Please send an email to support@freshchat.com and we will enable it for you from the backend.

Once enabled, you have to refresh your Admin screen on Freshdesk Support Desk and you will find Freshchat  added to your list of support channels. 

You can use the following code to disable push notifications for your customers.

<!--Paste this code within <HEAD>-->
<script src="https://wchat.freshchat.com/js/widget.js"></script>

<!--Paste this code before </BODY>-->
<script>
window.fcWidget.init({
"config": {
"disableNotifications": true
},
"host": "https://wchat.freshchat.com",
"token": "Your own token "
});
</script>

Freshchat works on WHMCS. It is quite easy and basic. All you need to do is use FTP or open the 'header.tpl' file on the WHMCS directory then navigate to 'templates/six', depends on what template name you're using, by default is 'six', then edit header.tpl, after that paste the first code ( within HEAD part ) on https://web.freshchat.com/settings/widget. Paste that code within the <HEAD> section.

Then save, after that, open the footer.tpl file, paste the 2nd code ( before /BODY) on the https://web.freshchat.com/settings/widget, Paste that code before the </BODY> section.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. The web messenger loads within an iframe on  your website. So it cannot be pulled from an external source when your site is down.

You can loading the Freshchat web messenger asynchronously. This loads the widget without any dependance on the website.

The asynchronous code also reduces the load time of the site.

To delete your Freshchat account, send an email to support@freshchat.com requesting termination from your official email address (account admin). Account deletion requests are typically processed within a week. 

Business hours feature is available only from Estate plan. But Groups and Assignment Rules can be used instead for the incoming chats which is available from the Blossom plan.

No, we don't have Agent to Agent chat in Freshchat . Agents can interact in a conversation among themselves through Private Notes which are not visible to customers.

We are proud of the products that we build and put our name on what we create. However, we also understand the importance of creating a unique customer service experience for your customers on your website — and having the Freshworks branding on the widget may not help.

Please write to support@freshchat.com and we'll help you figure out about remove the branding from the widget.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. 

Please check whether the code for embedding the Freshchat widget has been placed correctly in your website's HTML source code. To learn more, checkout our support article.

Multi-Account Login enables you to switch between different Freshchat accounts with a single click. Use a single email ID for all your Freshchat (formerly Freshchat) accounts.

For example, consider the following scenario. A business offering three SaaS products has three different Freshchat accounts for each Agent handling customer support for the products. Every time an agent wants to switch accounts, he/she has to logout and login manually using their email alias. With multi-account login, the agent can now use a single email ID to operate every app account.

To switch between apps (accounts),

1. Click your name. A pop-up appears.
2. Under Switch Apps, you can find the different accounts you are a part of.
3. Click the app account you want to switch to.

When you sign-up for Freshchat trial, you'll be on the Pro plan. All plans have a trial period of 21-days by default. If you want to trial a different plan, you can do so by going to Admin > Billing, and choose the plan you want to trial.

You can integrate your Freshchat account with your Facebook page. The messages sent on Facebook Messenger can be pulled into Freshchat as conversations. However, resolving a conversation in Freshchat does not resolve it on Facebook.

You might encounter an error when you try to execute the widget code offline during testing.

Failed to execute 'postMessage' on 'DOMWindow'

Please try running the code online in order to avoid this error.

This is probably because you might have used a debit card for your payment. You can pay using your credit card or Paypal account. If you have any queries, please write to support@freshchat.com and our billing team would help you out.

Yes, Freshchat supports right-to-left language. Learn more about languages supported by Freshchat . 

We cannot directly export conversations from Freshchat . However, we can push conversations into  other systems, such as Freshdesk Support Desk as tickets and from there we can get the conversations out. 

For this, you need to have a Support Desk account and must have integrated your accounts. Learn more about the Freshchat — Freshdesk Support Desk integration here.

This might occur if you had pasted the optional code for identifying the user from Admin > Web Messenger. 

Remove that code from the <body> segment to avoid this issue. We suggest you use Bots or Pre-chat Form to collect user details.

Every detail to be collected is attached with a type field Id and field name in the Pre-chat form code. If the field id for two fields is the same then the same entry will be in both the places. Make sure the field id is unique for different fields in the code.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. The web messenger is positioned on the bottom-right corner by default. You can change the position to the bottom-left instead.

You can use the following code snippet to do this. Use this code within the body tag of your website.

<script>
window.fcSettings = {
token: "Web_Chat_Token,
host: "https://wchat.freshchat.com",
config: {
headerProperty: {
direction: 'ltr' //will move widget to left side of the screen
}
}
};
</script>
<script src="https://wchat.freshchat.com/js/widget.js" async></script>

Note: You can find your Web_Chat_Token under Admin > Web Messenger Settings > Getting Started > STEP 2.

CSS

<style>
.custom_fc_frame {
right: 50px !important;
bottom: 30px !important;
}
</style>

HTML

<script>
 window.fcWidget.init({
  "config": {
     "cssNames": {
        "widget": "custom_fc_frame"
     }
  },
  "host": "https://wchat.freshchat.com",
  "token": "enter token here"
 });
</script>

Facebook integration assigns chats from the Facebook page to Freshchat group mapped during the integration. Please enable IntelliAssign for the group to get Facebook auto-assigned in Freshchat .

Last seen shows the time when the user was last online. There might be a slight misinterpretation when the user creates two or more instances of the same user profile. In that case, the last seen might look different for the same user. Please check their email ID in the People tab.

• Check the Notification Settings in mobile. 
  
  
• Check the battery optimization setting for Freshchat app.(set to Don’t optimize)
  
  
• Check the notification permission for the Freshchat app.

Clearing Cache and cookies in the browser settings would solve this issue. However, if you wish to clear the cookies for the Freshchat webpage alone, please follow the steps below.

Clearing Cache in inspect element:

This is done if the agent has trouble logging in. They can go to web.freshchat.com and right click and select inspect element-->Application Tab-->Clear storage.

This method clears the cache and cookies just for the Freshchat website so that the user need not worry about losing saved data or passwords for other websites.

Assignment Rules feature is available from Blossom plan onwards. IntelliAssign in available only for customers on Estate and Forest plans.

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. Please add this code to the <BODY> tag to create a button that launches the widget on click.

<button onclick="window.fcWidget.open();window.fcWidget.show();">Chat with us</button>
<script>
window.fcWidget.init({
 token: "99198db8-ea46-4f69-a106-4fd0076835b4",
 host: "https://wchat.freshchat.com"
});
window.fcWidget.hide();
</script>

There can be many Admins for an account but only one Account Admin. Only the Account Admin will be able to make changes to the account billing and plan changes. In order to view the billing details in Admin, you should be an Account Admin.

For more information on the different types of users in Freshchat , checkout this support article. 

You can add this script within the <BODY> tag to clear the user information as soon as they close the chat. 

Sample code:

<script>
window.fcWidget.user.clear().then(function() {
  console.log('User cleared');
  }, function() {
    console.log("User Not cleared");
  });
</script>

However, this might increase the MUV number. This is because after clearing the user info when the same user visits the page again he is taken as a new customer and thereby increasing the count of unique visitors for the account. Customer may be charged extra for exceeding the MUV allowed for their plan.

1. Check if you have enabled notifications in Freshchat . Click here to learn how.
   
   
2. Check if notifications are being blocked by your web browser. Click here to learn how.
   
   
3. Alternatively, notifications could be blocked by ad blockers. Make sure you disable it.

Average Response time is calculated as the median of the response time of all the chat conversations. The response time that is displayed in the chat widget is the 90th percentile measure and it can also be viewed on the Admin Dashboard.

You should be logged into a web instance of your Freshchat account and open the below URL in the same browser, in a different tab.

URL

For US - https://web.freshchat.com/diagnostics/html/index.html

For EU - https://web.eu.freshchat.com/diagnostics/html/index.html

How to share the test report

If you face any issues related to network delay or socket connection, go to the above URL. It will run against the logged in Freshchat account in your browser. 

Once the test run is complete, a report URL will be generated at the bottom. You can share this URL with our Freshchat support team at support@freshchat.com. We will be able to load that URL on our end and see the report of your site status and help you further.

If you have enabled notifications in Freshchat but you are still not getting push notifications, you need to check your browser settings and enable push notifications in your browser.

How to enable push notifications in Google Chrome

How notifications work

By default, Chrome alerts you whenever a website, app, or extension wants to send you notifications. You can change this in settings at any time.

If you’re browsing in Incognito mode, you won’t get notifications.

To allow or block notifications in your Chrome browser,

1. Go to your Chrome browser.

2. At the top right corner, click More > Settings or if you’re a Mac user, from the menu bar at the top, select Chrome > Preferences

3. Go to Advanced > Privacy and Security

4. Click Site settings.

5. Click Notifications. 

6. Choose to block or allow notifications:

• To block all notifications: Turn off Ask before sending.

• To block a specific website: Next to "Block," click Add. Enter the site and click Add.

• To allow a site: Next to "Allow," click Add. Enter the site and click Add.

                                                                    OR

You can go to 'View Site Information' in your Address bar and choose to block or allow notifications.

You can also block any sites or apps from sending you notifications. 

How to enable push notifications in Firefox

If you’re a MAC user,

1. Go to menu, select Firefox > Preferences

2. Go to Privacy and Security 

3. Select Settings 

Click Allow or Block next to the website.

                                                                    OR

In your Address bar go to Site Information > Show Connection Details > More Information > Permissions and under 'Send Notifications' you can allow or block notifications.

If you’re a Windows user,

1. Click on the hamburger menu icon in the top right corner next to the home icon

2. Select Options > Content

3. Click the ‘Choose’ button next to Notifications

Here you can see a list of websites for which you’ve allowed notifications. You can remove the sites from which you don’t want to get push notifications.

How to enable push notifications in Safari

1. Go to Safari in the top menu

2. Select Preferences

3. Go to Websites > Notifications

4. You will find the websites listed out where you can select Allow or Deny to enable or disable notifications from the website.

How to enable push notifications in Microsoft Edge

1. Click on the More icon in the top right corner 

2. Go to Settings > Advanced

3. Click Manage

4. Click on the website for which you want to enable/disable push notifications

5. Move the toggle to the right to enable and to the left to disable notifications

The web messenger in Freshchat also known as the conversations widget, is used to deliver a convenient and contextual conversational messaging experience for customers. If you want to open it on load of the website please add the below code under 

window.fcWidget.init({
"open": True, 

<script>
var timeInMillis = 5000;
setTimeout(function() {
window.fcWidget.init({
token: "webchattoken",
host: "https://wchat.freshchat.com"
});
},timeInMillis);
</script>
<script src= "https://wchat.freshchat.com/js/widget.js" async></script>

Yes, Freshchat supports single sign-on (SSO). Please refer to this link for further details.

1. Navigate to Admin > Account Settings > Site/App Settings > Preferred Web Notifications Domain Name > copy your Freshchat account's Web Notifications URL and share it with your customer.

2. Once the customer opens the URL, ask them to click on the lock icon in the URL bar and go to Site Settings.

3. The customer must select 'Allow' for Notifications, Pop-ups and Redirects and Sounds to enable push notifications.

We take security seriously and you get to choose your data center from the get-go. Our servers are hosted in world-class data centers that are protected by biometric locks and 24-hour surveillance. We ensure that our application is always up to date with the latest security patches.

You can configure the 'Typically responds in' time for your website to set realistic expectations with your customers and website visitors. 

To set the response time, there are two options that can be used:

i) The 90th percentile of response time (Use this to give users a realistic picture during low chat volume scenarios.)
ii) The time to first response - This also takes into account the chat assignment time. (Use this to give users a realistic picture during high chat volume scenarios.)

You can view real-time values for these two options in your Dashboard within the Speed of Response widget. These values are auto-generated based on your team performance and cannot be configured manually.

To configure response expectations,

Go to Admin > Account Settings > Response Expectations.

Now, Select Response time or Time for first response based on your requirements and click Save.

To change the widget text 'Typically responds in', refer to our developer's documentation.