Messages

The Customers → Messages screen is your storefront's chat. A floating button appears on your site, shoppers message you straight from it, and you answer them here - as a real back-and-forth, not a one-off enquiry.

The screen has two tabs: Messages (the conversations themselves) and Settings (turning the chat on and styling it). We switch the feature on for your shop; while it's available, you turn it on and configure it yourself.

Turning the chat on

Open the Settings tab and set the three things a shopper sees:

• Show the chat on my storefront - the switch that puts the floating button on your site. While it's off, no one sees a chat.
• Reply-time promise - pick one of four ready values (within minutes, within a few hours, the same day, within 1-2 business days). It's shown to the shopper the moment they message you, so promise only what you keep. The text is translated into every shop language automatically.
• Chat button position - bottom right or bottom left. If you also use the call button, the two share that corner and stack above each other.

The conversations

In the Messages tab conversations are ordered newest first. Each row shows the shopper's name (or email), the start of the last message, and the time. Unread conversations carry a dot on the left; the side menu shows a counter so you spot them at a glance.

Click a conversation to open it on the right. Opening it marks it read and clears the dot. Inside the thread:

• The shopper's messages are on the right; your replies and the assistant's turns are on the left, each with the sender's name.
• If the conversation began with the assistant, a collapsed "chat with the assistant" preview sits at the top, so you see what the shopper already asked without making them repeat it.
• Type in the box at the bottom and press Enter (or the send button). While the shopper is typing, a "typing…" indicator appears. New messages from either side arrive live, with no page refresh.

Closing and blocking

The conversation header has two actions:

• Close - marks the conversation as finished. The shopper sees it's closed and, if they need to, starts a new one from the storefront. An old conversation is never destroyed - it stays for reference.
• Block - stops this shopper from messaging you. The assistant (if it's on) keeps working for them; only messaging the team becomes unavailable. You can unblock them any time from the same place.

Emails

The two emails around the chat are sent automatically and aren't configured on this screen:

• To you - when a shopper writes to you, you get one email with their messages and a link into the thread, about 30 seconds after their last message (several messages sent one after another arrive together in that email). If you already have the conversation open in BackOffice, no email comes. After that email you get no new one for the same conversation until you open it or reply - so your inbox doesn't fill up if the shopper keeps writing while you're away.
• To the shopper - your replies are batched: the shopper gets one summary email with them and a link back into the conversation, about 30 seconds after your last reply (each new reply restarts the wait, so several messages in a row arrive as one email). A shopper who has the chat open right then gets no email - they see the reply live. If they're on another browser tab, the shop tab's title blinks, and if they don't come back within about 30 seconds they get the email too. If they reply to that email, it lands in the shop's mailbox.

Tips

• One reply-time promise you keep is worth more than a short one you miss.
• Close finished conversations - the list stays clean and the counter shows only what's genuinely waiting.

Next step

The conversations are flowing. Now see what the numbers say about your shop over any date range. See Dashboard analytics.