Chat Widget Settings

The chat widget in SparrowDesk lets you talk to your website visitors in real-time. You can customize its behavior to match your support needs. This article explains how to set up key settings like collecting emails, showing or hiding the widget on specific pages, and limiting the number of conversations a visitor can start.

Collect Customer Email

By default, visitors can start a conversation without sharing their email address. But collecting their email allows your team to follow up later, even if the visitor leaves the website or becomes inactive.

How it works:

• When a visitor opens a new conversation, the system checks if they are already a known contact.
• If not, an email input field will appear next to the message field.
• You can customize the message shown with the input field.
• You can also choose whether this field is required or optional.

This setting helps ensure you never lose touch with potential leads or customers.

Widget Visibility Rules

The chat widget is visible on all pages by default. But you can control exactly where it appears by setting visibility rules. These rules help you show or hide the widget on specific pages based on their URLs.

You can do two things:

1. Show the widget only on specific pages.
2. • For example, if you only want to show the widget on your pricing page, you can set the rule to "Show only on www.example.com/pricing."
   • Once this is set, the widget will be hidden on all other pages.
2. Hide the widget on specific pages.
3. • If you want to avoid distracting users on important pages like the checkout page, you can hide the widget on "www.example.com/checkout."
   • The widget will remain visible on all other pages.

Conditions you can use in rules:

• Use “URL is” when you want an exact match (e.g., show only on one specific page).
• Use “URL contains” when you want to match a part of the URL (e.g., any page under /blog/ or /en/).

Rule priority:

If a page matches both a "Show only" and a "Hide" rule, the widget will be shown. "Show only" rules take priority over "Hide" rules.

Limit Multiple Conversations

You can control how many active conversations a visitor can start. If you want to avoid having multiple chats from the same visitor at once, turn on this setting.

What happens when it's enabled:

• The “Start New Conversation” button will no longer appear for that visitor.
• Visitors will only be able to continue the existing conversation until it is closed.

Why this is useful:

• It prevents duplicate questions from the same user.
• It keeps your support inbox clean and easy to manage.