Proactive chat: open the conversation before the visitor asks

Proactive chat opens the conversation for you. Instead of waiting for a visitor to click the bubble, DeskCrew watches the visit (pages, time on page, scroll, clicks, where they came from) and opens the chat when a rule you set matches, for example "20 seconds on the pricing page" or "second visit". You can let DeskCrew's assistant answer, or hand the whole conversation to your own AI agent with everything DeskCrew knows about the visitor. Proactive chat is part of the Pro plan and above.

Before you start

• The widget is installed on your site (Dashboard, Install). Paste the snippet once in your site template and the chat shows on every page except the ones you list under "Hide the chat on these pages"; checkout and payment pages are hidden unless you change that list.
• Your workspace is on Pro or above. On Free the Proactive chat page shows what the feature does and an upgrade link.

Turn it on

1. Open Dashboard, Proactive chat.
2. Switch on Record visitor journeys. From now on the widget records, for your site only: pages viewed, time on each page, deepest scroll, link and button clicks (the visible text and the link), landing page, referrer, UTM tags, device class, browser language and timezone. Never keystrokes or anything typed into a form.
3. Switch on Proactive chat.
4. Add a rule. A rule has a name, conditions, and an opener. Conditions you can combine: path contains, seconds on page, pages this visit, visits so far, utm_source, exit intent. Leave every condition empty for "every page". A good first rule: no path, seconds on page 8, opener "Hi, anything I can help you find?"
5. Choose Who answers chats: DeskCrew AI (the built-in assistant answers from your knowledge base, as it does for normal chats) or My own agent (see "Connect your own AI agent to the chat").
6. Press Save changes. The widget reads the new settings on the next page load.

What visitors experience

The chat opens at most once per visit, never on checkout, cart or payment paths, and never again in that visit after the visitor closes it. The opener you wrote is the first message. If your own agent answers, its first reply replaces the opener when it arrives within 5 seconds; otherwise the opener shows and the agent's reply follows.

Email capture

The email box shows when the visitor's third message arrives without an email, on exit intent while the chat is open, and whenever your agent asks for it. An email links the visitor to a customer record, so the next visit starts with their history.

Privacy

Journeys are kept 90 days. If your site has a consent banner, set window.DeskCrewConsent = false before the widget loads until the visitor agrees; the chat still works, DeskCrew just records nothing. The privacy and cookie pages describe what is stored.

Troubleshooting

• The chat never opens: check all three switches and that at least one rule is saved, then reload the site in a private window (an earlier visit in the same tab may already have used its one open).
• It opens on the wrong pages: add the paths to Excluded paths on the Proactive chat page (for the opener) or to Hide the chat on these pages on the Install page (for the bubble itself).