Blog · Guides
What happens to website chats when nobody is online?
Nothing is lost if the chat is set up well. Outside your opening hours, or when nobody is online, TalkMerlin turns the chat into a short offline form and the message reaches you by email. A chat that starts while you are online but gets no reply within 5 minutes is marked missed, so you can find it and still answer, from the inbox or from the alert email.
By TalkMerlin
Online or away
A chat on your site should be in one of two states. Either someone can answer now, or the visitor leaves a message and gets a reply later. The state to avoid is a chat window that looks live while nobody is watching.
TalkMerlin decides this for each site. The chat counts as online only when two things are true:
- You are inside your opening hours. You set one time range per day, in your own time zone, and mark the days you do not work as closed. With no hours set, the site counts as always open.
- Someone is available. At least one team member who can see the site has switched to Online in the inbox, and has had the inbox open in the last 2 minutes. If you are the only one, closing the laptop switches the site to the offline form within 2 minutes.
If either is false, visitors see the offline form instead of the chat.
What the visitor sees while you are away
The offline form says "We are away right now" and asks for a name, an email address and a message. After sending, the visitor reads "Thanks! We will reply by email." That sets the right expectation: nobody waits on the page for an answer that is not coming.
A visitor who is already in a conversation keeps the chat window, even if you go offline in the middle of it. The form only shows when there is nothing to continue.
Missed chats
A chat can also start while you are online and still go unanswered: you stepped away, or a call ran long. In TalkMerlin, a chat with no reply 5 minutes after it started is marked missed. The inbox has three tabs, Open, Missed and Closed, so missed chats do not hide among the rest. Owners with alerts on get a missed-chat email, and can answer straight from it.
The chat looks after the visitor too. If nobody has replied after 60 seconds, it asks for their email address: "No reply yet? Leave your email and we will answer there." Once they give it, your replies reach them by email if they have left the page.
Messages from the offline form are never marked missed. The visitor already expects an answer by email.
Why the first hour matters
Speed still counts when you are away. In a study of 1.25 million sales leads, firms that tried to contact a potential customer within an hour of the enquiry were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as firms that tried even an hour later. The same researchers sent a test enquiry to 2,241 US companies, and 23% never responded at all. Their conclusion:
Companies are making big investments in order to obtain customer queries from the internet, and they should be responding at internet speed.
Customers expect it as well. In HubSpot's research, 67% of consumers expect a support ticket to be resolved within 3 hours. An offline form does not make you faster on its own. It makes sure the question waits in one place, with the visitor's email address, ready for when you are back.
Alerts without living in the inbox
- Email alerts. When a visitor writes and nobody has the inbox open, members with alerts on get an email. A busy chat sends at most one email every 10 minutes, and a chat assigned to someone emails only that person.
- Replies from your mail app. Your reply to the alert goes back into the chat, or to the visitor's email if they have left. Our post on replying to chats from your email covers the details.
- Browser alerts. While you are online in the inbox, a new chat plays a sound, with a browser notification when the tab is in the background.
A simple setup for a small team
- Set opening hours that match when someone can really answer. Short, honest hours beat long ones nobody covers.
- Switch to Online when you sit down to work, and back to Offline when you leave.
- Keep email alerts on for at least one person.
- Check the Missed tab every day, and answer offline messages within your working day.
Opening hours, the offline form and email alerts are on every plan, Free included. Offline-form messages do not count towards the Free plan's 50 conversations a month. The features page shows the rest of the inbox.
Questions people ask
Do I have to be online all day for the chat to work?
No. Set opening hours and switch to Online only when you can answer. The rest of the time, visitors get the offline form and you get their message by email.
What is a missed chat?
A chat that started while you were online but got no reply within 5 minutes. TalkMerlin lists it under Missed in the inbox and emails the site owners who have alerts on. You can still answer it.
Do opening hours follow my time zone?
Yes. Each site has its own time zone and one time range per day. Days you do not work can be marked as closed.
What if I forget to switch to Offline?
TalkMerlin only counts you as available while your inbox has been open in the last 2 minutes. Close the inbox and, if nobody else is available, the site switches to the offline form by itself.
Do offline messages count towards the Free plan?
No. The Free plan counts chats started in the chat window, up to 50 a month. Offline-form messages are not counted, and past the limit visitors get the offline form, so no message is lost.